Computational models of infant word-finding typically operate over transcriptions of infant-directed speech corpora. It is now possible to test models of word segmentation on speech materials, rather than transcriptions of speech. We propose that such modeling efforts be conducted over the speech of the experimental stimuli used in studies…

Assessment is viewed as an important means to understand learners' performance in the learning process. A good assessment method is based on high-quality examination questions. However, generating high-quality examination questions manually by teachers is a time-consuming task, and it is not easy for students to obtain question banks. To solve…

The majority of research in computational psycholinguistics on sentence processing has focused on word-by-word incremental processing within sentences, rather than holistic sentence-level representations. This study introduces two novel computational approaches for quantifying sentence-level processing: sentence surprisal and sentence relevance.…

Background: High-quality feedback is crucial for academic success, driving student motivation and engagement while research explores effective delivery and student interactions. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly natural language processing (NLP), offer innovative methods for analyzing complex qualitative data such as feedback…

Generative AIs such as Google Bard are known to be equipped with techniques and grammatical principles of human language based on a large corpus of text and code that allow them to generate natural-sounding language, and also identify and correct grammatical errors in human-written texts. Still, they are not perfect language generators, and this…

Producing written texts is a non-linear process: in contrast to speech, writers are free to change already written text at any place at any point in time. Linguistic considerations are likely to play an important role, but so far, no linguistic models of the writing process exist. We present an approach for the analysis of writing processes with a…

Effective writing feedback is a powerful tool for enhancing student learning, encouraging revision, and increasing motivation and agency. Yet, teachers face many challenges that prevent them from consistently providing effective writing feedback. Recent advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI) have led educators and researchers to…

Large Language Models (LLM) -- powerful algorithms that can generate and transform text -- are set to disrupt language learning education and text-based assessments as they allow for automation of text that can meet certain outcomes of many traditional assessments such as essays. While there is no way to definitively identify text created by this…

A Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) application, TextMix, was developed as a proof-of-concept for applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) sentence chunking techniques to creating 'sentence scramble' learning tasks. TextMix addresses limitations of existing applications for creating sentence scrambles by using NLP to parse and scramble…

Multiple-choice question (MCQ) plays a significant role in educational assessment. Automatic MCQ generation has been an active research area for years, and many systems have been developed for MCQ generation. Still, we could not find any system that generates accurate MCQs from school-level textbook contents that are useful in real examinations.…

As modern deep networks become more complex, and get closer to human-like capabilities in certain domains, the question arises as to how the representations and decision rules they learn compare to the ones in humans. In this work, we study representations of sentences in one such artificial system for natural language processing. We first present…

Background: Primary school is key to developing writing skills. However, students may face challenges in identifying and revising articles due to weak language skills, organisational thinking, comprehension, and analytical skills. Therefore, improving the writing skills of primary school students with writing difficulties has become important.…

Evaluating creativity of verbal responses or texts is a challenging task due to psychometric issues associated with subjective ratings and the peculiarities of textual data. We explore an approach to objectively assess the creativity of responses in a sentence generation task to (1) better understand what language-related aspects are valued by…

This study aimed to utilize sentiment and sentence similarity analyses, two Natural Language Processing techniques, to see if and how well they could predict L2 Writing Performance in integrated and independent task conditions. The data sources were an integrated L2 writing corpus of 185 literary analysis essays and an independent L2 writing…

Students who take an online course, such as a MOOC, use the course's discussion forum to ask questions or reach out to instructors when encountering an issue. However, reading and responding to students' questions is difficult to scale because of the time needed to consider each message. As a result, critical issues may be left unresolved, and…