• Full-time (100%) PhD fellowship for one year, renewable (max. 4 years)
• Start date: October 2024

The main objective of the PhD project will be to use the method of Comparative Judgment to explore whether the theoretical construct of ‘phraseological complexity’ (Paquot, 2019) is reflective of collective understandings of the linguistic phenomena we wish to measure with such a construct. The project will centre around two main objectives: (1) test empirically whether reliable human judgments of phraseological complexity are attainable (both at the level of multi-word units and at the text level); (2) explore the degree to which various automated measures of phraseological complexity align with human judgments of phraseological complexity, which is to be understood as our ‘gold standard’ to assess construct validity.

For more information about phraseological complexity, the method of Comparative Judgment and the use of human judgments to validate constructs, see:

• Kyle, K., Crossley, S. A., & Jarvis, S. (2021). Assessing the Validity of Lexical Diversity Indices Using Direct Judgements. Language Assessment Quarterly, 18(2), 154‑170. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2020.1844205
• Paquot, M. (2019). The phraseological dimension in interlanguage complexity research. Second Language Research, 35(1), 121–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658317694221
• Paquot, M., Rubin, R. & Vandeweerd, N. (2022). Crowdsourced Adaptive Comparative Judgment: A community-based solution for proficiency rating. Language Learning 72(3), 853-885. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lang.12498

Qualifications and expected profile

The candidate will meet the following qualifications:

• Master degree in (Applied) Linguistics or Natural Language Processing
• Excellent record of BA and MA level study
• Excellent oral and written English (minimum level: C1)
• Excellent analytic skills
• Knowledge of corpus linguistic techniques is a requirement
• Knowledge of statistics and R is an asset
• Autonomy, sense of teamwork, ability to listen and analyse needs, responsiveness
• Willingness to live in Belgium and to travel abroad (to attend international academic conferences)

 Conditions of engagement

This doctoral fellowship is subject to the following conditions:

• The contract will initially be for one year, three times renewable, with a total of four years.
• The candidate receives a doctoral fellowship grant (starting at approx. EUR 2400 net per month) and full medical insurance.
• This position requires residence in Belgium for the duration of the mandate. 
• Applicants from outside the EU are responsible for obtaining the necessary visa or permits, with the assistance of UCLouvain staff department.

Application

Application deadline: 1 September 2024

The application file should include :

• a cover letter in English, in which you specify why you are interested in this position and how you meet the job requirements outlined above;
• a curriculum vitae in English;
• a concise academic statement in English, in which you outline your expectations about and plans for graduate study and career goals;
• a copy of BA and MA diplomas and degrees;
• a copy of your master thesis and academic publications (if applicable);
• the names and full contact details of two academic referees.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview (in situ or via video conferencing) in the second half of September 2024.

Applications (as an email attachment) and inquiries should be addressed to Dr. Magali Paquot (<magali.paquot@uclouvain.be>)

Cet article PhD fellowship at the intersection of corpus linguistics, second language acquisition and language testing est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

£300 will be awarded every two years to a published (or accepted) self-labelled replication* using materials held on IRIS.

Call for submissions 2022:

Submissions must include:

i) the article or chapter (with evidence of accepted or ‘in press’ status if not already published);

ii) the materials from IRIS and any adaptations of them (adaptations should also be uploaded to IRIS, with a Note to link it to the earlier study’s materials). Please provide the url(s) linking to the materials on IRIS in a short cover letter.

IRIS now accepts data of all kinds, and we encourage applicants to submit their data (raw or reduced where necessary) along with their other materials.

Review Process

Submissions can be made to iris@iris-database.org at any time. This round will close at midnight (GMT) on 30th November 2022. The study must have been published (or accepted) from 1st December 2020 onwards. All submissions will be reviewed by the IRIS directors and up to two anonymous reviewers. The award will be announced by 30th January 2023.

Please note that IRIS operates the following system to reduce any conflict of interest:

• If the selected article is from one of the journals in which one of the directors of IRIS is involved as an editor, that person’s evaluations are withdrawn from the final decision-making.
• If the selected article continues to receive the highest evaluations among the remaining evaluations, then the award can go ahead. If the selected article no longer receives the highest evaluations, all the evaluations are considered again but with the evaluation by the reviewer in question for the previously selected article withdrawn from the process.

