Lifelong Learning Programme Application Form -...

Games Online for Basic Language learning / GOBL of 73

Lifelong Learning Programme

Lifelong Learning Programme Application Form

2011 Call for proposals

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

(To be attached to the eForm)


PART C. Organisations and activities This part must be completed separately by each organisation participating in the project (applicant and partners).

Partner number - P 1 Organisation name RU - CLST

C.1 Aims and activities of the organisation Please provide a short presentation of your organisation (key activities, affiliations, size of the organisation, etc.) relating to the domain covered by the project.

Please describe also the role of your organisation in the project. Provide information on the operational and financial management of the project within the organisation (limit 4000 characters).

Radboud University (RU) Nijmegen is situated in the oldest city in the Netherlands. It has nine faculties and enrols over 17,500 students in 107 study programmes. The main strengths of RU research are the way cooperative links are forged across disciplinary boundaries and the continuous exchange of ideas with others working in related areas. The Centre for Language and Speech Technology (CLST, http://www.ru.nl/clst/) and the “Language and Speech” (http://lands.let.ru.nl/), led by Prof. Boves, are part of the department of Linguistics and have an outstanding track record in research and teaching in the area of language and speech technology (L&ST). We collaborate with renowned institutes on the university campus: the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Psycholinguistics on computational modeling of human speech processing, the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information (NICI) on cognitive aspects of multimodal dialogue systems, and the F.C. Donders Institute for cognitive brain imaging (FCDC), offering access to advanced measurement facilities for fundamental research on human speech production and processing. Over the years we have been involved in numerous national, international and EU-funded research projects, (MC-RTN S2S, MC-ITN SCALE and the FP6-FET project ACORNS).

The Centre for Language and Speech Technology (CLST) is also part of the Centre for Language Studies (CLS) at RU Nijmegen and in this context research is conducted on language acquisition in collaboration with colleagues of Communicative Competences (Muysken, Van Hout and from 1 April 2011 B. Schwarz). Communicative Competences is a subprogramme of CLS aimed at understanding how human communicative competences develop and are being acquired and maintained with a special focus on interfering constraints and conditions and on individual differences. This entails the development of theories on human language learning and on the role of cognitive, linguistic and social factors in triggering and establishing communication. In this field CLS cooperates with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Klein, Roberts) and the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information (Dijkstra). Relevant previous and current projects are: Dutch-CAPT, 2001-2007 (http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/Dutch-CAPT) "Implications of

potentially erroneous feedback in CALL systems" DISCO, 2008-2011 (http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/DISCO/) aimed at developing and testing an

CALL application for training oral proficiency for Dutch as a 2nd language (DL2). FASOP, 2009-2012 (http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/FASOP.html) aimed at investigating the

essential role of corrective feedback in L2 learning of syntax in oral proficiency through a CALL system that makes use of automatic speech recognition.

MPC, 2010-2012 (http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/MPC.html) We will develop a computer program that students can use to practice English anytime and anywhere they want.

CLST will lead the effort in developing the L&ST required in the present project.


The operational and financial management of this project will be carried out by a project manager at Radboud University (at CLST) taking care of HRM and financial implementation. The administration will reside on the larger level of Radboud University's HRM and financial departments.

Radboud University being coordinator of the project, the project manager at CLST will take care of the communication between EC and the partners. CLST's own employees take care of day-to-day hour administration which is directly linked to the internal project management and administration. At the level of the university, we receive further assistance with the legal management of the project.

CLST, as part of Radboud University, has experience in coordinating several national and European projects such as STREPS (e.g. ACORNS), and Marie Curie networks (RTN and ITN).


C.2 Technical capacity: Skills and expertise of key staff involved in the project / network Please add lines as necessary.

Name of staff member

Summary of relevant skills and experience, including where relevant a list of recent publications related to the domain of the project.

Dr. Helmer Strik

H. Strik has carried out research and published more than 100 papers on various speech related topics, e.g. pronunciation (modeling), automatic speech recognition (ASR), and ASR for computer assisted language learning (CALL). He is a member of the International Speech Communication Association Special Interest Group (ISCA SIG) on Speech and Language Technology in Education (SLaTE), and a guest editor of a special issue of the Speech Communication journal on SLaTE. Strik, H., van de Loo, J., van Doremalen, J., & Cucchiarini, C. (2010)

Practicing Syntax in Spoken Interaction: Automatic Detection of Syntactic Errors in Non-Native Utterances, Proceedings of the SLaTE-2010 workshop, Tokyo, Japan.

Strik, H., Truong, K., de Wet, F., Cucchiarini, C., (2009) Comparing different approaches for automatic pronunciation error detection. Speech Communication 51 845-852.

van Doremalen, J. , Cucchiarini, C. , Strik, H. (2009) Automatic Detection of Vowel Pronunciation Errors Using Multiple Information Sources. Proceedings of the biannual IEEE workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding (ASRU) 2009.

Strik, H., Cornillie, F., Colpaert, J., van Doremalen, J., Cucchiarini; C. (2009) Developing a CALL System for Practicing Oral Proficiency: How to Design for Speech Technology, Pedagogy and Learners. Proc.SLaTE, Wroxall Abbey.

Dr. Catia Cucchiarini

C. Cucchiarini worked at the Centre for Language and Education of K.U. Leuven and has been working at the University of Nijmegen on various projects on language learning and testing and the application of ASR to second language training and testing. She has supervised PhD students and has published many articles in international journals and proceedings. In 1999 she joined the Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) as a senior project manager for language policy and Human Language Technologies (HLT), where she has led user requirement surveys in the field of language and speech technology (L&ST) applications for education and communicative disabilities. Currently, she is a member of the editorial board of the international journal Computer Assisted Language Learning. Doremalen, J. van , Cucchiarini, C., Strik, H., (2010) Optimizing automatic

speech recognition for low-proficient non-native speakers. Accepted for publication in EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing.

Cucchiarini, C., Neri, A. and Strik, H. (2009) Oral Proficiency Training in Dutch L2: the Contribution of ASR-based Corrective Feedback. Speech Communication, Volume 51, Issue 10, October 2009, Pages 853-863.

Neri, C. Cucchiarini, H. Strik, and L. Boves (2009) The pedagogy-technology interface in computer-assisted pronunciation training. In: Hubbard, P. (Ed.) (2009). Computer Assisted Language Learning: Critical Concepts in Linguistics, Volumes I-IV. London & New York: Routledge; Chapter 25, pp. 140-164.


Partner number - P 2 Organisation name KULEUVEN - ITEC



ITEC stands for Interdisciplinary Research team on Technology, Education & Communication. It is a research centre that brings together researchers from various existing research groups of the University of Leuven in a cooperative structure housed at KULAK, a remote campus of Leuven situated in Kortrijk. Besides their participation in ITEC, the researchers also belong to the existing research structures of the K.U.Leuven. In this way, a close cooperation with other research units, including the Department of Linguistics, the Department of Computer Science, the Centre for Instructional Psychology and Technology, the Centre for Methodology of pedagogical research, is also structurally secured. At the same time the explicit interdisciplinary character of the research themes and the approach clearly distinguish this research from the research conducted by research units at Leuven, who work mainly within their discipline. ITEC conducts applied as well as fundamental research in four disciplines: educational technology, computer science, linguistics and language methodology, and methodology and statistics. The primary focus of ITEC is on research in which the abovementioned four disciplines interact. More specifically, research is done on domain-specific educational technology and Computer Assisted Language Learning. Specific research topics within this line include:

Adaptive Learning Systems, Web Mining for e-Learning Environments, Mobile Learning, Electronic Assessment, Educational Gaming.

Other topics too belong to the objectives of ITEC, provided that at least two of the disciplines interact. These topics can help the central research line. Examples include:

Annotation of textual databases, Corpus CALL: development of parallel corpora, effectiveness research on e-learning, multimodal and multilingual digital libraries, integration of NLP tools in e-learning environments.

