Introducing Mini-McCALL:

A pilot version of the Mid-Sweden Corpus of Computer-Assisted Language

Learning

Mats Deutschmann(Anneli Ädel, Terry Walker, Gregory

Garretson & Nicholas Sheppard)

Overview of Mini-McCALL

• 1.3-million-word CMC corpus• from online undergraduate English • written (students-students/teachers)• 3 types of text: discussion forum, e-mail,

student assignments• metadata: socio-linguistic, pedagogical, and

textual information

Background: Collaborative e-learning

• Communication with computers -> Communication with others via computers (Kern & Warschauer, 2000)

• At Mid-Sweden University since 2004• LMS = WebCT• Interactive methods

– peer-reviewing, – group discussions – group problem-solving– Group productions– Also self-reflection

Negotiating meaning in McCALL

Message HT04N.D.118

Time: Thursday, September 16, 2004 20:03Author: Tina KockSubject: Re: Discussion 2 - Jonna ÖstebergHello Jonna!

I have an opinion about 1d: "I'll have done it by tonight."You wrote that will + base form is used here, but "have done" is not the base form of the verb. That's why I think the tense is Future Perfect. The sentence is about an activity that will be completed before a specific time.Am I right?

/Tina

Message HT04N.D.147

Time: Saturday, September 18, 2004 10:30Author: Melinda JensenSubject: Re: Discussion 2 - Jonna ÖstebergOK.... I think you're right! (I wonder why I thought it was will + base form?), now when you have explained it to me everything seems so clear.... :-)

byeMelinda

The call for Mini-McCALL

• CMC research growing• But… relatively little linguistic research• Language is the ”oil of the collaborative

machinery”- Investigation needs: – the role played by language in online education, – efficiency of online communication – language and learning processes

• Few or no other CMC corpus-based on learner data (as far as we know)

• Mini-McCALL is an important step forward, providing valuable data for research community.

Data source

The data are from:• first-term undergraduates • full-time 5-week course (Grammar A)• 8 individual classes, i.e. from 4 terms

(autumn 2004-spring 2006) with 2 classes each term (North and South)

3 types of text

Discussion forum messages

Message HT04N.D.118

Time: Thursday, September 16, 2004 20:03Author: Tina KockSubject: Re: Discussion 2 - Jonna ÖstebergHello Jonna!

I have an opinion about 1d: "I'll have done it by tonight."You wrote that will + base form is used here, but "have done" is not the base form of the verb. That's why I think the tense is Future Perfect. The sentence is about an activity that will be completed before a specific time.Am I right?

/Tina

Message HT04N.D.147

Time: Saturday, September 18, 2004 10:30Author: Melinda JensenSubject: Re: Discussion 2 - Jonna ÖstebergOK.... I think you're right! (I wonder why I thought it was will + base form?), now when you have explained it to me everything seems so clear.... :-)

byeMelinda

E-mail messages Message HT04N.E.3

Time: Tuesday, September 7, 2004 19:06Author: Lilja SjögrenRecipient: George SederstedtSubject: Assignments!

Hello George!

I have been in and out of the discussion room a couple of times and it seems that noone is there to discuss the assignment that is due on friday. I need some tips how to start the discussion. I have never done this before. And what do I do if noone is discussing before friday?

Lilja Sjögren__________________________________________________________________________

Message HT04N.E.5

Time: Wednesday, September 8, 2004 11:50Author: George SederstedtRecipient: Lilja SjögrenSubject: Re: Assignments!

Dear Lilja,

For the discussion assignments you actually make your comments in the discussion forum, which is not a simultanous chat. You simply mail your contribution and wait for someone to respond. The mails can be read by all. In the chat you can talk more informally. Get back to me if this is still unclear.

George

AttachmentsDocument ID: VT06S.D.16.1Attached to message: VT06S.D.16 Time: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 15:17 Author: Lina Holmström Subject: Determiners and pronouns Discussion 1: Determiners and Pronouns 1. Discuss the use or absence of the article in the following sentences: a. I met an interesting chap at a party last night. Comment: The speaker uses indefinite articles to "an interesting chap" and "a party last night". This can mean that the referents (chap and party) are not known to the hearer. b. Why are you still in bed? You should be at school. Comment: We can say "the bed" when we mean a particular piece of furniture. Otherwise it is not combined with the definite article "the". We say at school when the hearer goes there as a pupil. c . Life is full of surprises. Comment: Life (U) in this case required a zero article because here (c) it is a generic reference. All (c) is widely generic.

The participants

The participants

The participants

The participants

Corpus metadata

Big McCALL

• Mini-McCALL is the first stage of the proposed Mid-Sweden Corpus of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (McCALL)

• ALL the online English courses from 2004-2008, including courses in language (grammar, essay writing and oral proficiency), cultural studies, literature, and linguistics

• Also transcribed spoken English, from both teachers and students, at various levels, and in various genres

• Over 100 course modules taught by – 16 teachers – over 900 students – communication in English

• Over 10 million words written text and • Over 100,000 words of transcribed spoken material

Building the Corpus

• Participants

– Metadata collection

• Anonymisation

• Collecting Texts – WebCT and Attachments

• XML and HTML• http://dooku.miun.se/engelska/McCall/texts/04%20ht

ml%20version/index.html

Anonymisation

• Consent from all but… no names or ID-info• Some corpora use placeholder such as <NAME> or

remove surnames to ensure participants’ anonymity• For Mini-McCALL the removal of the full name was

required to ensure anonymity but we wanted to enable corpus users to easily distinguish individual participants from one another, unhampered by possibly intrusive coding

• We have replaced every individual’s name with a plausible-sounding, randomly generated name that retains the correct sex; both first and last names were replaced (independently) with names drawn from Swedish census data

Anonymisation

Scripted Anonymisation

Anonymisation

Problems

Script does not pick up the following:• Abbreviated names, nicknames and initials • Misspelled names

– Name remains or is misspelled to match another name, e.g. Sandra/Sandrah = Teresia/Tilia

• Possessive apostrophe missing. – Jennys answer = Jenny remains in the corpus

Research using Mini-McCALL

• Adaptation of language to new technologies• Second language learning • Interpersonal communication and communicative

strategies• Discursive identity construction• Current research on Mini-McCALL:

– Effect of teacher input on student activity (Deutschman & Lundmark 2008)

– Rapport in the discussion fora (Ädel WIP) – ’But’ and hedging in written peer review dialogue

(Popaditch forthcoming)– Use of address phrases in the discussion fora (Walker WIP)– (Cultural comparison of Italian and Swedish CMC

discourse) (Deutschmann & Helm WIP)

More info in

Deutschmann, M., A. Ädel, G. Garretson & T. Walker (2009). Introducing Mini-McCALL: A pilot version of the Mid-Sweden Corpus of Computer-Assisted Language Learning. ICAME Journal 33: 21-44.

• Access to corpus: ask mats.deutschman@miun.se

The end “ta very much guys”