Diagnosis of grammatical errors in learning English

In a previous publication about individual grammar training, I described the principle of such training and a simple API that allows integrating this technology into software products. The main type of tasks in this API is the multiple choice. But its implementation was quite simple - one correct answer and three wrong ones. All that could be learned about the user's level of knowledge is whether he knows the correct form of the verb or not.

In this post, I will tell (and again share the API) about a much more informative grammatical multiple choice option. Its main advantage is the function of diagnosing grammatical errors in learning English.

Diagnostic function of tasks of the type of multiple choice

So, multiple choice - tasks with multiple answers - quite a convenient and flexible tool used in training and testing. As a rule, this type of task is known only that there is one correct answer and several (usually three) incorrect ones. With this approach, all that can be determined is that the responding material only knows (in our case, a grammatical phenomenon) or not.

But there are several wrong options. Is it possible to learn more from the way the student responded? Yes, and it is with this connected diagnostic function multiple choice. When drawing up such tasks, each type of error is “tied up” to each incorrect variant, which will help determine what material to learn in order to avoid this error in the future.
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For example, English learners often forget forms of irregular verbs. To understand that this user has this problem, it is necessary to create such a task, in which among the wrong options was the “problem” form:

She ... this letter yesterday.

1. writed
2. were writing
3. wrote
4. write

Option answer number 1 - just diagnoses such a problem (improperly formed form of the verb). Option 2 diagnoses the problem of non-discrimination of Past Simple and Past Progressive. Option 3 - the correct answer, option 4 - the verb is not in the right form.

Understanding exactly which problem causes a mistake in grammar, you can help the user to correct it. For example, you can repeat irregular verbs in the form of Past Simple and suggest additional exercises on this topic.

API

These are the problems that the API solves, which I will briefly describe below. The API works with any text in English (provided that this text is written in the correct and normative language - it is impossible to learn the language in other texts). The result of the work is a list of ready-made tasks of the type of multiple choice.

For example, the sentence Jack London lived in San Francisco. will get this answer:

{ "sentenceText": "Jack London lived in San Francisco.", "multipleChoice": [ { "answers": [ "living", "were living", "lived", "live" ], "correctIndex": 2, "answerTags": [ "past_simple_construction", "past_progressive_usage, past_simple_usage, past_simple_construction", "CORRECT: past_simple_construction", "present_simple_usage, past_simple_usage, past_simple_construction" ], "gapString": "Jack London ... in San Francisco." } ] } 

sentenceText - the source text of the sentence;
multipleChoice - the task itself;
answers - answer choices;
correctIndex - the index of the correct answer (starts from 0)
answerTags are grammar tag tags that need to be studied or repeated to avoid making this mistake. The tag of the correct variant is preceded by the word CORRECT:;
gapString is a sentence with a pass where you need to insert the correct version.
To the user, this might look like this:

Jack London ... in San Francisco.

1. living
2. were living
3. lived
4. live

Please note that the tags are not shown to the user, as they describe the existence of the problem and are needed by the system (or teacher) to plan further actions. For example, in answer 2, instead of the correct form Past Simple (past_simple_usage), the form Past Progressive (past_progressive_usage) was proposed, the rules of use of which should be repeated if the user chose this option. Also here it is recommended to repeat the formation of Past Simple (past_simple_construction).

If you attach text to each tag (or group of tags) with an explanation of grammatical material, you can easily create an adaptive grammar course on arbitrary material that is interesting and useful to the user.

Now the system supports all major species-time forms in active and passive voids. This allows you to create an individualized system of teaching English grammar on virtually any material that is interesting and useful to the user.

You can see our API on MashApe .