Your verbal zone: an intelligent computer-assisted language learning program in support of Turkish learners' vocabulary learning

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of an intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) program on Turkish learners' vocabulary learning. Within the scope of this research, an ICALL application with a morphological analyser (Your Verbal Zone, YVZ) was developed and used in an English language preparatory class to measure its effects on students' achievement in vocabulary acquisition as well as their attitudes towards such an ICALL environment. The study employed a pre-test–post-test control group design. The sample consisted of 42 low intermediate learners who were assigned to experimental and control groups. The independent samples t test was used to study the differences in continuous variables between the experiment and the control groups. The improvement in the vocabulary knowledge of the participants was measured as to two different aspects, i.e. morphological knowledge and the knowledge of words' definitions and usage. The results indicate that reading activities with YVZ have proved to have positive effects on both learners' vocabulary learning and their attitudes towards the use of an intelligent computer-assisted language learning application in the classroom.

Keywords:

• morphological analyser
• vocabulary learning
• quasi-experimental research design
• natural language processing
• ICALL

Notes

1. Son (2001) uses this term instead of ‘CALL programs for vocabulary learning’.

2. Gloss is ‘a brief explanatory note or translation of a difficult or technical expression usually inserted in the margin or between lines of a text or manuscript’ (Soukhanov, 1994).

3. A word grammar (a.k.a., ‘a unification-based chart parser’) is used to specify complex morphotactic constraints and how morphemes' morphosyntactic features can be combined (Antworth, 1995).