Replications using materials developed by IRIS Directors (Emma Marsden, Luke Plonsky, and Cylcia Bolibaugh) are not eligible.

Criteria for award

Submissions will be welcomed from any area of second language research (broadly defined, including multilingualism, language education, research methodology). All methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives are welcome.

Submissions will be reviewed against the following criteria:

• Strength of the justification for the replication.
• Soundness and transparency of methods and analysis, including clarity about how these are similar/different to those of the initial study.
• How well the discussion and conclusions are warranted by the methods, data and analysis.
• How well the findings from the initial study are integrated into the set-up, analysis and interpretation of the replication.

For more info, check https://www.iris-database.org/iris/app/home/replication_award

Cet article IRIS replication award est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

• Full-time (100%) post-doctoral fellowship for one year, renewable once (max. 2 years)
• Start date: October 2022 at the latest

This proposal for a postdoctoral position is part of the multidisciplinary project MOOCresearch2.0. “A mixed and multi-disciplinary approach to socio-cognitive conflicts in online learning environments”, co-directed by Mariane Frenay (GIRSEF), François Lambotte (Social Media Lab), Magali Paquot (CECL) and Valérie Swaen (LOURIM). The MOOCresearch2.0 project is based on the idea that discussion forums in MOOCs offer a unique opportunity to support the social aspects of learning. Educational research has indeed shown that controversies and conflicts over ideas are the source of conceptual change and learning (Limon, 2001; Vosniadou, 2017). More specifically, learning concepts in the humanities and social sciences requires exchanges, questioning and argumentation to overcome common sense representations and to understand scientific concepts, which sometimes have fluctuating contours (e.g., essentially contested concepts such as democracy, human rights, corporate social responsibility) and are embedded in controversies (e.g., climate change) (Gallie, 1956; Buchs, Darnon, Quiamzade, Mugny & Butera, 2008). However, in a MOOC, discussion forums are the only space where it is possible to provoke questioning and learn from social exchanges. 

The overall aim of the MOOCresearch2.0 project is therefore to deepen our understanding of the dynamic process of social learning on online education platforms by studying the emergence, development and resolution of socio-cognitive conflicts in MOOC discussion forums. With this new understanding, the project also intends to develop pedagogical devices and instructions that elicit socio-cognitive conflicts and their cognitive resolution, via argumentation and constructive controversy in a cooperative environment.

See https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/ilc/moocresearch2-0.html for a short presentation of the different projects currently underway and the teams involved.

The postdoctoral researcher will focus more particularly on aspects related to argumentation and constructive controversy in an online educational device. The ability to debate and argue in a discussion forum is most often taken for granted in MOOC courses (teachers ask their students to discuss, debate, argue, etc. but students are not taught these complex skills). The exchanges in discussion forums are generally poor, and there is often little interaction and even less engagement with the ideas put forward by peers. When there is interaction, it is often in the form of a validation or not of a peer’s contribution (I agree with you, I disagree with you) but these exchanges are rarely argumentative (students do not necessarily appeal to factual arguments, external sources, etc.). 

The project aims to develop students’ argumentative skills and written debating skills to foster rich, constructive and learning-oriented exchanges in MOOC discussion forums. The first stage of the project will be the development of a teaching module that will aim to make explicit the expected types of interactions in discussion forums. The module will focus on the quality of argumentation, both in its content-related aspects (e.g. the importance of qualified and guaranteed assertions, the reliability and quality of sources, the consideration of previous arguments) and in its social aspects (respect for the other and for divergent positions, politeness). The device will then be implemented in a set of UCLouvain MOOCs that use forums to discuss topics that should lead to debate. Several approaches will be used to measure the effect of the device on the interactions in the forums.

The evaluation will focus on the quantity and quality of the content of exchanges between participants in these forums. It will be largely qualitative, but one avenue of development is the automation of the evaluation of the outputs.