In the domain of Computer-Assisted Language Learning, and at a European level, ITEC has played a key role in the development of products such as FRANEL (http://www.franel.eu), a free on-line language learning course for Dutch-speaking learners of French and for French-speaking learners of Dutch, and Medi@tic (http://www.kuleuven-kortrijk.be/mediatic/), a free on-line multimodal database with authentic video materials for learners and teachers of French and Dutch. On a national level, ITEC has been involved in several R&D language learning projects such as the IOF knowledge platform (“Harnessing collective intelligence in order to make e-learning environments adaptive”); LLINGO (“Language Learning in an Interactive Gaming envirOnment); MAPLE (“Mobile, Adaptive and Personalized Learning Experience”). Results of these national projects are currently in a state of finalization, and ways of valorization in commercial and/or freely accessible end-products are being explored. The role of ITEC in this project is to elaborate a conceptual design for minigames for language learning; to develop language learning content for Frenchto design and perform evaluative tests for learners of French; and to disseminate the project results.


ITEC currently employs 46 people, including 4 tenured professors; 5 senior researchers; 15 Ph.D. candidates; 6 project collaborators; 1 voluntary scientific researcher; 2 staff members for operational and financial management; 1 software architect; and 12 associated members. The operational and financial management of this project will reside both on the level of the research team and on the larger level of the university. Within ITEC, our administrative staff will take care of day-to-day administration (reporting, financial management, personnel management, etc.). We also enjoy support from the administrative offices of the KULAK campus. At the level of the university, we receive further assistance with the financial and legal management of the project, and can assist in the economic valorisation of the project’s results.




Prof. dr. Piet Desmet

Piet Desmet (° 1965) is full professor of French linguistics and language teaching methodology at the Linguistics Department of the K.U.Leuven. His research focuses on French and general linguistics and on French teaching methodology, with a particular interest in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. He serves as a member of the Leuven research unit French, Italian and Comparative Linguistics. He also coordinates the KULAK research team ITEC (Interdisciplinary Research on Technology, Education & Communication) which investigates educational technology across disciplines. He is the National Representative of EUROCALL for Belgium. He is director of many projects in the CALL-field on such topics as adaptive language learning environments, CorpusCALL, serious gaming, mobile learning and e-testing. With his team, he received the CALICO Access to Language Education Award for www.franel.eu in 2006. He supervises PhD's on adaptive learning, feedback, input enhancement and writing aids. He is guest editor of a special issue of the ReCALL journal (Cambridge University Press) on digital games for language learning. Wauters, K., Desmet, P., Van Den Noortgate, W. (2010). Adaptive Item-

Based Learning Environments Based on the Item Response Theory: Possibilities and Challenges. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26 (6), 549-562.

Vandewaetere, M., Desmet, P. (2009). Introducing psychometrical validation of questionnaires in CALL research: The case of measuring attitude towards CALL. Computer assisted language learning: an international journal, 22 (4), 349-380.

Desmet, P. (2007). L'apport des TIC à la mise en place d'un dispositif d'apprentissage des langues centré sur l'apprenant. ITL: review of applied linguistics, 154, 91-110.

MA Frederik Cornillie

Frederik CORNILLIE received an M.A. in English & German Languages and Literature at K.U.Leuven (2004), and a teacher certificate degree, also from K.U.Leuven (2006). He taught foreign languages in secondary education, and worked at the University of Antwerp as a project and research collaborator in the field of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (2005-2009), before joining ITEC in 2009. He applies his expertise in language teaching and software design to projects on a daily basis. He co-designed and developed the multiple award winning language learning website http://www.eurocatering.org . His Ph.D. research focuses on the use, perception and effectiveness of feedback in game-based language learning environments. He is guest editor of a special issue of the ReCALL journal (Cambridge University Press) on digital games for language learning.


Cornillie, F., Desmet, P., Clarebout, G. (2011). The role of feedback in the instruction of L2 pragmatics through serious games. Languages, Cultures and Virtual Communities. Proceedings of EuroCALL 2010. EuroCALL 2010. Bordeaux, 8-11 September 2010.

Cornillie, F. (2010). Foreign language learning in immersive gaming environments: a state of affairs. Enhancing Language Learning: Research, Innovation, and Evaluation in CALL. Proceedings of CALICO 2010. CALICO 2010, 10-12 June 2010, 33-33.

Strik, H., Cornillie, F., Colpaert, J., Van Doremalen, J., Cucchiarini, C. (2009). Developing a CALL System for Practicing Oral Proficiency: How to Design for Speech Technology, Pedagogy and Learners. SLaTE 2009 proceedings. SLaTE 2009. Warwickshire, England, 3-5 September 2009 University of Birmingham.

MA Ann-Sophie Noreillie

Ann-Sophie NOREILLIE obtained an M.A. in Romance Languages and Literature (French & Spanish) at K.U.Leuven (2007), a post-initial master in Didactics of French as foreign language at Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III (2008), and a teacher certificate degree at K.U.Leuven (2008). She currently works as a content developer for French as foreign language on the European COBALT project, and teaches Business French at BLCC. Noreillie, A.S., Grisez, V., Desmet, P. (2011). (Semi)authentic audio-visual

materials for the A2 level in the online language learning environment FRANEL: pitfalls and challenges. Languages, Cultures and Virtual Communities. Proceedings of EuroCALL 2010. EuroCALL 2010. Bordeaux, 8-11 September 2010.

Dr. Carmen Eggermont

Carmen Eggermont has a Ph.D. in French Linguistics and is teaching assistant at the Linguistics Department of the K.U.Leuven at Kortrijk. She also teaches French for specific purposes at the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics. She is a member of the Leuven research unit French, Italian and Comparative Linguistics and of the Kortrijk research team ITEC (Interdisciplinary Research on Technology, Education & Communication). She is involved in the project TAALPORTAAL , which offers students extensive on-line language training for self-study, and furthermore aims to facilitate access to foreign language programmes at the university for learners in secondary education. Before she was a teaching assistant, she taught French in secondary education and worked as a research assistant, first as a member of the PROTON project, which composed computerized dictionaries of French and Dutch verbal valencies, and later in the Lingu@tic project, which resulted in the on-line language learning environment Franel www.franel.eu . Eggermont C., Gevaert C., Houzet E., Vandebosch D., 2011. ‘Taalportaal :

een voorbeeld van e-learning voor (toekomstige) studenten taal- en letterkunde’, Cahiers F : revue de didactique français langue étrangère / Cahiers F : didactisch tijdschrift Frans vreemde taal.

Desmet P., Eggermont C., 2006. ‘FRANEL : Un environnement électronique d’apprentissage du français qui intègre des matériaux audio-visuels et qui est à la portée de tous’, Cahiers F : revue de didactique français langue étrangère / Cahiers F : didactisch tijdschrift Frans vreemde taal, 3de trimester, 39-54.


Partner number - P 3 [P1 – Pn] Organisation name Televic Education



Televic Education products & market Televic Education combines the two important components of computer assisted learning: classroom control for contact learning (Avidanet) and technology for e-learning or distance learning (Edumatic). For both domains Televic Education has designed and developed its own solutions based on in-house expertise such as multimedia processing (audio, video), rich internet applications (flash, html5, silverlight) and development for embedded platforms (mobile tablets). Televic Education has a strong international focus, with offices in France and the UK and customers all over the world. Edumatic is a high level authoring and publishing tool for developing exercises and tests for web and stand-alone applications. Next to a wide range of exercise types, Edumatic has built a strong reputation with its intelligent feedback options, adaptive paths and both qualitative and quantitative statistics generated from the tracking and logging of students’ activities. Televic Education does not only develop the software for such solutions, it also has a track record in hosting these solutions on the web as well as installing and maintaining the solutions at the customers’ premises. In recent years, Edumatic has become a solid partner for both government organizations (Selor, Syntra, VDAB, Kenya Ministry of Education) and companies (bpost, Airbus, AGIHR) for e-evaluation, online assessment and recruitment. Televic Education R&D approach Although Televic Education is an SME, annually 10% of the turnover is used for R&D. Since the turnover has increased in the last 3 years, the R&D budget has also increased. Currently 11 people are employed in the Televic Education R&D department, with education degrees ranging from bachelor up to PhD level. Televic Education aspires to continuously expand and enrich its range of products with the available technologies and to pioneer on the market with new technologies. Therefore the necessary basic research is also being conducted. At Televic Education, a process is in place to identify relevant IPR and take necessary steps to ensure correct valorisation/protection options. Televic Education continues its innovative path in several research projects involving many universities in Belgium and abroad. At the national level, Televic Education is currently actively involved in interdisciplinary research projects in collaboration with IBBT such as LLINGO (“Language Learning in an Interactive Gaming environment”); MAPLE (“Mobile, Adaptive and Personalized Learning Experience”). Results of these national projects are currently in a state of finalization, and the IPR relevant for continued research in the context of this project proposal is available to Televic Education. Televic has experience in European projects and more specifically in language learning projects, like Lingu@tic or Savoirs Numériques 5962. Role of Televic Education In this project, Televic Education will apply its technical expertise to co-realise the solutions proposed and make them available for use during the project life cycle on the hosting platform of Televic Educaiton. Furthermore Televic Education will be actively involved in exploring post project exploitation routes to ensure valorisation of the project results.


