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ERIC Number: EJ1109943
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Oct
Pages: 45
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2330-8516
EISSN: N/A
The "Language Muse"? System: Linguistically Focused Instructional Authoring. Research Report. ETS RR-12-21
Burstein, Jill; Shore, Jane; Sabatini, John; Moulder, Brad; Holtzman, Steven; Pedersen, Ted
ETS Research Report Series, Oct 2012
In the United States, English learners (EL) often do not have the academic language proficiency, literacy skills, cultural background, and content knowledge necessary to succeed in kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms. This leads to large achievement gaps. Also, classroom texts are often riddled with linguistically unfamiliar elements, including: unfamiliar vocabulary, idioms, complex phrases or sentences, morphologically complex words, and unfamiliar discourse relations. Lack of familiarity with linguistic elements may result in gaps in a learner's comprehension of key content. It is "not" feasible for teachers to develop additional curriculum for the needs of all ELs in a classroom (who often come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.) However, it "is" feasible for teachers to develop instructional scaffolding (support) that helps ELs and can be used with all students. To develop effective scaffolding, teachers need to be able to reliably identify linguistic features in texts that could interfere with content comprehension. "Language Muse"? is a web-based application designed to support teachers in the identification of linguistic features in texts and in the development of linguistically focused instructional scaffolding. With regard to system itself, we will discuss (a) the system's motivation, (b) the system's linguistic feedback and instructional authoring components, which are driven by natural language processing, and (c) the system's infrastructure for capturing teachers' system use. In addition, we will also discuss preliminary pilot study findings with three teacher professional development programs. These findings suggest that exposure to Language Muse's linguistic feedback can support teachers in the development of lesson plan scaffolds designed to address language learning needs.
Educational Testing Service. Rosedale Road, MS19-R Princeton, NJ 08541. Tel: 609-921-9000; Fax: 609-734-5410; e-mail: RDweb@ets.org; Web site: https://www.ets.org/research/policy_research_reports/ets
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Middle Schools; Secondary Education; Junior High Schools; High Schools; Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305A100105