Error Profiling: Toward a Model of English Acquisition for Deaf Learners

Error Profiling: Toward a Model of English Acquisition for Deaf Learners Lisa N. Michaud and Kathleen F. McCoy Dept. of Computer and Info. Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA � michaud,mccoy � @cis.udel.edu http://www.eecis.udel.edu/research/icicle Abstract In this paper we discuss our approach toward establishing a model of the ac- quisition of English grammatical struc- tures by users of our English language tutoring system, which has been de- signed for deaf users of American Sign Language. We explore the correlation between a corpus of error-tagged texts and their holistic proficiency scores as- signed by experts in order to draw ini- tial conclusions about what language errors typically occur at different levels of proficiency in this population. Since errors made at lower levels (and not at higher levels) presumably represent constructions acquired before those on which errors are found only at higher levels, this should provide insight into the order of acquisition of English grammatical forms. 1 Introduction There have been many theories of language acqui- sition proposing a stereotypical order of acquisi- tion of language elements followed by most learn- ers, and there has been empirical evidence of such an order among morphological elements of lan- guage (cf. (Bailey et al., 1974; Dulay and Burt, 1975; Larsen-Freeman, 1976)) and some syntac- tic structures (cf. (Brown and Hanlon, 1970; Gass, 1979)). There is indication that these re- sults may be applied to any L1 group acquiring English (Dulay and Burt, 1974; Dulay and Burt, 1975), and some research has focused on develop- ing a general account of acquisition across a broad range of morphosyntactic structures (cf. (Piene- mann and H˚akansson, 1999)). In this work, we explore how our second language instruction sys- tem, ICICLE, has generated the need for model- ing such an account, and we discuss the results of a corpus analysis we have undertaken to fulfill that need. 1.1 ICICLE: an Overview ICICLE (Interactive Computer Identification and Correction of Language Errors) is an intelli- gent tutoring system currently under development (Michaud and McCoy, 1999; Michaud et al., 2000; Michaud et al., 2001). Its primary function is to tutor deaf students on their written English. Essential to performing that function is the ability to correctly analyze user-generated language er- rors and produce tutorial feedback to student per- formance which is both correct and tailored to the student’s language competence. Our target learn- ers are native or near-native users of American Sign Language (ASL), a distinct language from English (cf. (Baker and Cokely, 1980)), so we view the acquisition of skills in written English as the acquisition of a second language for this pop- ulation (Michaud et al., 2000). Our system uses a cycle of user input and sys- tem response, beginning when a user submits a piece of writing to be reviewed by the system. The system determines the grammatical errors in the writing, and responds with tutorial feedback aimed at enabling the student to perform correc- tions. When the student has revised the piece, it is re-submitted for …

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