EMPIRICAL-STUDIES AND INTELLIGENT LANGUAGE TUTORING

The research described in this paper addresses how a language tutoring system tackles a practical problem in learning a language-negative tr ansfer (mother tongue influence). The empirical studies we have undert aken indicate that negative transfer is the most obvious explanation f or most of the errors committed by first-year students in their study of Chinese grammar at the University of Durham. The results of our emp irical studies accord with the views of experts on both negative trans fer and the Chinese language. A language tutoring prototype (the Chine se Tutor) has been designed on the basis of the results of the empiric al studies. The Chinese Tutor contains five models: the expert model, the student model, the diagnoser, the tutor model and the interface mo dule. The five models work effectively together in order to ensure a s uccessful tutorial session. A number of potential users from the Depar tment of East Asian Studies at the University of Durham have used the Chinese Tutor with positive results. In this paper, we will first addr ess issues in relation to empirical studies: the significance of empir ical studies and the results of the empirical studies. We will then mo ve on to some of the important design issues, i.e., how the problem of negative transfer is tackled by the Chinese Tutor, which includes dis cussions on how the rules in the mixed grammar are used for detecting arbitrary transfer errors; how the types of error made by the student are inferred; and how an appropriate tutorial strategy is selected. Fi nally, a tutorial session run by one of the students who has used the Chinese Tutor is presented and what the Chinese Tutor can offer to the students will also be addressed.