Automatic generation of language exercises based on a universal methodology: An analysis of possibilities

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to examine the possibilities for automatic generation of language learning exercises and compare them to those manually compiled by language instructors. The paper first presents a universal methodology applied in manually created exercises for learning the language for specific purposes, elaborated with examples in the field of academic English. Next, the automation of the procedure is explored through a series of steps which include creating the corpus, analysing each exercise type and the possibility of its automatic generation, automatically generating the exercise, and evaluating the end result. The results of the evaluation suggest that automatic generation of exercises can serve as a preliminary step of a two-stage process of exercises development in which each exercise, however, needs additional approval from the language expert.