C.2 Technical capacity: Skills and expertise of key staff involved in the project / network Name of staff member


Bert Wylin

Bert Wylin (°1970) was a university researcher since 1993, in the field of education innovation and computer assisted language learning. He published several articles and books about the integration of the Internet and technology in education. In 2001 he founded a university spin-off company, now Televic Education, to develop educational multimedia products and services: platforms, websites, cd-roms, dvd's, games. Now, he divides his time between the business unit management for the Televic Education educational multimedia projects (mainly publishers, (high) schools and major companies and public authorities) and research and implementation projects in the field of computer assisted (language) learning.

Piet Verhoeve

Piet Verhoeve (°1968) has a Master of Science degree in Electrical Mechanical Engineering from the K.U.Leuven University (1991) and a Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from the Ghent University (1998), Belgium. He worked as a software architect in the domain of automatic speech recognition software at Lernout & Hauspie before he joined Televic in 2001. At first he was responsible for setting up innovation & research in collaboration with institutes, universities and engineering schools. Within four years he brought Televic from an unknown SME company to a well valued partner in several R&D projects collaborating with different universities on national and European level. During this period he architected the Avidanet Tenjin solution for Televic education, which has been a leading innovative product for classroom interaction until today. As of 2004 he started exploring the new upcoming home care market and how to define use cases to bring the potential of eHealth technologies to real life implementations within the operational healthcare market. In 2007 he continued towards the operational business lead for the niche market Healthcare as business unit manager where he acquired hands on valorization experience. Last year he has taken up a position at a strategic level of the company to define and enable long term oriented strategic projects and alliances for the Televic niche markets Healthcare and Education. As of april 2011, Piet Verhoeve takes up a position as formal guest lecturer at the Multimedia Lab research group of department ELIS (Electronics & information systems), faculty of applied engineering at the University of Ghent. Piet Verhoeve has 26 publications and applied for 3 patents. He is Sr. member IEEE and has been member of 7 PhD examination boards

Sylvie Venant

Sylvie Venant is Televic Education’s R&D manager. She has 8 years of experience in this position. Sylvie Venant is specifically skilled in multimedia learning systems, both offline and online. She has been working for years in the design of multimedia classroom systems, evolving recently towards more web-oriented technologies for learning and testing. Since 2008 she also coordinates the development of the e-assessment platform Edumatic Exam. Before joining Televic, Sylvie Venant worked in the field of speech technology (Automatic Speech Recognition and Text-To-Speech algorithms) and multimedia coding technology.

Sylvia Joos

Sylvia Joos is Televic Education’s project manager. She has an Ma. in Languages and Lingusitics. Her skills include e-learning project management, documentation and e-learning course writing, consulting in e-learning implementation and in dematerializing evaluation processes. Sylvia Joos has 4 years of experience in e-assessment technology implementation. Before joining Televic, she worked in the field of e-learning authoring and in the field of speech technology.


Partner number - P 4 [P1 – Pn] Organisation name Newcastle University



Newcastle University is a member of the 20-strong group of leading research-intensive UK universities and is ranked 17th in the UK for research power (according to “Research Fortnight”) and in 2009 was amongst the top 10 higher education institutions in the UK for income from UK research council awards. At the same time Newcastle is a “civic” university located in the city centre, with a remit to respond to “societal challenges”. It currently has over 20,000 students, of whom a quarter are postgraduates, in three faculties – Medical Sciences, Science, Agriculture and Engineering, and Humanities and Social Sciences (the largest), in which the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, and the Language Resource Centre, are located. Within the School the Applied Linguistics Section specialises in research into the relationship between first language (L1) and second language (L2) use and learning, L2 classroom interaction, and the use of technology in language learning. It also runs one of largest Masters’ degrees in Applied Linguistics for language teachers in the UK, as well as the largest taught PhD programme in Applied Linguistics in the UK.

The Language Resource Centre at Newcastle provides language learning resources for members of the University and the public and has 4,000 registered users. The Centre provides a dedicated location for independent learning for over fifty languages with resources that range from books to Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) software, and web-based multimedia material. The Centre operates two language learning websites which are designed to promote language learning to schools in the region, forming part of a project developed to further the Centre’s strategy of engagement with the local community. All of the material is humorous and aimed at creating a non-threatening fun atmosphere to facilitate the learning process. The Centre has a further community engagement remit and has worked with local refugee support groups to assist with the English language learning as well as being available to adult members of the public and those engaged in life-long learning programmes. Relevant current and previous projects include:

Linguacast : Websites promoting language learning in schools within the region (http://linguacast.ncl.ac.uk/ and http://www.universed.co.uk/ )

Auralog: A project to investigate the use of self-teaching computer-based material for modern European languages.

Criterion: An investigation of the washback effect of providing automatic automatic computer-based feedback on written work (http://revistas.um.es/ijes/article/view/119231)

NEWCID: Newcastle Classroom Interaction Database - transcriptions and media files of language learning classroom interaction (https://internal.ncl.ac.uk/newcid/ - internal link)





Scott Windeatt

Scott Windeatt is a Senior lecturer and former Head of the Applied Linguistics and TESOL Section in the School of Education Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University. His main specialism is Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and he was one of the founder members of the original EUROCALL organisation. He teaches modules on CALL to Masters’ and PhD students, and has supervised numerous PhDs in the area of CALL, language teaching and assessment, and autonomous learning. Windeatt, S. (forthcoming) “Computer-based language testing: the final

frontier“ in Alderson, C. et al (eds) Proceedings of the Language Testing Forum, University of Lancaster 2010

El Ebyary, K. and Windeatt, S. (2011) 'The impact of computer-based feedback on students' written work', International Journal of English Studies, 10, (2), pp. 121-142. (http://revistas.um.es/ijes/article/view/119231)

Windeatt, S., D. Hardisty and D. Eastment (2000) The Internet: a Resource Boofor Teachers, Oxford University Press

Andrew Grenfell

Andrew Grenfell is the Open Learning Resources Manager for the School of Modern Languages at Newcastle University, and manager of the University Language Resource Centre. He has a background in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and management, a Masters degree in Cross Cultural Communication and International Management and has worked on two major refugee support projects most notably the Refugee Language Support Unit of the Trinity College Dublin Action Research project.


PART D. Project characteristics D.1 Why does the consortium wish to undertake this project?

Rationale of and background to the project

Please outline the motivation behind your project, clearly identifying the specific needs or problems/challenges which it intends to solve. Explain why these needs/problems were selected over others, and how the project proposal fits within the development strategies of the partners involved. Please include references to any declared regional, national, EU or international political priority in this area.

Also, please describe briefly how your project proposal was prepared (e.g., capitalising on previous experiences, based on achieved outcomes in former projects, following previous cooperation amongst the consortium members, etc.) (limit 6000 characters).

Adults and young people with low foreign language skills are commonly marginalized in European society. More specifically, a lack of basic communicative proficiency in foreign languages is an obstacle for (re-)integration into the labour market, especially in SMEs1. Also, adults and young people who lack basic communicative skills in foreign languages are less mobile in Europe, in educational as well as in economic contexts2.

Although European Member States invest significant effort into foreign language education, a number of social groups display a low degree of participation in language learning programmes. First, young people who drop out of formal education before attaining a degree from upper secondary education do not acquire the foreign language skills needed to integrate into the labour market and European society. Although Early School Leaving has decreased throughout Europe in the period spanning 2000-2009, more effort is needed to reduce ESL under 10% by 20203. A second group comprises adults, whose participation in lifelong learning programmes is still relatively low, despite considerable efforts at European level4. This results in inadequate language skills, especially among socially disadvantaged groups. A third group consists of immigrants in particular. The European Union considers giving immigrants access to opportunities to enhance their basic knowledge of the language of the host country a basic principle for successful integration into European society5, as well as into the European labour market6. For these three groups, i.e. early school leavers, adults with a low participation in language learning programmes, and immigrants, it may be argued that low proficiency in a foreign language is to a certain extent due to motivational factors and a lack of awareness, and that this target group may need an approach which transcends the national education systems.