Qualifications and skills required

The candidate will meet the following qualifications:

• Have a doctoral thesis in Linguistics, Communication, Educational Sciences or equivalent.
• In view of the tasks to be performed, the following skills are required
  • Excellent linguistic and communication skills
  • Methodological skills in setting up experiments and analysing results
  • Pedagogical skills 
• Excellent oral and written English (minimum level: C1)
• Knowledge of French is an asset but not a requirement
• Excellent research profile (publications, conferences, etc.)
• Research and/or professional experience in one of the following areas is a plus: university pedagogy, online teaching, social media, argumentation
• Autonomy, sense of teamwork, ability to listen and analyse needs, responsiveness.

 Conditions of engagement

This postdoctoral fellowship is subject to the following conditions:

• The candidate will be in a situation of international mobility, i.e. he/she will not have resided or worked in Belgium for more than 24 months during the 36 months immediately preceding the first fellowship period
• One year grant, renewable once (total of two years on the project).
• The candidate will receive a postdoctoral fellowship (starting at approximately 2600 euros net per month).
• This position requires residence in Belgium for the duration of the mandate. 

 Application form

Application deadline: 6 July

The application file should include :

• a detailed curriculum vitae in English including the various qualifications and skills required as well as publications and other academic and scientific experience;
• a letter of motivation in English (maximum 2 pages), describing your interest in the position, how your profile meets the job description and the project objectives, etc.;
• a letter of reference in French or English.
• A writing sample (preferably a published article or a chapter of the PhD thesis).

Successful applicants will be invited to participate in an (online) interview in July.

If you are interested in this position, please send your application to Magali Paquot by email (magali.paquot@uclouvain.be).

Cet article Postdoctoral researcher – teaching argumentation to enrich exchanges in educational platform forums est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

The position is part of a research project directed by Dr. Magali Paquot and funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS): Adaptive Comparative Judgment for large-scale proficiency rating in L2 research: task conditions and their impact on reliability and validity.

The project focuses on the construct of proficiency in Learner Corpus Research. Though proficiency is one of the most important constructs in Second Language Research, its measurement has not always received the attention it deserves, and practices of proficiency level assignment have been the subject of continued criticism. In many learner corpora, proficiency is still operationalized in ways that are widely regarded as unreliable (e.g. institutional status). While some learner corpora improve on the current state of the art by including text-based proficiency scores, the time and cost difficulties typically associated with analytical scoring means that it is often absent from, or operationalized in unreliable ways, in currently available large-scale learner corpora.

The main objective of the research project is to investigate whether Adaptive Comparative Judgment (ACJ), a method used in educational assessment, can be used for reliable and valid large-scale proficiency rating of learner corpora. The project will examine the effect of judges’ language assessment training and expertise, as well as of text features such as topic and length, on the reliability and validity of ACJ tasks. It will also analyze the relationship between the linguistic characteristics of learner texts and how they are rated in ACJ tasks. Answering a call for more research into CJ validity, the project will also collect and analyze the judges’ justifications that underpin their selection of one text above the other, and examine correlations between ACJ rank orders and CEFR levels of learner texts in learner corpora such as the International Corpus of Learner English.

See for more details about the origin of the project: Paquot, M., Rubin, R. & Vandeweerd, N. (in press 2022). Crowdsourced Adaptive Comparative Judgment: A community-based solution for proficiency rating. Language Learning 72(3). [article available upon request]

Job description:

Activities that the postdoctoral fellow will perform include:

• develop, implement and monitor a series of online ACJ tasks
• recruit participants for the crowdsourced experiments
• analyze learner texts with corpus-based tools and techniques
• analyze and interpret results and report on the project at conferences and in academic publications;

Requirements and profile:

• PhD degree in (Applied) Linguistics;
• Research experience in one of the following areas is an asset: language assessment, learner corpus research
• Demonstrable knowledge of corpus linguistic methodology and statistics
• Knowledge of programming languages such as Python and/or R is an asset
• Excellent track record of conference presentations and publications
• Excellent skills in academic English, both written and spoken
• Excellent and demonstrated self-management skills, ability and willingness to work in a team;
• Willingness to live in or near Louvain-la-Neuve and to travel abroad (for short-term research stays and to attend international academic conferences).

Terms of employment:

–    The contract will initially be for one year, renewable once, with a total of two years.

–    The candidate will receive a postdoctoral fellowship grant (starting at approx. EUR 2600 net per month) and medical insurance.

