Lärka

About Lärka

Lärka - “LÄR språket via KorpusAnalys” - with its English equivalent “Lark” (Language Acquisition Reusing Korp) - is Språkbanken's platform designed for learning Swedish based on principles of Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Lärka development has started within the project “A System Architecture for Intelligent CALL” but lives its own life since 2013. It is primarily a modular web-based exercise generator that reuses available annotated corpora and lexical resources. It is freely available to all interested user groups, including teachers and learners of Swedish as a second/foreign language.

However, during the ICALL application implementation time a lot of research questions arose and resource development projects originated, both dictated by Lärka's research agenda. You can find those research and infrastructural projects here: https://spraakbanken.gu.se/en/research/themes/icall/icall-l2-projects. The output from these projects is  partially demonstrated in other tabs on Lärka platform, among others under the tabs: Tools, Experimental prototypes, Swedish L2 profiles. More may become relevant over time. 

Maintenance of the resources, tools and algorithms is generously supported through Språkbanken Text. 

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please, contact the project leader.

Citing Lärka

If you use Lärka, please cite the main article on the platform in general (below), and a relevant article for each of the modules (scroll the list of publications).

Publications

2024

• Volodina Elena, Yousuf Ali Mohammed and Therese Lindström Tiedemann. (Accepted) Swedish word family resource: Construction, applicability, strengths and first experiments. ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing Company [link]
• Volodina Elena. (2024) On two SweLL learner corpora – SweLL-pilot and SweLL-gold. In Huminfra Conference, pp. 83-94. [link]
• Volodina Elena, David Alfter, and Therese Lindström Tiedemann. (2024) Profiles for Swedish as a second language: lexis, grammar, morphology. In Huminfra Conference, pp. 10-19. [link]

2023

• Elena Volodina, Christopher Bryant, Andrew Caines, Orphée De Clercq, Jennifer-Carmen Frey, Elizaveta Ershova, Alexandr Rosen and Olga Vinogradova. 2023. MultiGED-2023 shared task at NLP4CALL: Multilingual Grammatical Error Detection. In Proceedings of 12th workshop on Natural Language Processing for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (NLP4CALL 2023). Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 197. NEALT Proceedings Series 53. [link]
• Elena Volodina, Yousuf Ali Mohammed, Aleksandrs Berdicevskis, Gerlof Bouma, Joey Öhman. 2023. DaLAJ-GED - a dataset for Grammatical Error Detection tasks on Swedish. In Proceedings of 12th workshop on Natural Language Processing for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (NLP4CALL 2023). Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 197. NEALT Proceedings Series 53. [link]
• Elena Volodina, David Alfter, Therese Lindström Tiedemann. (2023). Crowdsourcing ratings for single lexical items: a core vocabulary perspective. Slovencina. [url]

2022

• Elena Volodina and David Alfter. 2022. ICALL: Research versus reality check. In Volodina, Dannélls, Berdicevskis, Forsberg and Virk (editors), Live and Learn – Festschrift in honor of Lars Borin, pages 145–151. GU-ISS-2022-03, University of Gothenburg. [url]
• Lindström Tiedemann, Therese, Alfter, Dadvid, & Volodina, Elena (2022). CEFR-nivåer och svenska flerordsuttryck. In Svenskan i Finland 19, p.218-233. [full issue - pdf]

2021

• David Alfter. (2021) Exploring natural language processing for single-word and multi-word lexical complexity from a second language learner perspective. PhD Thesis. Data linguistica
  31, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
• Prentice, Julia, Camilla Håkansson, Therese Lindström Tiedemann, Ildikó Pilán and Elena Volodina. (2021). Language learning and teaching with Swedish FrameNet+. In: (Eds.) Dannélls, Dana, Lars Borin and Karin Friberg Heppin. The Swedish FrameNet++: Harmonization, integration, method development and practical language technology applications.  John Benjamins Publishing Company(2021): 303 [NLP 14]. [book, open access]
• Elena Volodina, Yousuf Ali Mohammed, and Therese Lindström Tiedemann. (2021). CoDeRooMor: A new dataset for non-inflectional morphology studies of Swedish. NoDaLiDa 2021 (2021): Linköping Electronic University Press, Vol.178. [pdf] [video-presentation]

2019

• David Alfter, Lars Borin, Ildikó Pilán, Therese Lindström Tiedemann, Elena Volodina. 2019. From Language Learning Platform to Infrastructure for Research on Language Learning. CLARIN-2018 post-conference volume. LiUP Press. [pdf]
• David Alfter, Therese Lindström Tiedemann, Elena Volodina (2019): LEGATO: A flexible lexicographic annotation tool, in Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings, No. 167, NEAL Proceedings of the 22nd Nordic Conference on Computational Linguistics (NoDaLiDa), September 30-October 2, Turku, Finland Editor(s): Mareike Hartman and Barbara Plank

