Introducing OGTE:
The Online Graded Text Editor
www.ER-Central.com/OGTE
Friday, March 15, 2013 from 10:00 AM to 10:45 AM (Diamond Room)
Dr. Charles Browne, CEO EFL Technologies Inc
Dr. Rob Waring,
Professor of TESOL & Applied Linguistics
Professor of Applied Linguistics
Director, EFL Teacher Education Program
Extensive Reading Foundation
Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo Japan
Notre Dame Seishin University, Japan
charlie@charlie-browne.com
waring.rob@gmail.com
Who are we?
•
•
•
•
Committed language teaching professionals
Based in Japan
Over 70 combined years of teaching experience
Vast experience in ELT publishing and online
language learning software development
• Advisors to governments and Boards of
Education
What is OGTE?
• A free text analysis tool for the EFL community
• Part of a large and growing free website that
promotes extensive reading & vocabulary learning
• Allows users to see how difficult certain texts
• Allows users to edit texts to pre-set difficulty levels
on the fly
• Currently has 16 levels of text difficulty
A free resource for Extensive reading
www.er-central.com
Why do we need an OGTE?
COMPREHNSIBLE INPUT
a core and crucial element to second language
development…
Problem:
Reading and listening
materials (i.e. INPUT) are
usually far too difficult for
learners…
When reading a text, students of course will not
know many words…
What percentage of
words do you think must
be known for them to be
able to read easily?
50% ?
75% ?
85% ?
95% ?
100% ?
THE HOBBIT by J.R.R. TOLKIEN
Chapter I: An Unexpected Party
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty,
wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor
yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to
eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with
a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened
on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel; a very comfortable tunnel
without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and
carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of
pegs for hats and coats, the hobbit was fond of visitors. The
tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into
the side of the hill, The Hill, as all the people for many miles
round called it, and many little round doors opened out of it, first
on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the
hobbit; bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries, lots of these ,
wardrobes, he had whole rooms devoted to clothes, kitchens,
dining rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the
same passage. The best rooms were all on the left hand side
going in, for these were the only ones to have windows, deepset round windows looking over his garden and meadows
beyond, sloping down to the river.
75% Coverage
1000 high frequency words
Forestry
[ 15
missing words ]
If * planting rates are *
with planting
*
*
in each * and the forests
*
at the earliest opportunity, the * wood
supplies could further increase to about 36 million
* meters *
in the * 2001-2015. The
additional * wood supply should greatly *
*
* , even if much is used for *
production.
85% Coverage
2000 high frequency words
Forestry
[9
missing words ]
If * planting rates are
with
planting
in each *
and the
forests
at the earliest opportunity, the *
wood supplies could further increase to about 36
million * meters * in the
20012015. The additional _ * _ wood supply should
greatly
__*_
__*__ , even if much is
used for ___* _ production.
95% Coverage
5000 high frequency words
Forestry
[1
missing word ]
If current planting rates are
with planting
in each
and the forests
at the earliest opportunity, the
wood
supplies could further increase to about 36 million
__ * ___ meters
in the
2001-2015.
The additional
wood supply should greatly
, even if much is used
for
production.
Vocabulary Thresholds:
• Below 80%, reading comprehension is
almost impossible
(Hu & Nation, 2001)
• 95% coverage is the point at which learners
can read without the help of dictionaries
(Laufer, 1989)
How to Grade Your Own Reading Texts…
Solution 1: use a text analysis tool
http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/
Problem: Only provides a rough analysis…
How to Grade Your Own Reading Texts…
Solution 2: use a dedicated graded-text
editing tool
What is OGTE?
• A FREE editing tool for teachers and authors
• It allows users to analyze the vocabulary in a text by
pre-set levels
• Allows you to write something to a specific level
• You can add your own wordlists (if you ask nicely)
www.er-central.com/ogte
Black – in level
Red out of list
Red underline – out of level
Green – ignored words
www.er-central.com/ogte
Users select a wordlist
(more will be added
later)
They select a level
within that wordlist
The buttons are tabs
that show various
data analyses
www.er-central.com/ogte
The full wordlist (86,000 TYPES)
OUT OF LEVEL
WORDS
– In the selected list
but not in level
Words in the text which
are in level e.g Level 7
IN LEVEL WORDS
www.er-central.com/ogte
OUT OF LIST
WORDS
IN LIST WORDS
Words in the
selected list (e.g.
the General list
with 4500 words)
www.er-central.com/ogte
www.er-central.com/ogte
All data can be exported to your computer
Exported data:
• Is in Excel format
• can be
manipulated as
you wish
OGTE records various
statistics:
• Total running words
• % in / out of list etc.
• % words ignored
• Etc.
www.er-central.com/ogte
Wordlists
The current General Service list has 16 levels corresponding to
the Extensive Reading Foundations levels.
More wordlists to be added soon
• TOEIC
• Ministry lists
• Business list
Want to add your list? Ask.
www.er-central.com/ogte
www.ER-Central.com
The go-to place for all our Extensive Reading
needs