Natural Language Processing (NLP) Lesson Plan (Weeks 1–5)
Week 1: Introduction to NLP and Applications
Lesson Content
Definition of Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that enables
computers to interpret, process, and generate human language in a meaningful way.
Real-World Applications of NLP
Virtual Assistants (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant) - NLP helps them understand and
respond to user queries.
Sentiment Analysis - Analyzing emotions in social media posts and customer feedback.
Machine Translation - Translating text between languages (e.g., Google Translate).
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) - Converting spoken language into text.
Sample Program: Tokenization
import nltk
from nltk.tokenize import word_tokenize
# Download the required Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) resources
nltk.download('punkt')
# Sample text
text = "Natural Language Processing is a fascinating field of Artificial
Intelligence!"
# Tokenize the text into words
tokens = word_tokenize(text)
print("Tokens:", tokens)
Code Explanation
nltk is imported to access NLP tools.
The punkt tokenizer is downloaded to enable word tokenization.
A sample text is defined.
The word_tokenize() function splits the text into individual words.
The tokens are printed.
Task 1: Sentence Tokenization
Write a Python script to split a paragraph into individual sentences.
Task 2 (Fun Application): Word Frequency Counter
Create a Python program that counts the frequency of each word in a given text.
Week 2: N-gram Language Models and Part-of-Speech
(POS) Tagging
Lesson Content
What are N-grams?
N-grams are contiguous sequences of N words from a given text.
Unigrams: Single words
Bigrams: Two-word sequences
Trigrams: Three-word sequences
Part-of-Speech (POS) Tagging
Assigning grammatical roles (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) to words in a sentence.
Sample Program: Bigrams and POS Tagging
from nltk import ngrams
import nltk
nltk.download('averaged_perceptron_tagger')
# Sample text
text = "I love natural language processing."
# Generate bigrams
bigram_model = list(ngrams(text.split(), 2))
print("Bigrams:", bigram_model)
# Sample sentence for POS tagging
sentence = "I am learning NLP."
tokens = nltk.word_tokenize(sentence)
tags = nltk.pos_tag(tokens)
print("POS Tags:", tags)
Task 1: Trigram Model
Write a Python script to generate trigrams from a given paragraph.
Task 2 (Fun Application): Mad Libs Game
Create a simple Mad Libs game that replaces specific parts of speech in a sentence with user
input.
Week 3: Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and Sequence
Labeling
Lesson Content
Hidden Markov Model (HMM)
A probabilistic model used for predicting sequences based on observed data.
Sequence Labeling
Assigning labels to sequences of input data (e.g., Named Entity Recognition, POS tagging).
Sample Program: HMM for POS Tagging
import nltk
from nltk.tag import hmm
# Training data: list of (word, POS) pairs
train_data = [[('The', 'DT'), ('dog', 'NN'), ('barked', 'VBD')]]
trainer = hmm.HiddenMarkovModelTrainer()
hmm_model = trainer.train(train_data)
# Test sentence
test_sentence = ['The', 'cat', 'meowed']
tags = hmm_model.tag(test_sentence)
print("Tagged Sentence:", tags)
Task 1: Named Entity Recognition (NER)
Use NLTK's ne_chunk to identify named entities (e.g., persons, locations) in a given text.
Task 2 (Fun Application): Predicting the Next Word
Build an HMM-based word predictor that suggests the next word in a sentence.
Week 4: Syntactic and Semantic Analysis
Lesson Content
Syntactic Analysis
Analyzing sentence structure based on grammar rules.
Semantic Analysis
Extracting meaning from words in a sentence.
Sample Program: Syntax Parsing
import nltk
from nltk import CFG
# Define grammar using a Context-Free Grammar (CFG)
grammar = CFG.fromstring("""
S -> NP VP
NP -> DT NN
VP -> VBZ NP
DT -> 'The'
NN -> 'dog' | 'cat'
VBZ -> 'chases'
""")
# Parse the sentence
parser = nltk.ChartParser(grammar)
sentence = ['The', 'dog', 'chases', 'The', 'cat']
for tree in parser.parse(sentence):
print(tree)
Task 1: Custom Grammar Parser
Define a custom CFG grammar and parse a sentence using it.
Task 2 (Fun Application): Sentence Generator
Create a random sentence generator using predefined grammar rules.
Week 5: Continuous Assessment Test (CAT) 1 Preparation
Review Topics from Weeks 1–4
Tokenization
N-grams and POS Tagging
Hidden Markov Models (HMMs)
Syntax and Semantic Analysis
Task 1: Complete NLP Pipeline
Develop a Python program that:
1. Tokenizes a paragraph.
2. Tags each word with a POS tag.
3. Parses the sentence using a custom grammar.
Task 2 (Fun Application): NLP Chatbot
Develop a basic chatbot that responds to user queries using NLP techniques learned in previous
weeks.
