The communicative approach to language learning is widely taught in Western education, and yet its predecessor, the grammar-translation method, is still commonly employed in other parts of the world. In Sweden, the increasing popularity of the communicative approach is often justified by the high level of students’ communicative skills (Öhman, 2013). At the same time, students’ written texts and speech contain many grammatical errors (Öhman, 2013). Consequently, being aware of their tendency to produce grammatical errors, some students express beliefs regarding both the explicit and implicit learning of grammar (Sawir, 2005; Boroujeni, 2012). The objective of this thesis is to gain more knowledge regarding students’ beliefs concerning the learning of English grammar at the upper secondary level, in Sweden. With this purpose a survey was conducted in two schools in Sweden, where 49 upper-secondary English students participated. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to process the collected data. Despite some difference in the participants’ ages, there were many similarities in their attitudes towards the teaching and learning of grammar. The results show that the participants in both schools believe that only by applying both, explicit and implicit methods, can they obtain a high level of language proficiency. The results of this study can help teachers in planning different activities that enhance the students’ knowledge of grammar.

The present dissertation explored the acquisition of grammatical knowledge in L2 by adults. The main focus was to investigate the role of type and token frequency in knowledge acquisition under incidental learning conditions. Such impact was studied by using different experimental conditions, in which items were presented with high or low type and token frequency during training. The mediating effect of working memory in such learning conditions was also measured. The material for the study was a natural language (Russian), as opposed to the previous research having used mainly artificial or semi-artificial languages. Within the course of four experiments native speakers of English with no previous knowledge of a Slavic language were exposed to noun-adjective agreement patterns of different complexity. A simple noun-adjective agreement pattern according to gender was used in Experiment 1. A medium-complexity pattern, according to gender and case, was chosen in Experiment 2. And a complex noun-adjective agreement pattern, according to gender, case and number, was used in Experiment 3. Experiment 4 employed the same agreement pattern as in Experiment 2; animacy effects were also studied by selecting animate and inanimate head nouns as stimuli. The knowledge acquired was tested both in comprehension and production domains. Working memory was measured using the Operation and Reading span tests. The results supported a “starting small” approach for production; accuracy was greater in the low type low token frequency and low type high token frequency conditions. For comprehension, high type frequency had shown more effect. Working memory was differentially involved in the production of acquired knowledge in different conditions and not engaged where learning was facilitated by frequency. Levels of knowledge also depended on the complexity of the agreement pattern, frequency effects and the domain of knowledge acquisition: comprehension versus production.

Une hypothèse dominant actuellement les théories sur l’évolution des capacités syntaxiques est celle d’une spécificité humaine pour le traitement des grammaires supra-régulières. Cette hypothèse est supportée par les données comparatives actuellement disponibles, qui ne fournissent pas de démonstration non ambiguë de cette capacité chez une autre espèce. Dans cette thèse, nous avons adopté une nouvelle approche consistant à examiner si ces échecs pourraient découler de la difficulté que représente l'extraction de régularités non-adjacentes. Pour tester cette hypothèse, nous avons mené une série de quatre études chez le babouin de guinée (Papio papio) et l’humain. La première étude montre que les babouins requièrent une quantité d’exposition beaucoup plus importante que l’humain pour apprendre des associations non-adjacentes. Dans une seconde étude, les babouins ont pu généraliser des patterns basés sur une répétition adjacente ou non-adjacente d’un élément, mais ils se sont montrés davantage sensibles à ces premiers. Une troisième étude, corrélationnelle, révèle que les babouins se montrant sensibles aux régularités non-adjacentes ne sont pas ceux obtenant les meilleures performances pour l’apprentissage de dépendances adjacentes. Une dernière étude suggère que les babouins sont sensibles à une structure en miroir (impliquant des dépendances centrées-emboitées), mais pas à une structure en copie (à dépendances croisées). Ces résultats mettent au jour une importante continuité des capacités syntaxiques au sein de la lignée des primates, mais révèlent également des différences inter-spécifiques importantes dans les contraintes mnésiques pesant sur celles-ci. / A current dominant hypothesis on the evolution of syntactic abilities propose that the processing of supra-regular grammars is a unique human capacity. In support of this hypothesis, artificial grammar learning studies conducted so far do not provide unambiguous demonstration of this capacity in a non-human species. In this thesis, we adopted a new approach by studying cognitive prerequisites for supra-regular grammar processing. Our hypothesis was that these previous failures could be attributed to a bias in these species towards the exploitation of local regularities and difficulties for processing more distant relationships, rather than an inability to master supra-regular grammars. We conducted a series of experiments in Guinea baboons (Papio papio) and humans to assess this hypothesis. In a first experiment, we show that baboons need much more exposure than humans to learn non-adjacent associations. In a second study, we show that baboons can generalize patterns involving an adjacent or a non-adjacent repetition of an element, but that they are more sensitive to the former. A third, correlational, study reveal that baboons succeeding to extract non-adjacent regularities are not those showing the best performance in learning local ones. A last study suggest that baboons are sensitive to a mirror structure (involving center-embedded dependencies), but not to a copy structure (crossed dependencies). Overall, our results reveal a stronger continuity in grammar processing capacities within the primate order than previously thought, but also highlight important species differences in memory constraints.

