An SLA Corpus Annotated with Pedagogically Relevant Grammatical Structures

Abstract

The evaluation of a language learner's proficiency in second language is a task that normally involves comparing the learner's production with a learning framework of the target language. A broad framework is the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR), which addresses language learning in general and is broadly used in the European Union, while serving as reference in countries outside the EU as well. In this study, we automatically annotated a corpus of texts produced by language learners with pedagogically relevant grammatical structures and we observed how these structures are being employed by learners from different proficiency levels. We analyzed the use of structures both in terms of evolution along the levels and in terms of level in which the structures are used the most. The annotated resource, SGATe, presents a rich source of information for teachers that wish to compare the production of their students with those of already certified language learners.