With respect to the foreign language curriculum, two aspects deserve more attention. First, practicing speaking skills, in general, receives little attention in language classrooms, because of lack of time. However, speaking is a crucial skill in a second or foreign language and is relevant for all learners,

1 Davignon, E., Albrink, W., Dyremose, H., HJanssen, M., Jenner, C., Gomes de Pinho, A., Hussain, W., Klimek, S., Legernes, L., Mathews, P., Kostoris Padoa

Schioppa, F., Proszeky, G. (2008). Languages Mean Business. Companies work better with languages. Recommendations from the Business Forum for Multilingualism. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

2 Bonin, Holger, Eichhorst, W., Florman, C., Hansen, M.O., Skiöld, L., Stuhler, J., Tatsiramos, K., Thomasen, H., Zimmerman, K.F. (2008). Geographic Mobility in the European Union: Optimising its Economic and Social Benefits. IZA Research Report No. 19.

3 European Commission (2010). Reducing early school leaving. Accompanying document to the Proposal for a Council Recommendation on policies to reduce early school leaving. Brussels. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/education/school-education/doc/earlywp_en.pdf .

4 European Commission (2007) Action Plan on Adult Learning. It is always a good time to learn. Brussels. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/adult/com558_en.pdf .

5 European Commission (2005). Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social committee and the Committee of the Regions - A Common Agenda for Integration - Framework for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals in the European Union.

6 Lodovici, M.S. (2010). Making a success of integrating immigrants into the labour market. Retrieved from http://www.peer-review-social-inclusion.eu/peer-reviews/2010/making-a-success-of-integrating-immigrants-into-the-labour-market/synthesis_report_no10/download


independent of their background and educational or professional objectives. Research has indicated that practicing speaking skills is essential to learn to speak the target language7. Second, it may be argued that attention to formal and explicit knowledge of grammar and vocabulary has waned in recent years. Research shows that formal aspects of language acquisition are just as important to achieve proficiency in a second or foreign language as fluency-related aspects8, and that grammar errors are known to persist also after years of immersion in the language of the host country9. The provision of feedback on errors is crucial in order to remedy this situation10.

In this project we address the needs of learners with low language skills because there is a high demand for qualitative, motivating learning materials for the lower levels of the CEFR. We choose the www as medium of delivery because online applications are more accessible than products that have to be bought or specially installed on a user's PC. We choose gaming (instead of other tuition methods) because it has been shown to be an appealing medium of learning for learners in this category11 and because we believe it can assist in overcoming the lack of motivation that is often observed in the social categories mentioned (given their preference for the internet as medium of entertainment). Finally, the material proposed for the minigames will specifically address components in the foreign language curriculum that deserve more attention (these components are also chosen over others because they can be incorporated into minigames).

This project fits well into the development strategies of the involved partners. CLST has ample experience in developing language and speech technology (L&ST), esp. automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, for language learning applications, addressing aspects of speaking proficiency such as pronunciation, morphology, and syntax, for Dutch and English. Research has addressed crucial issues such as automatic error detection, pronunciation and fluency assessment and pronunciation quality measures optimization. The present project is in line with our strategy of porting and applying our technology to new languages and new contexts such as serious gaming.

Over the years, ITEC has developed the free bilingual (Dutch-French) e-learning environment www.franel.eu for adults and language learners in secondary education. At the national level, ITEC is involved in several educational gaming R&D projects. ITEC’s long-term strategy is to combine the motivational elements of gameplay with qualitative and free e-learning content for foreign languages, and to disseminate knowledge to its large network of partners in adult learner organizations, secondary schools, and the world of business.

The Language Resource Centre at Newcastle has a track record in providing a whole range of possibilities for independent learning for over fifty languages including CALL software and web-based multimedia material. This project is in line with its policy of developing humorous language learning material aimed at stimulating language learning in a non-threatening, fun atmosphere. Innovation through research is a core focus of Televic Education. This software integrator company has ample experience with serious games, and has in the past developed educational games for publishers, teachers, and universities on a national level. Now, the time has come to valorise these products and experiences on a European level. By joining forces in this project, the partners wish to elaborate on and strengthen previous cooperation in order to develop and disseminate knowledge and products in the largely unexplored terrain of free, web-based educational minigames.

If your proposal is based on the results of one or more previous projects / networks, please provide precise references to this / these project(s) / network(s) in the table below.

Please add tables as necessary.

7 DeKeyser, R. (2007). Practice in a second language, chapter Introduction: Situating the concept of practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. 8 Housen, A. & Kuiken, F. (2009) Complexity, accuracy and fluency in second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics 30, 4, 461-473. 9 Han, ZhaoHong. (2004). Fossilization in Adult Second Language Acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 10 Sheen, Y. (2010). The Role of Oral and Written Corrective Feedback in SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 169-179. 11 Herselman, M. E. (1999). South African Resource-Deprived Learners Benefit from CALL through the Medium of Computer Games. Computer-Assisted Language Learning, 12(3), 197-218.


Reference number

Project / network dates (year started and completed) 2001-2007 Programme or initiative

Title of the project / network Dutch-CAPT: Dutch Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training

Coordinating organisation CLST

Website http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/Dutch-CAPT/

Password / login if necessary for website

Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters). A pronunciation training program was developed to provide feedback on segmental errors in Dutch as L2. For language learners that used this program the decrease in the number of pronunciation errors was substantially larger, compared to a control group that did not use our system. The knowledge and insights gained in this project can be used to the benefit of GOBL.

Reference number


Title of the project / network

DISCO: Development and Integration of Speech technology into Courseware for language learning


Website http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/DISCO/


Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters). In this project we develop a program for practicing oral proficiency, which gives feedback on errors in pronunciation, morphology, and syntax. We test this system with language learners of Dutch.

In GOBL we can capitalize on the expertise, data and technology developed in this project.

Reference number


Title of the project / network FASOP: Feedback and the Acquisition of Syntax in Oral Proficiency


Website http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/FASOP/


Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters).

Computer programs for practicing oral proficiency that provide automatic feedback on syntax are used to implement, compare and test different types of (corrective) feedback, in order to find out which ones are more effective. In GOBL we can build on the expertise, insights, data and technology resulting from this project.


Reference number


Title of the project / network MPC: My Pronunciation Coach


Website http://lands.let.ru.nl/~strik/research/MPC.html


Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters). We aim to develop a computer program that students can use to practice English proficiency anytime and anywhere they want. We start with Dutch learners of English, focussing on pronunciation (sounds and word stress). Later we look at other L1's, and other aspects of oral proficiency: vocabulary, grammar, fluency, etc. In GOBL we can profit from the expertise, data and technology resulting from this project.

Reference number

Project / network dates (year started and completed)

01.01.2008-31.12.2012 Programme or initiative Interreg IVa

Title of the project / network

Cobalt - COmmunicating and building Bridges thanks to the Acquisition of Languages through Technologies

Coordinating organisation KULeuven-KULAK (ITEC)

Website http://www.kuleuven-kortrijk.be/cobalt http://www.franel.eu

Password / login if necessary for website Users can self-register on the Franel website.

Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters).

The main aim of the Cobalt project is to develop the online language learning environment Franel. Franel is freely available on the web for all those wishing to improve their French or Dutch through interactive learning activities based on authentic video material. Franel makes a valuable contribution to language practice, intercultural communication and language instruction in a region where the knowledge of the language of the neighbour is crucial for socio-economic development.

Considering the large demand for the lower levels in educational institutions and the employment market, Cobalt concentrates on the development of modules for A2 and B1 levels.

The GOBL project will benefit directly from this focus on A2 and B1, but goes further as it offers similar materials in a game-based environment. As the results of the COBALT and GOBL project are/will be publicly available, and partners in both projects will mutually benefit from the results, copyright will not be an issue.


Reference number

Project / network dates (year started and completed)

01.10.2009-30.09.2011 Programme or initiative

IBBT-ICON (Flemish R&D funds)

Title of the project / network LLINGO

Coordinating organisation IBBT (Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology)

Website http://www.ibbt.be/en/projects/overview-projects/p/detail/llingo-2

Password / login if necessary for website -

Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters). The aim of the LLINGO project is to a) produce a prototype (proof-of-concept) of an immersive game-based language learning environment, based on authentic language tasks; b) to conduct effectiveness and user research on this environment, and to c) investigate the extent to which this environment can be used as an add-on to face-to-face teaching and blended learning contexts. At the time of writing, content has been developed and research is being carried out on the environment. As a number of private companies are involved in this project, who have ownership over the technologies and produced materials, direct usage of the materials and technologies in the GOBL project is not possible. However, the GOBL project will benefit from the expertise and knowledge gathered on educational games in the LLINGO project, as KULeuven-ITEC is the lead academic partner for educational technology.

