Abstract:

Analysis of student errors is a welcome element of parser-based writing aids for language students; however, such analysis is by no means straightforward, given unconstrained input by student users. This paper provides a typology for analyzing grammatical errors in student-written German compositions and discusses approaches to providing helpful error messages to student users of a parser-based writing aid. Examples are drawn from the "Miami corpus" of approximately 400 pages of second-year German language students' compositions and from Syncheck, a syntactic parser of German implemented as the basis of a writing aid for language students.

Author: Ruth Sanders