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Posts Tagged ‘vocabulary-test’

Making computerized vocabulary quizzes for use in the LRC from Prof. Koralova’s Friendly Russian textbook

You can browse on the Group room PC to this folder with the

source files (read acces), you just need to look at the Word versions:  S:\COAS\LCS\LRC\sanako\student\friendly-russian-docx-student-copy

 

In the source files, new  vocabulary that the students have to learn, appears  in 2 forms

1.       Either under the heading “new words”, mostly with English meaning in a sparate column

2.       Or in the running text, colored in red (and with no entirely obvious English translation  for me who I do not speak Russian, but likely for you).

 

The target file is here  (in most browsers other than Internet Explorer 64-bit, you should be able to open this in EXCEL for easier editing).

 

We need Russian and English in 2 columns. The computer program we are going to feed these flash cards into is quite simple in its automatic evaluation. That’s why we need to enable students to guess exactly the Russian from the English flash card side (and vice versa). Hence we may need to simplify the entries in both.

 

To give a few examples: 

          Complicated lists of variants (inflected forms, similar phrases etc.) need to be broken up into separate rows

          linguistic metadata (like gender “fem.”– but maybe not articles: “la maison – das Haus” -, irregular verb) in a separate column, per language.

 

I included an example (from chapter 4, section 6) what I think the end result is supposed to look like:

 

Source example:

ти́хо (adv.) – quiet(ly); тишина́ (n.) – stillness; quiet
никогда́ – never;  ти́хо, как никогда́ – quiet as never (before); когда́ – when
В чём де́ло? – idiom: What’s the matter?
ах да – oh yes
матч – match; game
почти́ – almost
ка́ждый – each; every
ме́сяц – month
всё в поря́дке  (idiom)– everything is OK (lit.: everything is in order)
что ещё на́до? – what else (does one) need?

Target example:

russian

metadata

english

metadata2

Ти́хо

quiet

тишина́

stillness

тишина́

quiet

никогда́

never

ти́хо, как никогда́

quiet as never before

когда́

when

В чём де́ло?

What’s the matter?

ах да

oh yes

матч

match

матч

game

почти́

almost

ка́ждый

each

ка́ждый

every

ме́сяц

month

всё в поря́дке

everything is OK

что ещё на́до?

what else does one need?

 

Hint: the easiest way to get the vocabulary charts Russian – English from Word into 2 columns in Excel:  CTRL+H, “find:” space-space, “Replace”:^t (for tab), then copy/pasting the result makes 2 columns for Russian/English.

 

Creating site-specifically useful learning content for the Sanako Study 1200 vocabulary testing

  1. The usefulness of the Sanako Study 1200 new (from ver 6) vocabulary test activity hinges on the availability of site-specific vocabulary lists.
  2. Sanako UK
    1. seems aware of this and publishes vocabulary collections for textbooks and assessments commonly used in UK secondary education.
    2. Sanako favors using the built-in format and saving it on the network share that is required  for the Sanako study 1200.
    3. Vocabulary tests are organized and can be discovered and browsed by file name only.
  3. TBA: How could something similar be done in a US HE context? One would need:
    1. establish which textbooks are (and will remain) in use?
    2. are they e-books or would the material need digitization?
    3. is the chapter vocabulary easily accessible as a list? Appendix glossaries encompass usually much more than the vocabulary required to study, so testing on these would quickly become frustrating
    4. how best to reformat the materials (from turning into a table to handling linguistic metadata) for easy use with the Sanako vocabulary test?
    5. how best to publish the  material?
      1. to make it manageable for the updaters: crowdsourcing? copyright issuew?
      2. to make it easily selectable for the teacher: filter by integrated linguistic and course metadata?
    6. Last not least: How to do all this economically? Taking into consideration teacher preference, enrollment, preexisting materials…?
      1. cost lowered if tabular lists of vocabulary already exists
      2. benefit is lowered if online flash card applications already exist.

First steps with the Sanako Study 1200 vocabulary test activity

  1. Click to watch an example below of the new (in version 6, we are now on 7) activity:”Vocabulary Test” which allows you to administer during a face-top-face-class just exactly what its name says –
  2. with these benefits:
    1. needing no paper,
    2. digital contents
      1. “can” and reuse past tests with ease
      2. TBA: can you swap target and source language?
    3. blending automated and teacher feedback:
      1. the example I give below is based on what the teacher gave me: single words and very short idiomatic expression.
      2. You can use longer phrases (I prefer teaching and studying vocabulary in context), but then it become increasingly unlikely that the automated feedback is accurate (The automated feedback is limited to exact, up to case-insensitive string matching – now distance metrics).
      3. You can override the automated feedback before sending the results back to the student. This is somewhat practical, since the submitting is fast and not all students will finish at the same time, and if you provided students with the follow up activity after submission, The teacher overriding the feedback gets unpractical in large classes, so it is recommended restricting the test to short source/target language pairs. Also be clear about or minimize punctuation and, if required, the format of other metalinguistic information  (gender, plural forms etc).
  3. Issues:
    1. not communicative, how can this be used or fitted in with other activities to make best use of a fully computerized face-to-face teaching environment?
    2. simplistic autocorrecting algorithm (case-insensitive, otherwise exact, right or wrong, my way or the highway” string matching)
    3. no tracking, no memory, personalization only via the other built-in Sanako personalization features (groups – to be left to the teacher to handle)
    4. no learning content – at least no vocabulary learning materials usable out of the box for us (TBA).