The Open-Source FLAX Language System
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The Open-Source FLAX Language System Alannah Fitzgerald Shaoqun Wu Ian H. Witten Xiaofeng Yu
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Transcript of The Open-Source FLAX Language System
The Open-Source FLAX Language System
Alannah FitzgeraldShaoqun WuIan H. WittenXiaofeng Yu
The eBook of FLAX
“FLAX (Flexible Language Acquisition) is
both a vision and a tool that you can use for
language learning. The Web contains
innumerable language activities, quizzes,
and games, but they are fixed: the activities
are cast in stone and the material is chosen
by others. Our vision is to put the control
back where it belongs, in the hands of teachers and learners.”
WHO ARE WE IN THIS FLAX RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT COLLABORATION?
FLAX Language at Waikato University
http://flax.nzdl.org FLAX image by permission of non-commercial reuse by Jane Galloway
FLAX Language Project at the Greenstone Digital Library Lab,
Waikato University NZ
Professor Ian WittenFLAX Project Lead
Dr Shaoqun WuFLAX Project Lead Researcher & Developer
Research on Open FLAX Collections
http://oerresearchhub.org/
Alannah FitzgeraldOpen Fellow with OERRHFLAX Language & OpenEducation Researcher
OPEN SOURCE LANGUAGE TOOLS DEVELOPMENT
FLAX Digital
Library
Collections
Collocations
database
Glossary
Open
Educational
Resources
Google-esque Interface Designs
Designed for the non-expert corpus user, namely:
learners, teachers, subject academics, instructional designers and language resource developers.
Introducing the Wikipedia Miner Toolkit (Milne & Witten, 2013)
Building Interactivity into FLAX Language Collections
FLAX Activities Continued
Free Android Apps
FLAX Across Platforms
• FLAX Website flax.nzdl.org for hosting open online language collections• Building directly onto the Web with OER
• FLAX multilingual open-source software for download• Set up your own FLAX server online or;• Build collections offline for use on your PC
• FLAX Android app for download• Interact with game-based FLAX collections while on the go
• FLAX for MOODLE plug-in for download• FLAX for MOOC Platforms?• FLAX in conjunction with translation technologies?
DOMAIN-SPECIFIC OPEN LANGUAGE COLLECTIONS BUILDING
The eBook of FLAX
“FLAX enables teachers to build bespoke libraries very easily. It is built upon powerful digital library technology, and provides access to vast linguistic resources containing countless examples of actual, authentic, usage in contemporary text. But teachers can also build collections using their own material, focusing on language learning in a particular domain (e.g., business, law) or motivating students by using text from a particular context (e.g., country or region, common interests).”
Working with Full Texts
Wikify Your Collections
Domain-specific Collocations
We focus on lexical collocations with noun-based structures because they are the most salient and important patterns in domain-specific text.
Collocations from the English Common Law MOOC:
• verb + noun e.g. abolish judicial review
• noun + noun e.g. precedent case
• adjective + noun e.g. common law
• noun + of + noun e.g. court of appeal
Lexical Bundles
“Lexical bundles” are multi-word sequences with distinctivesyntactic patterns and discourse functions that are commonlyused in academic prose (Biber & Barbieri, 2007; Biber et al,2003, 2004).
Bundles from British Law Report Corpus (BLaRC):• noun phrase + of e.g. In the course of his• prepositional phrase + of e.g. on the part of the• it + verb/adjective phrase e.g. it is common ground that• be + noun/adjective phrase e.g. be taken into account in• verb phrase + that e.g. There is no doubt that
Lexical Bundles
Collocations Within Collections
Linking to the FLAX Learning Collocations Collection (Wikipedia, BNC, BAWE)
Good Ol’ Part-Of-Speech Tagging
References• Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2003). Lexical bundles in
speech and writing: an initial taxonomy. In A. Wilson, P. Rayson, & T. McEnery (Eds.), Corpus linguistics by the lune: A festschrift for Geoffrey Leech (pp. 71–92). Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
• Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at . . .: lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25, 371–405. Biber, D. (2006). University Language, A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
• Biber, D., Barbieri F. (2007). Lexical bundles in university spoken and written registers. English for Specific Purpose, 26, 263–286.
• Milne, D. & Witten, I.H. (2013). An open-source toolkit for mining Wikipedia. Artificial Intelligence, 194, 222-239.
Look Out for FLAX in April withRussell Stannard’s - Teacher Training Videos
http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com
Thank You
FLAX Language Project & Software Downloads: http://flax.nzdl.org/
The How-to eBook of FLAX: http://flax-doc.nzdl.org/BOOK_OF_FLAX/BookofFLAX%20fullsize%20with%20links.pdf
FLAX Game-based Apps for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=FLAX%20TEAM&hl=en
Alannah Fitzgerald: [email protected]
Shaoqun Wu: [email protected]
Ian Witten: [email protected]
Xiaofeng (Alex) Yu: [email protected]
OER Research Hub: http://oerresearchhub.org/
TOETOE Technology for Open English Blog: www.alannahfitzgerald.org
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/AlannahOpenEd/
Twitter: @AlannahFitz