<p>The artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm has been intensively researched since the 60-s. In general, these investigations attempt to study the implicit acquisition of structural regularities. Among other things, it has been suggested that the AGL paradigm can serve as a model for the process of acquiring a natural language. Thus it can serve as a well-controlled laboratory task that might be used to understand certain aspects of the process of language acquisition. For example the AGL paradigm has been used in an attempt to isolate the acquisition of syntactic aspects of language. Several experimental studies show that the participants acquire knowledge of the underlying rule system since they are able to differentiate grammatical strings from non-grammatical ones. It has been argued that the traditionally conducted AGL paradigm with grammaticality instructions might make the task explicit, at least during the test phase. In order to imitate the language learning process as close as possible, to rule out the possibility of an explicit component during the testing phase (i.e., keeping the retrieval process implicit) and to rule out explicit rule conformity or rule following, we modified the classical AGL paradigm. In a behavioural study we combined the AGL paradigm with an altered mere exposure paradigm in an attempt to better model aspects of language acquisition. We were able to show that subjects, classifying under mere exposure instructions, categorize grammatical and non-grammatical strings just as well as those solving the classification task with the grammaticality instructions. This indicates that the mere exposure version might serve as a more appropriate model for language acquisition.</p>

The artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm has been intensively researched since the 60-s. In general, these investigations attempt to study the implicit acquisition of structural regularities. Among other things, it has been suggested that the AGL paradigm can serve as a model for the process of acquiring a natural language. Thus it can serve as a well-controlled laboratory task that might be used to understand certain aspects of the process of language acquisition. For example the AGL paradigm has been used in an attempt to isolate the acquisition of syntactic aspects of language. Several experimental studies show that the participants acquire knowledge of the underlying rule system since they are able to differentiate grammatical strings from non-grammatical ones. It has been argued that the traditionally conducted AGL paradigm with grammaticality instructions might make the task explicit, at least during the test phase. In order to imitate the language learning process as close as possible, to rule out the possibility of an explicit component during the testing phase (i.e., keeping the retrieval process implicit) and to rule out explicit rule conformity or rule following, we modified the classical AGL paradigm. In a behavioural study we combined the AGL paradigm with an altered mere exposure paradigm in an attempt to better model aspects of language acquisition. We were able to show that subjects, classifying under mere exposure instructions, categorize grammatical and non-grammatical strings just as well as those solving the classification task with the grammaticality instructions. This indicates that the mere exposure version might serve as a more appropriate model for language acquisition.

The diploma thesis is a reflection on the concept of error; it defines error in regard to language norm and language usage. It deals with errors committed by high school students. In addition, it seeks to uncover at least some of the causes why and how the error occurs, and it focuses on the influence of interference. It examines whether the phenomena that do not occur in Czech, are actually more difficult to understand and then to use in practical language. In the theoretical part the work also treats the issue of fault assessment, answers the critical questions in this area and summarizes some recommendations to the motivational and constructive evaluation that leads to understanding of the problem, and thus eliminating errors. In the practical part, it introduces the text which served as a basis for the research. In addition to the translation, students were also asked questions about the style of teaching, learning, assessment and their motivation for the studying French. Conclusions drawn from both the translations and the interviews are presented at the end of work. Keywords: error, grammar, meaning, speaker, interference, evaluation, learning styles, motivation, translation, written production

