[Corpora-List] Data-Driven Learning materials

Thu Apr 17 11:59:29 UTC 2008

Dear all

I agree with everyone, but maybe I'm just that kind of guy!

Firstly, I'm sure there is more out there which we (or at least I) 
simply don't know about - hence my initial mail. On the other hand I 
don't think there's anything like as much as one might have expected 
20-odd years down the road. (Unfortunately I'm a late-comer to the 
scene, otherwise I might be quoting Wordsworth: "Bliss was it in that 
dawn to be alive...")

I certainly agree with Martin that there's likely to be a single 
explanation for the (relative) lack of (public) uptake; a number of 
interesting reasons have been given in these exchanges as well as in 
response to my first mail, & others still in various research articles. 
A common reaction seems to be that DDL as currently advocated depends on 
a lot of factors that can't reasonably be expected in "normal" working 
conditions - of regular teachers and learners, not to mention common 
resources & environments. My feeling is that "off-the-peg" materials may 
go some way towards making DDL more accessible, though given the small 
quantities I (you!) have unearthed I'll have to think about it some 
more, but will hopefully work this into a proper paper some time.

Cheers
alex

Martin Wynne a écrit :
> I very much agree with Gill's observations. Looking what is freely 
> available on the web is not a good way to judge the uptake or range of 
> DDL materials. As Gill points out, most DDL resources and courses are 
> only deployed locally.
>
> To get something useful out on the web, you need to sort out the 
> following (to name but a few):
> - getting it on a web server
> - basing it on web technologies
> - get it to work with the available back end technologies on your server
> - make sure that it is accessible and works with a variety of browsers
> - make sure it is robust and bug-free
> - support by the web server's sysadmin
> - the exercises need to be suitable for unsupervised work (which 
> requires a lot more documentation, explanation, hand-holding, controlled 
> revealing of results, tips and hints, etc)
> - be prepared to support users, or leave them in the lurch if they hit snags
> - ensure that you are not getting into any legal or ethical difficulties 
> if you publish any of the the materials (in short, you're not likely to 
> be allowed to put that corpus online...)
>
> So getting your course materials to work on your students' PCs is one 
> thing, putting them on the web may involve a lot of additional challenges.
>
> Obviously there are huge potential advantages to putting materials on 
> the web, but we shouldn't be surprised that not everyone does it.
>
> Martin
>
> Gill Philip wrote:
>   
>> dear all,
>> I think Adam is partially right, but, as someone who does engage in DDL, I'd
>> like to point out another couple of reasons why there is so little "out
>> there":
>> (i) many materials are created for individuals or small groups and therefore
>> not put online/published as 'general' language notes; and
>> (ii) others are created on the fly in real time, and so never even make it
>> into a paper format, i.e. the concordances are put up on screen in class and
>> the teacher (me, but I'm sure others do the same) leads students through the
>> analysis. Once I get the interactive whiteboard up and running, such ad-hoc
>> exercises may well become more amenable to digital archiving, but for now
>> they remain ephemeral.
>>
>> best,
>> Gill
>>
>>
>> On 16/04/2008, Adam Kilgarriff <adam at lexmasterclass.com> wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Dear Alex,
>>>
>>> you say
>>>     
>>>       
>>>>  Is there really so little out there? Why?
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> I think the reason is simple: Concordances are too tough for learners.
>>> So DDL has not taken off.  After 20 years, it remains a tiny minority
>>> interest.
>>>
>>> Our response is to select corpus sentences according to readability.
>>> The beta version of the Sketch Engine now has an option to sort
>>> concordances
>>> "best first", from a learner's point of view, and we are working on other
>>> ways of
>>> using corpora in language learning in which we only show
>>> users sentences which they are likely to be able to read and understand.
>>>
>>> Adam
>>>
>>> 2008/4/15 Alex Boulton <Alex.Boulton at univ-nancy2.fr>:
>>>
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> Dear all
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I recently requested information on any *published materials* or *on-line
>>>> materials*
>>>>
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>>  adopting a data-driven learning approach. My thanks to the following for
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> their replies:
>>>>
>>>>    - Adam Turner
>>>>    - Chris Tribble
>>>>    - Mike Barlow
>>>>    - Brett Reynolds
>>>>    - Stéphanie O'Riordan
>>>>    - Antoinette Renouf
>>>>    - James Thomas
>>>>    - Linda Bawcom
>>>>    - Marcia Veirano Pinto
>>>>    - Przemek Kaszubski
>>>>    - Simon Smith
>>>>    - John Milton
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately (if unsurprisingly), there were no real additions to the
>>>> publications
>>>>
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>>  I listed in the original mail. Is there really so little out there? Why?
>>>     
>>> ...
>>>
>>> --
>>> ================================================
>>> Adam Kilgarriff http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk
>>> Lexical Computing Ltd http://www.sketchengine.co.uk
>>> Lexicography MasterClass Ltd http://www.lexmasterclass.com
>>> Universities of Leeds and Sussex adam at lexmasterclass.com
>>> ================================================
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Corpora mailing list
>>> Corpora at uib.no
>>> http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora
>>>
>>>
>>>     
>>>       
>>   
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Corpora mailing list
>> Corpora at uib.no
>> http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora
>>   
>>     
>
>
>   

-- 

*                                                                  Alex 
Boulton*

                                                                Nancy 
Université

boulton at univ-nancy2.fr <mailto:boulton at univ-nancy2.fr>

CRAPEL---ATILF/CNRS                                                                                               
ERUDI

Tél :  
03.83.96.71.30                                                                                
Tél : 03.83.96.84.44

Fax : 
03.83.96.71.32                                                                              
Fax : 03.83.96.84.49

http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/CRAPEL/                                      
http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/erudi

*                     Tous les articles des /Mélanges CRAPEL/ sont 
disponibles
                                      gratuitement en ligne sous format 
pdf :*

http://revues.univ-nancy2.fr/melangesCrapel/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/corpora/attachments/20080417/a62b3fe0/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora