Bootstrapping an ubiquitous monitoring ecosystem for accelerating vocabulary acquisition

Abstract

Learning the vocabulary of a new language is a very slow and time consuming process which can take many years of dedicated study. Free reading is known to be important for improving vocabulary and so are optimally timed repetitions of learned concepts. However, these two have not been put together until now. This paper presents the architecture of a monitoring ecosystem of applications which tracks the reading activities of a learner and builds a model of their evolving knowledge. Based on this model it can steer their future reading and studying sessions in such a way as to accelerate the speed with which they acquire new vocabulary. The paper describes several requirements for such an ecosystem, together with a prototpye implementation, and component applications. Finally a series of open questions that highlight opportunities for future research are discussed.