本論文提供了一個句子重組試題編製的環境，協助教師編製句子重組試題，同時學生也能夠在此編製環境中練習句子重組試題。 句子重組試題即是要求學生把試題給的一組詞彙組合成特定詞序的正確語句之題型，該試題類型可以檢驗學生對於句型和文法的知識。然而試題所給的詞彙集合往往除了可以組合成教師想要學生回答的正確語句之外，也可以組合成其它的合法語句。為了能辨識學生的回答，把這些合法語句以人工方式逐一建置為答案卻對出題教師造成了負擔。 我們建構了一個電腦輔助句子重組試題編製的環境來減輕出題教師的負擔。為了讓電腦可以恰當地判斷學生的回答，我們的編製環境限制了試題詞彙集的相對位置，藉此約束學生只能排出教師預設的特定答案。同時在出題教師建置試題答案時，我們的編製環境也試圖提供所有可能的合法詞序之語句，供出題教師參考。但本論文的研究經驗顯示要自動協助出題教師預示所有可能的合法詞序之語句卻是一件艱難的工作，而且這一研究問題與語法學有密切關係。 本論文以基礎詞組為主軸，透過合併詞組和史丹佛剖析器的操作建構出英文句子重組試題編製環境，供教師編輯與學生練習。同時，我們在論文中也提報了中文句子重組試題編製環境的初步探討。 / This thesis presents a computer assisted environment for authoring test items for sentence reconstruction. Not only the teacher can author the test items for sentence reconstruction, but also the student can practice the test items in this environment. A test item for sentence reconstruction asks the student to arrange the shuffled words in a correct order, and this type of tests can examine the knowledge of sentence patterns and grammars of the student. However, the rearranged sentence may match with not only the correct sentence that the teacher wants but also other sentences which are legal. But enumerating all possible legal and acceptable answers for judging the answer of the student manually makes the teacher taking a big load. We construct a computer assisted environment for authoring test items for sentence reconstruction to lighten the load of the teacher. For the purpose of judging the answer of the student by a computer easily, the relative locations of the words are restricted so that we can restrict the sentences that the student arranges. When the teacher provides the correct answers, we try to find and return all of the sentences which may be legal for the teacher's consideration. However, our experience shows that it is difficult to find all of the legal sentences for a given set of words, and this problem associates closely with a certain syntactic research work. This thesis depends on basic word groups to construct an environment of test item authoring for English sentence reconstruction by merging word groups and using the Stanford Parser, and report an initial study of an environment of test item preparation for Chinese sentence reconstruction.

La Génération Automatique de Langue Naturelle vise à produire des textes dans une langue humaine à partir d'un ensemble de données non-linguistiques. Elle comprend généralement trois sous-tâches principales: (i) sélection et organisation d'un sous-ensemble des données d'entrée; ii) détermination des mots à utiliser pour verbaliser les données d'entrée; et (iii) regroupement de ces mots en un texte en langue naturelle. La dernière sous-tâche est connue comme la tâche de Réalisation de Surface (RS). Dans ma thèse, j'étudie la tâche de RS quand les données d'entrée sont extraites de Bases de Connaissances (BC). Je présente deux nouvelles approches pour la réalisation de surface à partir de bases de connaissances: une approche supervisée et une approche faiblement supervisée. Dans l'approche supervisée, je présente une méthode basée sur des corpus pour induire une grammaire à partir d'un corpus parallèle de textes et de données. Je montre que la grammaire induite est compacte et suffisamment générale pour traiter les données de test. Dans l'approche faiblement supervisée, j'explore une méthode pour la réalisation de surface à partir de données extraites d'une BC qui ne requière pas de corpus parallèle. À la place, je construis un corpus de textes liés au domaine et l'utilise pour identifier les lexicalisations possibles des symboles de la BC et leurs modes de verbalisation. J'évalue les phrases générées et analyse les questions relatives à l'apprentissage à partir de corpus non-alignés. Dans chacune de ces approches, les méthodes proposées sont génériques et peuvent être facilement adaptées pour une entrée à partir d'autres ontologies / Natural Language Generation is the task of automatically producing natural language text to describe information present in non-linguistic data. It involves three main subtasks: (i) selecting the relevant portion of input data; (ii) determining the words that will be used to verbalise the selected data; and (iii) mapping these words into natural language text. The latter task is known as Surface Realisation (SR). In my thesis, I study the SR task in the context of input data coming from Knowledge Bases (KB). I present two novel approaches to surface realisation from knowledge bases: a supervised approach and a weakly supervised approach. In the first, supervised, approach, I present a corpus-based method for inducing a Feature Based Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar from a parallel corpus of text and data. I show that the induced grammar is compact and generalises well over the test data yielding results that are close to those produced by a handcrafted symbolic approach and which outperform an alternative statistical approach. In the weakly supervised approach, I explore a method for surface realisation from KB data which does not require a parallel corpus. Instead, I build a corpus from heterogeneous sources of domain-related text and use it to identify possible lexicalisations of KB symbols and their verbalisation patterns. I evaluate the output sentences and analyse the issues relevant to learning from non-parallel corpora. In both these approaches, the proposed methods are generic and can be easily adapted for input from other ontologies for which a parallel/non-parallel corpora exists