Reference number

Project / network dates (year started and completed) 2005 (ongoing) Programme or initiative

Title of the project / network Linguacast

Coordinating organisation Newcastle University, Language resource Centre

Website http:// linguacast.ncl.ac.uk/

Password / login if necessary for website N/A

Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters). Linguacast and Universed (www.universed.co.uk) were devloped in order to provide supplemntary web-based lanauge learning resources for shool pupils and teachers. The sites provide teen-focused content and are of a style that will attract young users. Universed is a cross-platform initiative with on-line social networking and user-generated content and is a celebration of culture and diversity, combining photographs, videos, audio files, bookmarks and blogs and other resources, from all across the globe. Both the Linguacast and Universed web-sites provide content of a type that appeals to the younger age-group targeted in the current proposal and, above all, of a type that motivates learners who might otherwise have relatively little interest in language learning. The experience of working on these projects is therefore of direct relevance to the current project. The material is freely available for use on the web.


Reference number

Project / network dates (year started and completed) 2011 - 2012 Programme or initiative

Title of the project / network Auralog “Tell me More”

Coordinating organisation Newcastle University, Language Resource Centre

Website http://www.ncl.ac.uk/langcen/news/item/auralog-tell-me-more


Please summarise the project / network outcomes and describe (a) how the new proposal seeks to build on them and, (b) how ownership / copyright issues are to be dealt with (limit 1000 characters). This project is aimed at the older of the two age groups targeted in the current project and has the aim of investigating online learning of languages, and in particular of the use of speech technology. The project has only recently begun, but the results are likely to be relevant to the current proposal especially in terms of the technical issues raided by the use of technology for voice recognition.

Rationale for the setting-up of the consortium

Please explain why the selected partners are best suited to participate in this European project. Describe complementary skills, expertise and competences within the consortium directly relating to the planned project activities (limit 3000 characters).

The project partners have complementary expertise and form an optimal consortium for achieving the objectives of the project.

CLST has a track record in developing and optimizing language and speech technology (L&ST) for language learning applications. Expertise on language teaching and language pedagogy is also available at the university language centre Radboud In´to Languages, which is a partner in various projects. Through the language centre and the networks established in previous projects we will be able to reach a large number of adult and young language learners (see E.1).

ITEC has experience in designing, developing and evaluating CALL systems, mainly for adult and secondary school language learners. It also has a research track in educational games.

Televic Education has expertise in developing game based applications for different purposes, in particular for language learning. As an integrator, they have experience in valorising and maintaining the results of R&D projects.

Newcastle University brings to the project knowledge, resources and expertise on language teaching in general, and CALL and English teaching in particular. In addition, through its network of teachers and students and its community engagement it will be able to contact large numbers of learners in the two target groups.

The partners in the consortium, together with the associated partners, have ample access to the appropriate language learners for the current project. These learners will be involved in user-centred design and evaluation.

Since this project aims to develop relatively advanced technology-based language learning material, the consortium has been deliberately limited to a minimum of significant and indispensable partners. In addition, three representative languages are addressed in this project: two widely spoken European languages, English and French, and one of the lesser used languages: Dutch. We will start by developing minigames for English, port content and technology to the two other languages, and provide guidelines for porting it to even other languages. The importance of this project must also be sought in its innovative and exemplary nature: if the materials proposed and developed here turn out to work as envisaged, they may be extended and ported to other languages.

Investigation of the field (state of the art) and innovative character


Please explain how the field of operation has been explored and indicate what the project is offering that is new and what are the main innovating elements (limit 3000 characters).

Educational minigames are small and self-contained games which focus on specific well-defined learning topics, which are highly reusable, cost-effective, and motivating.

Over the last few years, games have been used to motivate and emancipate socially disadvantaged citizens, such as people with health problems12 13, deaf people14, people with dyslexia15, and young boys ‘at risk’ who drop out of formal education programmes16.

Games have also been put to use for language teaching purposes. Virtual world-based (2D/3D) language learning games have been developed (e.g. 17 18 19), but these products typically target advanced language learners. Many of these games, moreover, remain in a phase of prototyping, are only used for research, or stay within the confines of the academic or military world. This may be due to practical reasons, such as the availability of expensive hardware, but also because these products are not designed with specific audiences in mind and are mainly technology-driven. As a result, many of these virtual world language learning games are not accessible to the large mass of (low-skilled) language learners, who need them most.

A number of minigame products exist, both via commercial licenses20 and through freely accessible websites21. The latter free websites, however, do not offer tracking and logging capabilities which do exist in non-game-based free e-learning environments. As a result, these websites offer a one-size-fits-all approach for the learning content, and take learner interests or characteristics only to a limited extent into account. In summary, existing minigames for language education are not adapted to the needs of the learner.

Opportunities to practice speaking skills through minigames are missing altogether. ASR technology has until now especially been integrated in full-immersive avatar-based games 22 23.

Minigames are particularly fit for low-skilled and/or disadvantaged language learners. First, minigames require only basic technical skills and hardware, and are easy to learn. Second, research indicates that resource-deprived language learners both prefer and profit more from minigames than from complex strategic games24. Third, online minigames are typically embedded in other websites, such as social networking services. Research indicates that low-educated people make more usage of the web as a medium for entertainment (including games) than highly-educated people25.

In a nutshell, what is missing today is free web-based minigame content for practising basic language, including oral skills, integrated into a platform which motivates learners to keep practicing, also outside of formal language teaching contexts. This project aims to fill this gap in the state-of-the-art so as to increase the proficiency of low-skilled language learners, both in formal and in informal learning contexts.

12 Kato, P.M. (2010). Video Games in Health Care: Closing the Gap. Review of General Psychology, 14 (2), 113-121. 13 Gamberini, Luciano, Barresi, Giacinto, Majer, Alice & Scarpetta, Fabiola. (2008). A game a day keeps the doctor away: A short review of computer games in

mental healthcare. Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation, 1(2), 127-145. 14 Gastão Saliés, T., & Starosky, P. (2008). How a deaf boy gamed his way to second-language acquisition: Tales of intersubjectivity. Simulation & Gaming, 39(2),

209-239. 15 Smythe, I. (2010) Dyslexia in the Digital Age. Making IT work. London: Continuum. 16 Steinkuehler, C., & King, E. (2009). Digital literacies for the disengaged: creating after school contexts to support boys’ game-based literacy skills. On the Horizon,

17(1), 47-59. 17 Sykes, J. M. (2008). A dynamic approach to social interaction. Synthetic immersive environments & Spanish pragmatics. 18 Hubbard, P. (2002). Interactive Participatory Dramas for Language Learning. Simulation & Gaming, 33(2), 210-216. 19 Johnson, W. L., Vilhjalmsson, H., & Marsella, S. (2005). Serious games for language learning : How much game, how much. AI ? AIED 2005. IOS, Amsterdam. 20 e.g. My Dutch/French/Spanish Coach, MindSnacks Spanish 21e.g. http://www.digitaldialects.com/, http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/games, http://beta.visl.sdu.dk/games_gym.html 22 Li, R.-C., & Topolewski, D. (2002). ZIP & TERRY: A New Attempt at Designing Language Learning Simulation. Simulation & Gaming, 33(2), 181-186. 23 Johnson, W. L., Vilhjalmsson, H., & Marsella, S. (2005). Serious games for language learning : How much game, how much. AI ? AIED 2005. IOS, Amsterdam. 24 Herselman, M. E. (1999). South African Resource-Deprived Learners Benefit from CALL through the Medium of Computer Games. Computer-Assisted Language

Learning, 12(3), 197-218. 25 Van Deursen, A.J.A.M. & Van Dijk, J.A.G.M. (2010). Trendrapport Computer en Internetgebruik 2010. Een Nederlands en Europees perspectief. Enschede:

Universiteit Twente.


D.2 Aims and objectives Please define the concrete aims and objectives of the project / network and describe the ways in which the situation set out under the previous section (D.1) will be changed. (limit 3000 characters).

