Error Profiling: Toward a Model of English Acquisition for Deaf Learners

In this paper we discuss our approach toward establishing a model of the acquisition of English grammatical structures by users of our English language tutoring system, which has been designed for deaf users of American Sign Language. We explore the correlation between a corpus of error-tagged texts and their holistic proficiency scores assigned by experts in order to draw initial conclusions about what language errors typically occur at different levels of proficiency in this population. Since errors made at lower levels (and not at higher levels) presumably represent constructions acquired before those on which errors are found only at higher levels, this should provide insight into the order of acquisition of English grammatical forms.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: ACL
• Authors: Lisa N. Michaud, Kathleen F. McCoy
• Keywords: ACL 2001, ACL 2007, English Grammatical Structures, Holistic Proficiency Scores, Language Tutoring System