This thesis explores the influence music has on learning a foreign language. The purpose of the thesis is to find out if rhythm and music encourage students to learn French grammar, and more precisely how to conjugate verbs. We have created a rap-style learning technique to assist in conjugating the verbs “être” (to be) and “avoir” (to have). We then taught two different lessons to each grammar in this context: one with the “rap-method” and one without rhythm, which is a more classic approach. The students, who are all beginners of the French language, come from a school in the south of Sweden. After the two lessons we conducted a comparative study where we asked the students which lesson was the best. To support our study, we present theories based upon the connection between language learning and music. The two theories are: L’Apport de la musique dans l’apprentissage d’une langue étrangère (2012) written by Camille Jedrzejak and Sensibiliser les enfants à une langue étrangère par le biais d’une activité musicale (2008) by Pamula Malgorzata. The study showed that music has a value in foreign language learning and that students learned better the materiel during the “rap-method” than during the other, more classical method. Grammar lessons are often considered as boring and the students don’t like them. Changing them into a more playful method could get them more interested to learn. The theories in action reap positive results and could be used more in language-learning than they currently are. It turned out that the “rap-method” is a good method to learn grammar.

The main aim of the present study was to identify examples of practical grammar instruction methods in an EFL/ESL classroom in Swedish upper secondary school. Data was collected through classroom observations and interviews. Four interview sessions were carried out with five teachers, and twelve observations were conducted in four different English classes. There are conflicting views and attitudes towards the role and place of grammar in EFL/ESL classrooms, but the participants agreed that the main goal of grammar instruction is to help students develop communicative skills. The interview results showed that four of the participants prefer inductive approaches, while the fifth regards deductive approaches as more effective. Characteristics such as student motivation, learning style, and experiences are considered equally vital for the choice of grammar instruction and application. The grammar instruction methods chosen and discussed are based on traditional structuralism, behaviourism, and the progressive natural approaches. Consistent with previous research, an eclectic grammar instruction approach was observed that blends both implicit and explicit methods to meet different learners’ needs. The methodologies which are often practically applied include grammartranslation, audiolingualism, and content- and/or task-based instruction. Nevertheless, a communicative framework using the communicative language teaching methodologies is often in the foreground, resulting in a Systemic Functional Grammar, SFG, approach. / Huvudsyftet med den aktuella studien var att identifieraexempel på praktiska grammatikundervisningsmetoder som används i ämnet engelska som andra- och/eller främmandespråk på gymnasienivå i Sverige. Data samlades in genom klassobservationer och intervjuer. Fyra intervjusessioner genomfördes med fem lärare och det gjordes även tolv klassrumobservationer i fyra olika klasser. Deltagarna hade motstridiga åsikter och attityder angående grammatikens roll och plats i klassrummet, men de var överens om att huvudsyftet med grammatikundervisning är att hjälpa eleverna att utveckla kommunikativa färdigheter. Intervjuresultaten visar att fyra av lärarna föredrar induktiva metoder, medan den femte betraktar deduktiva ansatser som effektivare. Egenskaper såsom lärstil, elevernas motivation och erfarenheter betraktas som lika avgörande för olika metodval och tillämpning. De valda grammatikundervisningsmetoderna som diskuteras i denna uppsats baseras på traditionell strukturalism, behaviorism samt de progressiva, naturliga tillvägsgångsätten. Ett eklektiskt tillvägagångssätt som blandar både implicita och explicita metoder för att möta elevernas behov observeras, vilket är i linje med tidigare forskning. De metoder som ofta praktiskt tillämpas innefattar bland annat grammatik-översättning, audiolingualism samt innehålls- och/eller uppgiftsbaserade instruktioner. Ett kommunikativt ramverk med kommunikativa språkundervisningsmetoder är ofta i förgrunden, vilket resulterar i ett tillvägsgångsätt med fokus på systematisk funktionell grammatik, SFG.