2018

• David Alfter, Lars Borin, Ildikó Pilán, Therese Lindström Tiedemann and Elena Volodina. (2018) From Language Learning Platform to Infrastructure for Research on Language Learning. Clarin-2018.
• Ildikó Pilán. (2018) Automatic proficiency level prediction for Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning. PhD Thesis. Data linguistica 29, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. [link]
• Alfter, David, & Volodina, Elena (2018) Towards Single Word Lexical Complexity Prediction. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (pp. 79-88) at NAACL-2018 [pdf]

2017

• Ildikó Pilán, Elena Volodina, Lars Borin. (2017). Candidate sentence selection for language learning exercises: from a comprehensive framework to an empirical evaluation. TAL Journal: Special issue NLP for learning and Teaching. Volume 57, Number 3. [pre-print]

2016

• Elena Volodina, Ildikó Pilán, David Alfter. 2016. Classification of Swedish learner essays by CEFR levels. Proceedings of EuroCALL 2016, Cyprus. 
• Ildikó Pilán, Elena Volodina and Torsten Zesch. 2016. Predicting proficiency levels in learner writings by transferring a linguistic complexity model from expert-written coursebooks. In Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING), 2016, Osaka, Japan. [pdf]
• Ildikó Pilán, Elena Volodina and David Alfter. 2016. Coursebook texts as a helping hand for classifying linguistic complexity in language learners' writings. Proceedings of the workshop on Computational Linguistics for Linguistic Complexity (CL4LC), COLING 2016, Osaka, Japan. 
• Ildikó Pilán, Elena Volodina. 2016. Classification of Language Proficiency Levels in Swedish Learners' Texts. Proceedings of SLTC 2016, Umeå, Sweden
• Therese Lindström Tiedemann, Elena Volodina, Håkan Jansson. 2016. Lärka - ett verktyg att träna språkterminologi. LexicoNordica, Vol.23. [pdf]

2015

• Elena Volodina, Dijana Pijetlovic. 2015. Lark Trills for Language Drills: Text-to-speech technology for language learners. Proceedings of the 10th workshop on Building Educational Applications (BEA10), NAACL 2015, Denver, USA [pdf]

2014

• Elena Volodina, Ildikó Pilán, Stian Rødven Eide and Hannes Heidarsson 2014. You get what you annotate: a pedagogically annotated corpus of coursebooks for Swedish as a Second Language. Proceedings of the third workshop on NLP for computer-assisted language learning. NEALT Proceedings Series 22 / Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 107: 128–144. [pdf]
• Elena Volodina, Therese Lindström Tiedemann. 2014. Evaluating students' metalinguistic knowledge with Lärka. Proceedings of the 6th Swedish Language Technology Conference. Uppsala, Sweden, 13-14 November 2014.[pdf]
• Ildikó Pilán, Elena Volodina. 2014. Reusing Swedish FrameNet for training semantic roles. Proceedings of LREC 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland. [pdf]
• Elena Volodina, Ildikó Pilán, Lars Borin and Therese Lindström Tiedemann. 2014. A flexible language learning platform based on language resources and web services. Proceedings of LREC 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland.[pdf]

2013

• Pijetlovic, D. & Volodina, E. (2013). Developing a Swedish spelling game on an ICALL platform. In: 20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future. 2013 EUROCALL Conference, Évora, Portugal, Proceedings
• Pilán, I. Volodina, E. and Johansson, R. (2013). Automatic selection of suitable sentences for language learning exercises. In: 20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future. 2013 EUROCALL Conference, Évora, Portugal, Proceedings
• Volodina, E., Pijetlovic, D., Pilán, I. and Johansson Kokkinakis, S. (2013). Towards a gold standard for Swedish CEFR-based ICALL. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on NLP for Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Nodalida 2013, Oslo, Norway. [pdf]
• Volodina, E. & Johansson Kokkinakis, S. (2013). Compiling a corpus of CEFR-related texts. Proceedings of the Language Testing and CEFR conference, Antwerpen, Belgium, May 27-29, 2013. [pdf, p.248-259]

2012

• Elena Volodina, Lars Borin, Hrafn Loftsson, Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir, Guðmundur Örn Leifsson. 2012. Waste not, want not: Towards a system architecture for ICALL based on NLP component re-use. Workshop on NLP in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Proceedings of the SLTC 2012 workshop on NLP for CALL. Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 80: 47-58. [pdf]
• Elena Volodina, Richard Johansson, Sofie Johansson Kokkinakis. 2012. Semi-automatic selection of best corpus examples for Swedish: Initial algorithm evaluation. Workshop on NLP in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Proceedings of the SLTC 2012 workshop on NLP for CALL. Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 80: 59–70. [pdf] 
• Elena Volodina, Hrafn Loftsson, Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir, Lars Borin, and Guðmundur Örn Leifsson. 2012. Towards a system architecture for ICALL. In  G. Biswas et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Computers in Education. Singapore: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education. [pdf]
• Elena Volodina and Lars Borin. 2012. Developing a freely available web-based exercise generator for Swedish. EuroCALL 2012 Proceedings, Gothenburg. [pdf]