–    The position requires residence in Belgium

–  Applicants from outside the EU are responsible for obtaining the necessary visa or permits, with the assistance of UCLouvain staff department.

Application Deadline: Review of applications will begin on 15 April 2022, and continue until the position is filled

Applications should include:

• a full academic CV;
• a motivation letter (of up to two pages), specifying how the expertise of the candidate aligns with the envisaged research and the overall project;
• a writing sample (preferably a published article or a chapter of the PhD thesis);

–    the names and full contact details of two academic referees.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview (in situ or via video conferencing) in Spring 2022.

Applications (as an email attachment) and inquiries should be addressed to:

Dr. Magali Paquot                                                     

Email: magali.paquot@uclouvain.be

Cet article Postdoctoral fellowship at the intersection of Corpus Linguistics, Language Assessment and Second Language Acquisition est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-46216-1

Cet article A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

• EDITORS:
• Bert Le Bruyn, UIL-OTS, Utrecht University
• Magali Paquot, FNRS – Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, UCLouvain

View all contributors

• PUBLICATION PLANNED FOR: January 2021
• AVAILABILITY: Not yet published – available from December 2020
• FORMAT: Paperback
• ISBN: 9781108442299

Advances in Learner Corpus Research (LCR) and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have brought these two fast-moving fields significantly closer in recent years. This volume brings together contributions from internationally recognized experts in both LCR and SLA to provide an innovative, cross-collaborative examination of how both areas can provide rich insights for the other. Chapters present recent advances in LCR and illustrate in a clear and accessible style how these can be exploited for the study of a broad range of key topics in SLA, such as complexity, tense and aspect, cross-linguistic influence vs. universal processes, phraseology and variability. It concludes with two commentary chapters written by eminent scholars, one from the perspective of SLA, the other from the perspective of LCR, allowing researchers and students alike to reflect upon the mutually beneficial harmony between the two fields and link up LCR and SLA research and theory.

http://services.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/applied-linguistics-and-second-language-acquisition/learner-corpus-research-meets-second-language-acquisition?format=PB

Cet article Learner Corpus Research Meets Second Language Acquisition est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Corpora is a state-of-the-art collection of cutting-edge scholarship at the intersection of second language acquisition and learner corpus research. It draws on data-driven, statistical analysis to outline the background, methods, and outcomes of language learning, with a range of global experts providing detailed guidelines and findings.

The volume is organized into five sections:

• Methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of learner language using corpora – setting the scene
• Key aspects in corpus design, annotation, and analysis for SLA
• Corpora in SLA theory and practice
• SLA constructs and corpora
• Future directions

This is a ground-breaking collection of essays offering incisive and essential reading for anyone with an interest in second language acquisition, learner corpus research, and applied linguistics.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Second-Language-Acquisition-and-Corpora/Tracy-Ventura-Paquot/p/book/9780815352877

Cet article The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Corpora est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

The position is part of a large multidisciplinary project that aims to investigate socio-cognitive conflicts in online educational platforms via the prism of several theoretical frameworks from the humanities and social sciences: “MOOCresearch2.0: A mixed-method and multidisciplinary approach to socio-cognitive conflicts in online educational platforms” (Prof. M. Frenay, Prof. F. Lambotte, Dr. Magali Paquot & Prof. V. Swaen). (Open) online education poses a variety of challenges for higher education, one of which is how to foster social interactions and induce beneficial socio-cognitive conflicts to promote learning in an environment where interactions are primarily written and asynchronous. In educational research, socio-cognitive conflicts are considered essential for progress and learning to take place: they are differences in point of view that are socially experienced and cognitively resolved. As put by Darnon, Buchs, & Butera (2002, p. 140), “confrontation with a partner creates a double imbalance. This imbalance is both social (inter-individual) because it is a discrepancy between two persons, and cognitive (intra-individual) because it makes each individual doubt about his/her own answer. (…) In order to coordinate the different points of view, a cognitive work emerges from this socio-cognitive conflict, leading to a more elaborate level of reasoning” (see https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/ilc/cecl/moocresearch2-0.html for more info).

