The ability to objectively quantify the complexity of a text can be a useful indicator of how likely learners of a given level will comprehend it. Before creating more complex models of assessing text difficulty, the basic building block of a text consists of words and, inherently, its overall difficulty is greatly influenced by the complexity of…

University students, especially language learners, have increasingly been using machine translation (MT) systems in the last decade and for all kinds of texts, including homework, assignments and exams. This ubiquity does not translate into visibility as few teachers address the subject in class. Several researchers have shown that MT systems,…

Second language (L2) learners comprehend more when they are prepared for novel vocabulary that they encounter in a text. Input-based incremental (IBI) vocabulary instruction (Barcroft, 2012) provides L2 instructors and learners with a means of achieving this goal by (a) presenting optimal input to learners at the right time during a…

My study (Lindseth, "The Effects of Form-Focused Instruction on the Acquisition of Subject-Verb Inversion in German") that was published in the Volume 49, No. 1 issue of "Foreign Language Annals" suggested that form-focused instruction that targets a specific structure may help learners progress faster toward accurate use of…

In past years, translation education has shifted from a "transmissionist approach" to the unchallenged use of collaborative learning, with extensive recourse to teamwork and Project-based Learning. Students are encouraged to develop their translation and interpersonal skills in collaborative environments, focusing on translation as a…

This paper offers an instructional unit on the response token "achja" in everyday German conversation. The paper first provides a description of "achja" and its distinctive prosodic features based on empirical research in conversation analysis. The goal of the paper is to provide instructors of German with information and…

We present a new feedback strategy implemented in a natural language generation-based e-learning system for German as a second language (L2). Although the system recognizes a large proportion of the grammar errors in learner-produced written sentences, its automatically generated feedback only addresses errors against rules that are relevant at…

This article presents the concept development, research programming, and learning design of a lexical processing web application, Virtual Vocabulary, which was developed using theories in both cognitive psychology and second language acquisition (SLA). It is being tested with first-year students of German at the University of Victoria in Canada,…

We built an NLP system implementing a "virtual writing conference" for elementary-school children, with German as the target language. Currently, state-of-the-art computer support for writing tasks is restricted to multiple-choice questions or quizzes because automatic parsing of the often ambiguous and fragmentary texts produced by pupils…

We built a natural language processing (NLP) system implementing a "virtual writing conference" for elementary-school children, with German as the target language. Currently, state-of-the-art computer support for writing tasks is restricted to multiple-choice questions or quizzes because automatic parsing of the often ambiguous and fragmentary…

In the context of teaching culture, this article presents teaching materials that provide learners of German with opportunities to reflect about, analyze, and practice, how Germans commonly react to compliments. Based on findings from conversation analysis, the materials provide students with rich contextual information and a variety of…

In this article, "Fragebogen" (1992) by Max Frisch is shown to contain appropriately challenging linguistic constructions for use in courses as a supplement to traditional anthologies in conversation/composition courses. Frisch's eleven questionnaires on topics ranging from "Heimat," marriage and private property to humor, money and death serve as…

Spion, an adventure game for intermediate and advanced college German students, requires players to communicate with a fictitious agent in complete, correct German sentences. The spy game was written in PROLOG, runs on an IBM-PC, and is available at no cost for noncommercial purposes. (Author/CB)

A California pilot program is described in which five hard-of-hearing students enrolled in a mainstream high school German class. Although their speech in English was limited and their hearing loss was severe, they kept up with their hearing classmates in reading, writing, and listening (lip reading) and could speak as intelligibly in German as in…

Describes metacognitive processing strategies employed by nonnative readers of German who read and recalled authentic texts. Findings indicate that second-language readers of German engage in metacognition, using the following strategies: awareness of text format and attention to trivial detail, and an ability to monitor comprehension and identify…