SHAPELURN: An Interactive Language Learning Game with Logical Inference

We investigate if a model can learn natural language with minimal linguistic input through interaction. Addressing this question, we design and implement an interactive language learning game that learns logical semantic representations compositionally. Our game allows us to explore the benefits of logical inference for natural language learning. Evaluation shows that the model can accurately narrow down potential logical representations for words over the course of the game, suggesting that our model is able to learn lexical mappings from scratch successfully.

Language in a (Search) Box: Grounding Language Learning in Real-World Human-Machine Interaction

We investigate grounded language learning through real-world data, by modelling a teacher-learner dynamics through the natural interactions occurring between users and search engines; in particular, we explore the emergence of semantic generalization from unsupervised dense representations outside of synthetic environments. A grounding domain, a denotation function and a composition function are learned from user data only. We show how the resulting semantics for noun phrases exhibits compositional properties while being fully learnable without any explicit labelling. We benchmark our grounded semantics on compositionality and zero-shot inference tasks, and we show that it provides better results and better generalizations than SOTA non-grounded models, such as word2vec and BERT.

English Language Learning Strategies at the Syrian Virtual University: students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions

This research seeks to extend our current knowledge in the area of distanct English language learning by exploring the language learning strategies used by students at the Syrian Virtual University (SVU).

Autonomy in Distance English Language Learning

Open and distance learning is experiencing a rapid growth throughout the world and Syria is no exception. With the turn of the new millennium, Syria launched two state institutes for distance learning: The Open Learning Centre (opened in 2001) and the Syrian Virtual University (opened in 2002). The Syrian Virtual University (SVU), one of its kind in the whole Arab region, offers students the opportunity to gain education through an online learning environment based on the latest technology. Since Syria is a country where English has become an important educational requirement, the teaching of English as a foreign language has therefore entered the arena of distance learning.