Online education is becoming increasingly popular but is mainly offered in English. Research in bilingual education and content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has shown that new disciplinary concepts are not acquired as well in the foreign language as in the first language. This is especially true for concepts that cannot be directly observed or related to what learners already know, and which comprehension largely relies on linguistic mediation (e.g. Babault & Markey, 2001), and for students with lower foreign language proficiency who find it almost impossible to describe disciplinary concepts in English (e.g. Airey, 2009). Studies have also shown that results of evaluative tasks performed in a foreign language are largely dependent on L2 proficiency (Ventura, 2016). If we transpose these findings to online education, and MOOCs more particularly (as they aim to increase access to education, cf. Rohs & Ganz, 2015), it seems particularly important to investigate whether non-native speakers find in discussion forums a place where to check comprehension, ask for clarification, and discuss concepts in social interactions.

The main objective of the PhD project will be to investigate the effect of language status (native speaker vs. learner) and language proficiency on negotiation of meaning and the unfolding of socio-cognitive conflicts in asynchronous forum discussion boards. The following questions will guide the research programme:

• To what extent are non-native speakers present on forum discussions? What role do they take? How does this compare with native speakers’ presence and assumed roles?
• To what extent do non-native speakers negotiate meaning with a view to resolve a misunderstanding due to language problems vs. content-related and cognitive problems?
• To what extent do non-native speakers take part in the richer content-based interactions that can potentially give rise to socio-cognitive conflicts and learning?
• To what extent does language proficiency impact non-native speakers’ online presence, the range of roles they assume, the type of discussions they are involved in, and the types of posts they write?

To answer the research questions, the candidate will rely primarily on techniques from corpus linguistics and natural language processing.

Job description:

The candidate will work under the supervision of Magali Paquot (CECL, Institute for Language and Communication). The candidate will be affiliated to the Institut Langage et Communication (ILC, UCLouvain) and be a member of the CECL.

The PhD candidate will also be working in a multidisciplinary environment with other researchers from the Social Media Lab (https://www.socialmedialab.be/), the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Socialisation, Education and Training (GIRSEF, https://uclouvain.be/fr/chercher/girsef), the Center on Consumer Relations and Responsible Marketing (CERMA, https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/lourim/cerma) and the Centre for Natural Language Processing (CENTAL, https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/cental).

Activities that the candidate will perform include:

• develop and implement (i) theoretical concepts in line with the focus of the research project and (ii) appropriate methodological procedures for investigating these concepts;
• extract relevant data from MOOC platforms with appropriate computational and NLP techniques (note that the PhD candidate will be expected to help other members of the team with data extraction and structuring)
• conduct analyses of forum posts by L1 and L2 speakers of English;
• interpret the results of the analyses and report on the project in conference presentations and academic publications;
• by the end of the four-year term, submit and defend a PhD dissertation based on the project.

Requirements and profile:

–    Master degree in (Applied) Linguistics or Natural Language Processing, with a master thesis on a topic relevant to the project (note: a degree in English Linguistics is an asset, not a requirement);

–    excellent record of BA and MA level study;

–    excellent command of English,

–    good command of French is an asset but not required 

–    excellent and demonstrated analytic skills;

–    knowledge of corpus-linguistic techniques is a requirement

–    knowledge of statistics and statistical software is an asset;

–   programming skills in Perl or Python are also an asset (if no expertise in programming, the candidate should be willing to learn Python during the first year);

–    excellent and demonstrated self-management skills, ability and willingness to work in a team;

–    willingness to live in Belgium and to travel abroad (to attend international academic conferences, etc).

Terms of employment:

–    the contract will initially be for one year, three times renewable, with a total of four years.

–    the candidate receives a doctoral fellowship grant (starting at approx. EUR 1982 net per month) and full medical insurance.

–    the position requires residence in Belgium, preferably in or near Louvain-la-Neuve

–  applicants from outside the EU are responsible for obtaining the necessary visa or permits, with the assistance of UCLouvain staff department.

Application Deadline: Review of applications will begin on 1 August 2020, and continue until the position is filled

Please include with your application:

• a cover letter in English, in which you specify why you are interested in this position and how you meet the job requirements outlined above;

–    a curriculum vitae in English;

• a concise academic statement in French or English, in which you outline your expectations about and plans for graduate study and career goals;

–    a copy of BA and MA diplomas and degrees;

–    a copy of your master thesis and academic publications (if applicable);

–    the names and full contact details of two academic referees.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview (in situ or via video conferencing) in the second half of August 2020.

