Teaching linguistics via the web

Abstract

This section lists different resources widely available on the web and can contribute to the teaching of linguistics. It also refers to customised web resources specifically developed to teach or test linguistics on-line, often with restricted access. Some urls are provided as examples. Different models of integration are considered as are issues related to quality control and assurance.

1. Why use the web?

Using the Web can significantly increase the range of tools and resources available to students of linguistics. The availability of Web sites does depend, however, on the branch of Linguistics taught: for example, there is currently a greater number of public access sites relevant to issues in sociolinguistics, language planning, corpus linguistics and phonetics than in syntax and semantics.
Web sites and Web tools can be integrated into the teaching of linguistics in many different ways. They can be proposed as a parallel or an added resource to supplement taught sessions, as an integral part of the delivery, or alternatively to deliver distance learning. Access is then usually restricted to registered students. Use of Web resources for the teaching of Linguistics is a growing field but little work has gone into testing its effectiveness. Research to date has focussed on the use of computers rather than of the Web and on educational technology.

2. Web resources for linguistics

The following section reviews the range of Web resources available for the teaching of Linguistics and provides examples of particularly useful public access sites.

2.1 Primary Resources

Authentic corpora

The Corpus Based Linguistics site provides well annotated links to on-line language corpora in English and in other languages. These can be used with statistical packages such as concordancers to support linguistic and corpus analysis. Reference to web sources for concordancers are supplied in the CBL site.

Language policy documents and reports

Examples can be found at:
European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/CadreListeTraites.htm
Euromosaic Report and Foreign legislation
www.uoc.es/euromosaic
Law of 4 August 1994 (Loi Toubon)
www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/lois/presentation_loi.htm

Sites of institutions playing a part in language policies

Académie Francaise
www.academie-francaise.fr
Office de la Langue Francaise au Québec
www.olf.gouv.qc.ca
European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages
www.eblul.org

Grammatical descriptions of a wide range of languages

Searches with keywords such as 'grammar' and the name of a language provide a wealth of descriptions and lexicons of varying quality.

2.2 Linguistic glossaries

Two useful tools are available for exploring linguistic terminology:
Lexicon of Linguistics
http://tristram.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon
SIL International Glossary of Linguistic Terms
www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms
Encyclopedia of English Grammar and Word Grammar
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/enc-gen.htm
by Richard Hudson. Concentrates on terminology and concepts related to the syntactic theory of Word Grammar.

2.3 Current research in a variety of linguistic domains

Online abstracts from linguistics journals and accessible electronic journals and articles

The Blackwell Publishers Linguistics Resources page
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/linguist
Includes a whole section on journals and the Linguistics Abstracts Online, service available through library subscription only.
Active Learning
www.ilt.ac.uk/public/cti/ActiveLearning
Two accessible electronic journals are worth a visit
ALSIC (Apprentissage des Langues et Systems d'Information et de Communication)
http://alsic.u-strasbg.fr
in French

Electronic chapters and books

Blackwell Linguistics Publishing Programme
www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/ling_content.asp
Selected chapters of books can be read as pdf file
Machine Translation: an Introductory Guide
www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/clmt/MTbook
Some books are available as web-browsable versions, e.g. D. J. Arnold, L. Balkan, S. Meijer, R.L. Humphreys and L. Sadler

2.4 Networking Opportunities

Specialist forums

The Linguist list
www.linguistlist.org

Professional associations and national organisations

BAAL, the British Association for Applied Linguistics
www.baal.org.uk/baale.htm
which lists association links
LLAS, the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
www.llas.ac.uk

2.5 On-line tutorials on specific topics

These have usually been developed by university lecturers to accompany specific modules and may have restricted access. On-line tutorials take a variety of forms:

Notes on a particular topic

For example on natural language processing
http://clwww.essex.ac.uk/~doug/index_1.html
Fact sheets on Phonetics and syntactic theories prepared by Dick Hudson
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/facts.htm#Theories

Comprehensive tuition including learning tasks, hints, solutions and built-in opportunities for interaction and collaborative work

Linguistics Online
www.linguistik-virtuell.de
Describes itself as a virtual linguistics campus including a virtual lecture hall and a linguistics lab. Most courses are only accessible to registered users but there is a substantial demo section (referred to as the exhibition).
ICT4LT website
www.ict4lt.org
Offers relevant modules on Corpus linguistics (3.4), Human Language Technologies (3.5) and Using concordance programs in the modern foreign languages classroom (2.4).
Linguistic variation in French
http://homepages.unl.ac.uk/~mcbriden/ling_sample
A smaller scale project (single module on Linguistic variation in French)

2.6 On-line tests and self-tests through multiple choice questions

Early Corpus Linguistics and the Chomskyan Revolution
www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/monkey/ihe/linguistics/corpus1/1fra1.htm
Each section of the Lancaster web-based course in corpus linguistics includes a self-test page. For example, one may try a self-test.
Linguistics question bank
www.swan.ac.uk/cals/calsres/mcq/mcq.htm
Two web-based question banks for first year linguistics students are currently being developed, one commissioned by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies and the other at UWE.

3. Teaching considerations

Lecturers may not all use the Web as a resource but students increasingly do so and they have to be helped to evaluate these new sources of information. The integration, within linguistics modules, of carefully selected web links can give students an idea of the quality and authority to look for in web material. The validity of such links has to be checked regularly to avoid frustration on the part of the learner.
In order to assume control, students need to develop both advanced searching skills and on-line critical awareness. They require to learn how to focus their searches and achieve results which meet their needs as closely as possible, and how to differentiate between adequately researched and referenced information and subjective or ungrounded information. This forms part of more generic study skills relevant to any critical analysis. The next stage is to engage actively with the material and perform appropriate tasks using resources such as discussion groups, private electronic spaces and message boards.