Abstract:

An essential part of becoming proficient in any language is to develop and increase the learner’s vocabulary. This is a part of language education and the teaching of grammar, through teaching the structure of sentences and the categories of words to choose from. A common approach in language education is to use grammar tests to practise the basic rules of constructing sentences and increasing the learner’s vocabulary. The teacher’s time is, in many cases, limited and the construction of tests may intrude on more challenging and complex aspects of the teacher’s daily work. However, both grammar and the construction of tests are systematic work that follows a set of rules, which is something that a computer is generally good at. The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate a web application for auto-generating grammar tests to be used in language education.

A design science approach was used in this research to develop a web application in a number of development-iterations. The web application was developed to auto-generate unique grammar tests in Swedish, based on the structure of sentences and word classes in the Swedish language. A theoretical framework for evaluating design science research was used to structure and evaluate each iteration in the development process. The web application was tested and evaluated by language teachers in Swedish K-12 education at different stages of development and on different aspects of the application.

The results of the research show that the teachers are generally positive towards the web application and the assistance in constructing grammar tests. Some of the negative feedback received from the evaluations consisted of: questions in the grammar tests being too difficult for some of their students, and suggestions for adjustments in the design to make the interaction with the application easier. Although the web application needs more work and extensive testing and evaluation in educational setting; the conclusion of the research is that it is possible to develop a web application for auto-generating grammar tests that teachers will find useful in their teaching and learning activities.

Keywords:

Web application, System development, Grammar test, Language education, Design science.