Student wins top scholarship for on-line language learning idea

When Michael Walmsley came back to finish his degree at the University of Waikato after two years of missionary work in Japan, he didn’t want to forget the language he’d worked so hard to learn.

“I decided to take two Japanese papers on top of finishing my software engineering degree, but it was hard to find the time for language study in a busy schedule,” he says.

The straight A student got thinking about the problem, and came up with an idea to research ways for language learners to reinforce and build their vocabulary through reading texts on-line where some of the words have been replaced with words in the target language.

“I can always find time to read the newspaper to keep up with current affairs, but I can’t do that in Japanese – it’s just too time-consuming,” says Mr Walmsley.

“This way, busy people can squeeze in language study by combining it with their general reading.”

The idea has won him a government-funded Top Achiever’s Doctoral Scholarship, one of just 14 awarded for 2009.

Mr Walmsley will receive $98,000 over three years to research ways to tap into existing online resources, such as Wikipedia and the Wiktionary, to create suitable reading texts for language learners.

“Both Wikipedia and the Wiktionary come in a whole range of different languages, and we can develop software to use these to automatically create suitable texts,” says Mr Walmsley.

“Ultimately we should be able to use the research to create a practical tool for language learners.”

Such a tool might also create simplified texts in the target language, where difficult vocabulary has been replaced with simpler synonyms and English equivalents, or even mobile phone-based applications, such as language learning games to help learners review vocabulary.

This year Top Achiever’s Doctoral Scholarships have gone to five Waikato students, three in computing, one in engineering, and one in social sciences.