Abstract:

This paper describes the strategy used in Miniprof, a program designed to provide "intelligent' instruction on elementary topics in French. In case of an erroneous response from a student, the program engages him/her in a Socratic dialogue. It asks specific questions about the sentence involved, thereby leading the student to identify each mistake and its correction. The systematic error detection and subsequent human-like instruction specific to the student's response is achieved by using three major functions: parsing, error diagnostics, and tutoring. The design of the system and the issues involved are discussed.

Author: Gilles Labrie, L.P.S. Singh