This project aims to provide low-skilled youths and adults with low language skills free access to materials for the development and/or improvement of basic foreign-language communicative proficiency through minigames. Minigames are particularly appealing for these two groups who often suffer from lack of motivation, because they can be designed in such a way as to maximize learner motivation (see D1). This will be achieved by addressing communicative situations that are relevant for each of the two target groups, that take account of their expectations and goals, and by introducing elements of competition and reward.

We will develop minigames that focus on specific well-defined topics, in order to practice on-line knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, and basic communication skills, which are aspects that usually receive little attention in today's language learning curricula. The advantages are that these aspects can relatively easily be addressed through human language technology while the extra teacher time that is freed up when these aspects are addressed in minigames can be employed for practicing other linguistic aspects that do require interaction with a teacher. As research has shown (Housen and Kuiken, 2009), a good command of these linguistic aspects is as necessary to achieve proficiency in a second language as fluency-related aspects.

An additional, innovative aspect of this project is that L&ST, and esp. ASR technology will be incorporated in many exercises, which will make it possible for learners to practice speaking skills and receive corrective feedback from the system on their speaking performance.

From a societal point of view, a crucial element is that the minigame content developed within the project will be made available for free to the large audience of low-skilled language learners. In this way, we aim to bridge the gap between formal and informal learning for this particular group, and to help them (re-)integrate into the labour market and society.

By achieving the aims outlined above, this project will contribute to the following objectives:

1. Supporting the development of innovative and more efficient ICT-based and L&ST-based content, services, pedagogies and practice for the teaching and learning of foreign languages and host country languages for immigrants.

2. Help less skilled adults and youngsters improve their communication abilities in foreign and second languages.

3. Promoting language learning and linguistic diversity.

4. Improving the attractiveness of and access to language education, especially for low-skilled language learners, disadvantaged and marginalised citizens and migrants.


D.3 Methodology Please define the methodology proposed for achieving the objectives (including major milestones, measurable indicators, etc) (limit 3000 characters).

First releases of games seldom reach the market success that is obtained by game titles that have several versions. This is mainly due to the complex design process of games, which needs to keep a close eye on technological, content-related and motivational aspects. For educational games, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that game design needs to be levelled with instructional design and teaching methods, and that this medium still has to catch on in formal education. This not only requires a strongly inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach, but also a methodology that takes into account the complex interplay of user research, instructional design, content development, and technological development.

The integration of ASR technology in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs needs to be done with specific care. ASR technology has reached a level of maturity sufficient for language learning applications, but still has a number of limitations, which need to be closely guarded in the design process. First, ASR for foreign language learning needs to be adapted to the speech of non-native speakers, and to the kind of mistakes they make. Second, in the context of web-based minigames, ASR technology needs to be optimized for web-based delivery, and the software design has to take into account several platforms, browsers, and contexts in which it will be used.

In order to tackle these conceptual and technological difficulties adequately, we will:

focus on small & self-contained minigames;

identify and isolate potential problems early on in the project by making lists of technical, user-related & pedagogical requirements, in order to limit the design space and reduce risks in development;

rely on existing platforms and technology as offered by Televic Education (for the minigames) and by CLST (for L&ST, esp. ASR).

We will use an iterative and user-centred methodology, which will allow us to design, develop and test the product in small but well-organized steps. Target users will be involved in several stages of the design and testing, so that we can take into account their needs, and can deliver a product which appeals exactly to these audiences. Independent external experts will be called in to give advice and feedback on pedagogical and gaming aspects.

A schematic overview of the interaction and dependencies between the work packages is shown below (grey=management, green=implementation, red=quality assurance, blue=dissemination, purple=exploitation):


The time schedule of GOBL is shown below in Figure 1.

WP3 Technology

WP4 Content and integration

WP5 Evaluation

WP6 Dissemination

WP7 Exploitation

WP2 Design

WP1 Management


.

WP & Deliverables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

WP2. Design

D2.1. Requirements

D2.2. Conceptual design A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 B1 B1 B1 B1 B1

WP3. Technology development

D3.1. Data & annotations

D3.2. L&ST A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 B2 B2 B2 B2 B2

D3.3. Feedback generation A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 B2 B2 B2 B2 B2

D3.4. Minigames A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 B2 B2 B2 B2 B2

WP4. Content & Integration

D4.1. Content A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 B2 B2 B2 B2 B2

D4.2. Integration A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 A2 B2 B2 B2 B2 B2

D4.3. Platf. conf. & access A3 A3 A3 A3 B3 B3

WP5. Evaluation

D5.1. Develop eval. Instr.

D5.2. Perform evaluations A4 A4 A4 A4 A4 B4 B4 B4 B4

Figure 1. Time schedule of GOBL. After the requirements studies(D2.1) , the work is organized in 2 cycles (A & B), each consisting of 4 phases (of which the first three are partly overlapping). For more details, also regarding the other work packages, see section G.


D.4 European added value Please describe the benefits of and need for European cooperation (limit 3000 characters).

The various partners bring to the project their own expertise and resources and combine them to obtain results that cannot be achieved at a national level.

Supporting low-skilled youngsters and adults in their development of communicative skills in a second or foreign language is an important policy objective in many European countries. Language skills are considered key elements in promoting participation, social cohesion, linguistic diversity, intercultural dialogue, mobility and employability for all citizens regardless of their age and socio-economic background. For specific, less advantaged groups of low-skilled learners such as migrants or people who did not receive sufficient education, learning a foreign language or the language of the host country constitutes an important instrument to facilitate access to the labour market and thus improve their socio-economic position.

Too often initiatives for promoting language learning are deployed at a local or national level, without taking into account resources, language materials and practices developed elsewhere. This applies to learning content which, once developed for one language, can easily be localized in various other languages. However, localization and portability are even more relevant when it comes to costly approaches and advanced technologies, which, with the necessary caution and appropriate measures, could in principle be applied to more than one language.

In the GOBL project expertise, content and state-of-the art technologies contributed by different, complementary partners are employed in a concerted action to develop advanced, engaging and motivating language learning minigames for low-skilled learners of three different European languages in an efficient but pedagogically sound way. The material and technology developed in this project together with the experience gained in evaluating the minigames with different groups of learners will provide a valuable knowledge basis to develop similar applications for other languages.

Another important advantage of the European dimension for this project is that because organizations from different European countries are involved, we can develop and test the language learning materials with different target groups of learners in one project. To illustrate, English language learning material developed in the UK can be tested with adult foreign language learners in Belgium and the Netherlands, and with immigrants learning the language of the host country in the UK. In turn this will increase the impact of the project and the exploitation possibilities of its results.


D.5 Budget and cost effectiveness Please describe the strategy adopted to ensure that the proposed results and objectives will be achieved in the most economical way. Explain the principals of budget allocation amongst partners. Indicate the arrangements adopted for financial management ((limit 3000 characters).

The first strategy to ensure that the objectives outlined in the project are indeed achieved concerns the composition of the consortium. We decided to select a limited but sufficient number of complementary partners, so that the combination of their diverse expertise would ensure that the results be obtained. This seemed particularly important in a project that aims at developing relatively advanced learning material that cannot be realized for many different languages at the same time because of lack of resources (non-native speech data) and dedicated technology that are in general expensive to develop.

In line with this choice, the division of labour and consequent budget allocation within the project are such that each partner will carry out the work for which it is specialized.

In addition, to ensure cost effectiveness we decided to reuse as much as possible not only our expertise, but also the material and technology previously developed which will be repurposed for the aim of the present project. We try to capitalise as much as possible on previous experiences and projects in the various countries. Where possible, content, software, language resources and human language technology previously developed by the partners or available at other institutions will be reused to the benefit of the present project.

Finally, to contain the project costs it was decided to have a limited number of physical meetings (four), where these are considered to be really necessary for the success of the project, while the other two coordination meetings will take the form of conference calls or Skype meetings. Also the other 3-monthly progress meetings will be conference calls or Skype meetings.


PART E. Impact, dissemination and exploitation, sustainability

E.1 Expected impact of the project Who will use these project outputs / products / results and how will the consortium reach them?

Please describe how the target groups (including participating institutions, stakeholders) will be reached and involved during the life of the project (limit 3000 characters).

The results will benefit different target groups: 1. Low-skilled adult and young learners of English, French and Dutch as a foreign and second

language in various European countries and beyond, who can use the language learning minigames developed in this project.

