I-Corps: English language teaching program providing personalized instruction in sentence construction

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响和商业潜力是填补了向自闭症儿童和非英语母语者教授语言的产品和服务的空白。大约三分之一的自闭症患者在用句子表达自己方面表现出缺陷。传统的自闭症语言补救是面对面的治疗。计算机化治疗以更低的成本提供更密集的指导，但现有的项目并不能完全解决自闭症患者的语言缺陷。此外，美国国家教育统计委员会（National Council for Education Statistics）报告称，英语作为第二语言（ESL）的学生人数从2000年的8.1%增长到2015年的9.5%。这里开发的项目为ESL和自闭症学生提供个性化的自动化教学，以及英语核心领域的综合课程：语法和句法。掌握这些需要广泛的实践，个性化的学习和语言专业知识，这些都超过了面对面治疗和教师指导的能力，以及目前市场上的语言软件程序的能力。这个I-Corps项目涉及一个英语教学项目的开发和商业化，该项目提供个性化的造句指导。研究表明，掌握一门语言需要积极的练习，该系统使用图片和口头提示（口头和书面）来提示学习者将单词组合成特定类型的短语和句子。这些目标语言结构的长度和复杂性逐渐增加。学习者通过开放式的单词按钮点击、键盘输入或演讲从头开始构建他们的回答。该系统提供交互式的、逐步的反馈（口头和书面），这些反馈是根据显性和隐性学习的原则提供的。这种反馈通过颜色编码的高亮来增强，可以诊断单词选择、词尾和词序方面的问题，指导用户通过自我纠正来生成结构良好的句子。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to fill a void in the products and services that teach language to children with autism and to non-native English speakers. Approximately one-third of individuals with autism exhibit a deficit in expressing themselves in sentences. The traditional language remediation for autism is in-person therapy. Computerized therapies offer more intensive instruction at lower cost, but existing programs do not fully address the language deficits seen in autism. In addition, the National Council for Education Statistics reports a population of English as a Second Language (ESL) students that grew from 8.1 percent in 2000 to 9.5 percent in 2015. The program developed here offers both ESL and autistic students personalized, automated instruction, along with a comprehensive curriculum, in core areas of English: grammar and syntax. Mastering these requires a level of extensive practice, personalized learning, and linguistic expertise that exceeds both the capacities of in-person therapies and teacher-directed instruction, and the capabilities of the language software programs that are currently on the market.This I-Corps project involves the development and commercialization of an English language teaching program providing personalized instruction in sentence construction. Informed by research showing that mastering a language requires active practice, the system uses pictures and verbal prompts (spoken and written) to prompt learners put words together into specific types of phrases and sentences. These targeted language structures gradually increase in length and complexity. Learners construct their responses from scratch through open-ended word-button clicking, keyboard typing, or speech. The system provides interactive, step-by-step feedback (both spoken and written) that is informed by principles of explicit and implicit learning. This feedback, enhanced through color-coded highlighting, diagnoses problems with word choice, word endings, and word order, guiding users through self-corrections to well-formed sentences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.