Developing a Text Support Tool for English Language Learners
Jill C. Burstein, Jane R. Shore, John Sabatini, Yong‐Won Lee, Matthew Ventura · 2007
K-12 teachers often need to develop text adaptations of authentic classroom texts as a way to provide reading-level appropriate materials to English language learners in their classrooms. Adaptations are done by hand, and include practices such as, writing text summaries, substituting appropriate vocabulary, and offering native language support. In light of the labor-intensiveness involved in the manual creation of text adaptations, we have implemented the Automated Text Adaptation Tool (ATA v.1.0). This tool uses natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to automatically generate text adaptations that are similar to teacher-created adaptations. We have also conducted a qualitative teacher pilot with 12 middle school teachers who teach English language learners. We present a discussion of the tool and pilot.