2. Teachers of these languages in various countries who will can use the minigames in courses. 3. Language teaching institutions which will be able to use the minigames and evaluate their use by

adopting the various evaluation instruments developed in this project. 4. Publishers of language learning materials which can use the developed minigames as examples. 5. Companies that develop CALL technology and applications, which will be given the

opportunities of using the speech data and relative annotations made available by the project partners.

6. Academic institutions that carry out research on language learning and teaching, lifelong learning, CALL and speech technology, which will have the opportunity of using the learning material, the protocols, the data collected and the evaluation instruments for their own research.

These target groups will be reached in different ways: 1. Learners will be involved in focus groups (WP2) to provide input for the system design, and in the

evaluation (WP5). We have contacts with different schools and teaching institutions. 2. Teachers will be interviewed at the beginning of the project (WP2) and will be involved in the

evaluation (WP5). 3. Language teaching institutions and schools: contacts have been established previously with the

consortium partners and their networks of language teaching institutions, schools. 4. Publishers and CALL companies have been contacted for previous projects. 5. Academic institutions can be reached through networks in which we are already involved such as

Cercles, IRUN, META-Net, EFNIL, CLARIN, SLaTE, and EuroCALL. During the project workshops will be organized first to get input on the target groups and later to present the minigames and provide hand-on experience. These will be organized in two phases:

a) at M4: to elicit (for WP2) teachers’ and ICT coordinators’ perceptions of e-learning applications for language, and to raise their awareness of (the potential of) such products. E-learning applications will be shown that were previously developed by the partners. This will also allow WP3 to gather non-native speech data.

b) towards the end of the project: to disseminate the final version of the minigame platform (including speech recognition).

Through the consortium partners, the associated partners, and their networks we will also be able to reach the various communities and disseminate the knowledge, learning material, language resources, technology and expertise developed within the project.

Please describe how the target groups (including participating institutions, stakeholders) will be reached after the project is finished (limit 3000 characters).


After the project is finished the results (knowledge, learning material, language resources, technology and expertise) will remain available through different channels: websites, publications, and various repositories. Through these dissemination media we will be able to reach potentials users and promote outreach activities that extend beyond the life-time of the project.

The impact of the GOBL project can be characterized from different perspectives:

- Transfer of knowledge: the project aims at interconnecting the different consortium partners and through them it will reach organizations and stakeholders of a very different nature, thus promoting transfer of knowledge and expertise among these groups which belong to different disciplines and traditions. Even though mobility and participation at conferences on language learning and teaching and related subjects has increased in recent years, we noticed that very often work on e-learning, human language technologies and gaming often goes unnoticed within the language learning community. Our project aims at filling this gap by avoiding reduplication of initiatives and by stimulating reuse.

- Reuse of materials will be facilitated by making these available as much as \possible through various language resources initiatives such as CLARIN and META-Net.

- Support multilinguality and plurilingualism: the project will support linguistic diversity in Europe by facilitating the acquisition of other European language beyond the mother tongue and by raising awareness of the existence of valuable contents and language e-learning systems that can be applied to other, commercially less attractive languages.

- Promote the use of CALL and serious gaming: the potential of CALL and serious gaming is not yet fully exploited, especially for disadvantaged groups of learners. The project fills this gap by allowing for transfer of knowledge and best practice in this area. Those groups of the population which traditionally have more difficulties in accessing education, such as disadvantaged students and migrants, will benefit from these developments. The developed materials will improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of language learning for individuals independently of time and place.


E.2 Dissemination and exploitation strategy How will the dissemination be organised and how will exploitation activities ensure optimal use of the results? (limit 3000 characters). The results of the project will be disseminated through different channels:

Website: the project will have its own website where information related to the language resources and tools, learning materials and developed products will be made available, as well as copies of the reports and information about relevant events. The website will act as a portal to access information and material developed in the project. Information exchange is the main purpose, both between the members of the consortium and the language learning communities.

Workshops will be organized for the target groups in two phases: a) at M4: to elicit (for WP2) teachers’ and ICT coordinators’ perceptions of e-learning applications for

language, and to raise their awareness of (the potential of) such products. E-learning applications will be shown that were previously developed by the partners. This will also allow WP3 to gather non-native speech data.

b) at M18: to disseminate the results of the first version of the minigames (including speech recognition), and to get feedback from intermediary users (language teachers and ICT coordinators). This workshop will also allow us to familiarize language teachers with the software that is to be tested soon after with language learners in classrooms (WP5).

Presentations at scientific and technological events: in order to promote dissemination of the results achieved within the project, we will guarantee our presence and visibility at major academic and industrial events. This can be done in the form of paper presentation or through the organization of special sessions or workshops dedicated to priority topics.

Publications in journals: where possible the results of the projects will be presented in relevant journals such as ReCALL, CALL, Language Resources and Evaluation.

Reports: the main scientific results of the project will be summarized in reports which will be made available to the language learning and teaching community both on the web and in paper format.

Mailing list and Newsletter: email lists and newsletter will be used to disseminate the information within the relevant communities.

As mentioned before, users will be actively using the CALL minigames built during the lifetime of the project (on a free basis). Based on these experiences, all partners will examine possible routes for exploitation after the project ends. Televic Education’s profound expertise in hosting language learning solutions and its extended collaboration with academic partners form a solid base for such exploitation scheme. The successful exploitation of previous research projects (e.g. www.franel.eu) constitutes a good reference point. At the end of the project, a specific valorisation path will be defined based on the different exploitation options identified. The current commercial hosting service of Televic can be a starting point for further exploitation, however alternative valorisation strategies will be examined.


E.3 Sustainability How will the impact of this project be sustained beyond its lifetime? How will the results be mainstreamed and multiplied in the sector of activity? (Limit 3000 characters) The results obtained in the project will cover a whole range of deliverables, varying from reports on technical and pedagogical requirements for ASR-based minigames, non-native speech databases with the relative annotations, minigames for English, Dutch and French, many exercises with ASR, and protocols for minigame evaluation from different perspectives. To guarantee that these results remain available for professionals, students, teachers, researchers, companies and publishers beyond the lifetime of the project different measures will be taken.

First of all, the dissemination strategy adopted in this project will ensure that the results are propagated through different media and remain publicly available. In addition, the sustainability of the project results will be secured by distributing the materials through specialized data centres in the various countries involved and centralized repositories at European level. These will take care of the project outputs and will prolong their lifecycle and promote their valorisation. In the Dutch language area the Dutch-Flemish HLT Agency has been active in the last five years to guarantee that digital resources developed within projects funded with government money remain available for research and development even after the projects have been completed. Similar organizations are being set up in various countries also within the CLARIN project as CLARIN data centres. In addition, within the META-Net initiative a central European repository called META-SHARE is being created which will ensure availability and accessibility of languages resources throughout Europe. Finally, we will make use of the EURODIS initiative taken by EuroCALL, the European organization for computer-assisted language learning, which actively promotes and disseminates the results of European CALL-related projects through a website.

Given all these possibilities we will seek cooperation with different partners to guarantee that the results of the project become available for different communities in education, academia and industry.


PART F. Action or programme specific information This section should allow you to provide specific information related to the Action under which you are submitting your application. Please refer to the "Instructions for Applicants" (limit 3000 characters).

The GOBL project aims to address the acquisition of grammar, vocabulary and basic communicative skills in Dutch, English and French as a foreign language. Through this aim, it will support the development of innovative ICT-based content, services, pedagogies and practice for lifelong learning as well as promote language learning and linguistic diversity. Each language is represented by partners from a country where it is an official language. The representatives all have experience in one or more aspects of teaching one of the target languages as a second or foreign language. The consortium also represents a good balance between partners who are more experienced in developing the enabling technologies that will be required in the project and those who are more knowledgeable on the didactic strategies of foreign language teaching. The partners will combine their expertise to develop and test educational minigames, i.e. innovative ICT-based language learning programs, with content for adult and young learners of different languages. Guidelines for the appropriate use of the minigames will also be provided to language teachers. A novel aspect of the proposed minigames is that they incorporate L&ST, and esp. ASR for at least two of the target languages. Incorporating ASR into the games allows for speaking practice, which is particularly important for developing basic communication skills. Gaming is specifically incorporated into the project’s strategy to promote language learning as an attractive activity. Moreover, successful language learning contributes to linguistic diversity. During the project, learning materials for English, French and Dutch that address culturally relevant topics for young and adult learners will also be developed. The GOBL project brings together a partnership that is particularly well-equipped to promote European cooperation in fields covering two or more sectoral subprogrammes. The project partners have complementary expertise to develop and test minigames for young and adult learners of English, French and Dutch. The participation of partners from different European countries creates the opportunity to test these innovative CALL materials in different contexts of second and foreign language learning and to extend them to other languages. In addition, the project will enable the partners to improve their expertise and expand their European networks. Educational minigames can improve the instructional potential of learning materials by stimulating motivation. By promoting wide use of free educational minigames specifically designed for language learning, this project wishes to improve the quality of blended learning programmes over Europe, in secondary schools as well as in adult training. In this manner, it aims to promote the quality and transparency of Member States' education and training systems.