Applications (as an email attachment) and inquiries should be addressed to:

Dr. Magali Paquot                                                     

Centre for English Corpus Linguistics

Université Catholique de Louvain

Email: magali.paquot@uclouvain.be

Cet article PhD fellowship in Corpus Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

The position is part of a large multidisciplinary project that aims to investigate socio-cognitive conflicts in online educational platforms: “MOOCresearch2.0: A mixed-method and multidisciplinary approach to socio-cognitive conflicts in online educational platforms” (Prof. M. Frenay, Prof. F. Lambotte, Dr. Magali Paquot & Prof. V. Swaen) (see https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/ilc/cecl/moocresearch2-0.html for more info). As such, the research assistant will be working with researchers from the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics (https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/ilc/cecl), the Social Media Lab (https://www.socialmedialab.be/), the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Socialisation, Education and Training (GIRSEF, https://uclouvain.be/fr/chercher/girsef), the Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations (LOURIM, https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/lourim) and the Centre for Natural Language Processing (CENTAL, https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/cental).

Job description

The research assistant will provide support to the project team by performing a variety of tasks such as:

• Data pre-processing: anonymization, normalization
• Data structuring: linking up different data types (forum posts, user profiles, learners’ questionnaires, logs, etc.)
• Data enrichment: part-of-speech tagging, language recognition, topic detection, etc.
• Data analysis and visualization

The research assistant will also work in close collaboration with the CENTAL to provide access to the compiled corpus via a user-friendly online concordancer. Another important task of the research assistant will be to implement sustainable solutions for the automated treatment of incoming data.

 Requirements and profile:

• Master degree in Natural Language Processing or Linguistics
• excellent record of MA level study;
• programming skills in Python or Perl
• experience with NLP for social media is an asset
• very good command of French and/or English
• excellent and demonstrated analytic skills
• excellent and demonstrated self-management skills
• ability and willingness to work in a team

Terms of employment:

• The contract will be for one year.
• The monthly gross salary is min. 3384 EUR.
• The position requires residence in Belgium
• Applicants from outside the EU are responsible for obtaining the necessary visa or permits, with the assistance of UCLouvain staff department.

Application Deadline: 31 July 2020

Please include in your application:

• a cover letter in French or English, in which you specify why you are interested in this position and how you meet the job requirements outlined above;
• a curriculum vitae in French or English;
• an outline of previous work or research experience in English;
• a copy of your BA and MA degrees;
• a copy of your master thesis and academic publications (if applicable);
• the names and full contact details of at least one academic referee.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview (in situ or via video conferencing) in the second half of August.

Enquiries and applications should be addressed by email to Dr. Magali Paquot (Magali.paquot@uclouvain.be)

Cet article Research assistant in Natural Language Processing (part-time) est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.

Many of us are working with learner texts for which we would like to have valid and reliable proficiency measures. However, getting a learner corpus assessed by several trained raters is extremely costly.

The aim of the Crowdsourcing Language Assessment Project (CLAP) is to investigate whether crowdsourcing can offer practical solutions to the time and cost difficulties associated with proficiency assessment of learner texts for research purposes.

We would like to solicit the help of colleagues and students to complete a comparative judgment task. If you agree to help us, we will ask you to choose the ‘best’ text between a pair of texts, ideally repeating the task to reach a min of 15 decisions. Adaptive comparative judgment is based on the assumption that that comparing two performances is easier and more reliable than assigning a score to an individual performance (see more info about the method and the project here).

The current task focuses on the assessment of L2 English but it is our hope that, if results are satisfactory, the approach could also be used to add proficiency assessment measures to a large variety of learner corpora for different languages. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you are interested in collaborating!

Please try CLAPing at http://clap.uclouvain.be

We thank you very much for your help!

With very best wishes,

Magali Paquot, Alexander König, Rachel Rubin, & Nathan Vandeweerd

Cet article Launching the Crowdsourcing Language Assessment Project (CLAP) est apparu en premier sur Magali Paquot.