PART G. Work plan and work packages IMPORTANT: Sections G.1 to G.3 should be duplicated and completed together for each work package. G.1 Identification

Work package number 1 Work package title Management

Work package type

Management Implementation (the substance of the work planned including production, testing, etc)

Quality Assurance (quality plan) Dissemination Exploitation of results

Start Month number 1 End

Month number 36 Duration in number of months 36

Description of the work package (limit 3000 characters)

WP1 ensures that the consortium is coordinated and managed in an efficient and effective way and thatcommunication between the consortium proceeds smoothly. The management of the project has been designed in such a way as to facilitate the most effective and efficient monitoring and implementation of the project activities that have been organized into seven work packages (including the management work package). The project will be coordinated by the Project Coordinator (CLST). Each work package is managed by one of the partners who will appoint a work package Leader. The main objectives for the project management are summarized as follows: Co-ordination of the project from the administrative, technical and strategic point of view Liaison with the Commission services, implementing the adequate reporting and reviewing mechanisms Putting in place adequate consortium communication structures Defining and maintaining the quality of the project work and deliverables Organizing regular meetings with the consortium partners Setup of communication facilities, including mailing lists, web-server for data exchange, net-meetings

and a project website with private section for consortium members (see also dissemination) Preparation of periodic reports to the Commission services Preparation and organization of consortium meetings including agenda and minutes Monitoring of the scientific content and progress made according to deliverables and milestones;

supervision and implementation of risk assessment and benchmarking strategies Communication with the Commission services Clustering and networking activities with other projects/events on the European and national level

During the project regular meetings will be organized by the project coordinator. The majority will be in the form of conference calls. Every 3 months a conference call will be held to monitor the activities and exchange information. Four of the meetings will be physical meetings, which will be organized at crucial moments in the project:

1. M01: kick-off meeting

2. M14: during cycle A, before the evaluation

3. M26: during cycle B, before the evaluation

4. M36: final meeting


G.2 Deliverables – outputs / products / results Please add tables as necessary.

Deliverable number 1.1

Title Physical Meeting 1: kick-off meeting

Type of outcome / product / results

Delivery date 1 Dissemination level

Public Restricted to other programme participants (including Commission services and project reviewers)

Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including EACEA and Commission services and project reviewers)

Nature

Report Service / Product Demonstrator / Prototype Event Other

Language versions English

Target languages English, Dutch, French

Description (limit 1000 characters)

The first meeting will be the kick-off meeting which will take place in the first month of the project.

During this meeting a first inventorization of technological, pedagogical and affective requirements will be drawn up for the two target groups of learners in secondary schools and in adult education. In addition, the potential and feasibility of ASR for different speaking activities will be discussed together with other technological aspects such as hardware and internet access. Demonstrations will be given by the various partners on existing software, including software developed by the partners themselves, in order to further familiarize the partnership with the current state-of-the-art. Finally, plans will be made for gathering additional data on user requirements by the different partners through various techniques: focus groups with learners; interviews with teachers and/or pedagogical administrators.




Title Physical Meeting 2: during cycle A, before the evaluation





Nature





We have aimed to be realistic in planning two development cycles in this 3-year project, in which different technological versions of the system will be developed and tested with real target users.

The second physical meeting will take place when a large part of cycle A is already finished (design, development of technology, content, and platform configuration), and integration and development of evaluation instruments has just started. These issues, and especially (the preparations for) the evaluations will be discussed.




Title Physical Meeting 3: during cycle B, before the evaluation





Nature





The third physical meeting will take place when a large part of cycle B is already finished (design, development of technology, content, and platform configuration), and integration and development of evaluation instruments has just started. These issues, and especially (the preparations for) the evaluations will be discussed.




Title Physical Meeting 4: Final meeting





Nature





The final meeting will address a number of topics: presenting the final results of the project discussing strategies for further dissemination of the products and results of this project discussing additional possibilities for exploitation of the results and outreach activities.


Please explain how the overall project management will be implemented making specific reference to the management structure of the partnership, how decisions will be taken and how the partnership proposes to ensure permanent and effective communication and reporting (limit 1000 characters).

Each partner will be responsible for its own project management and administration. The overall project management will be carried out by the main project coordinator (Radboud University Nijmegen).

The tasks will be:

Overall Project Management: day-by-day management and co-ordination of the project (communication with the Commission, co-ordination and integration of the WPs, monitoring of the on-going activities, timely production of deliverables, and budget in relation to planning of work packages, managing the overall budget, writing reports).

Overall Project Administration: Each year, partners will send the necessary administrative documents to the project coordinator, who will integrate the individual financial overviews in the interim and financial reports.

Cooperation and communication between partners will be ensured through:

International meetings between the partners, (physical meetings and conference calls)

A website

A project secretariat at RU.

Explanation of work package expenditures

Please explain and justify budget items included in the detailed budget that relate to this work package, specifically, where relevant under the headings: "travel and subsistence (of the staff of the consortium)", "equipment" and "other" (limit 3000 characters).

Costs for the overall project management, coordination and administration by the main project coordinator (RU). Costs for own (local) project management, coordination and administration by each of the partners. Travel and subsistence for 'physical' project meetings (4 in total). Travel and subsistence for participation in meetings organised by the Agency (2 meetings per year).


G.1 Identification

Work package number 2 Work package title Design

Work package type






In this work package, we design the e-learning environment, which will consist of a number of reusableminigame components, an integrated access to these minigames through feedback and reward mechanisms, and content for the minigames. In order to reduce ‘design creep’ and risks in development, we will identifyrequirements early on in the design process, and take an iterative approach in development (WP3-WP4) and testing (WP5), which will feed back into the design. The conceptual design needs to take into account a complex interplay of technological, pedagogical and affective requirements. First, technological requirements will be listed. The benefits and constraints of ASR for stimulating productive speaking practice in on-line minigames need to be identified. Also, given the varied target audience, we need to look at other technological aspects such as hardware and internetaccess. Second, although a functionally-oriented language learning method based on the CEFR will be used,we need to be aware of other pedagogical aspects such as the integration of the minigames in blended learning contexts, both in secondary schools and in adult education. This seems crucial, given the fact that educational games for language teaching are new. Third, the motivations of language learners, as well as their dispositions towards language learning through educational games will be charted. Data for these requirements will be mainly gathered through user research (focus groups with learners; interviews with teachers and/or pedagogical advisors). As far as technology is concerned, we aim to proceed in an iterative manner, and to implement ideas after each design iteration. Also, by having tests of the system feed back into the design process, we aim to involve the target groups to the maximally possibleextent. As far as quality control is concerned, we consider the (intermediate) results of this WP to be adequate if we can ascertain positive enjoyment in the target groups during playtesting (WP5). We will also consult(where possible and available) external experts (CALL experts, experts in game design) in our network, whocan judge the quality of the materials, and give advice on how to further fine-tune and develop the materials. As each partner has access to a different target group, all partners will be involved in gathering requirements. KULeuven-ITEC (P2) will be responsible for synthesizing the requirements and findings.

Design prints (especially visual mock-ups) will be shared among the partners at regular intervals, especially between the project coordinator (P1) and the lead partner of WP2 (P2), since these partners will manage and direct the overall technological development in the project. What is more, because of its strongly interdisciplinary profile, P1 is well placed to judge the overall quality of the work delivered in WP2. To this purpose, during the two design phases, additional 1-monthly Skype-meetings will be held among P1 and P2.


G.2 Deliverables – outputs / products / results Deliverable number D2.1

Title Requirements

Type of outcome / product / results Report on user, technological and pedagogical requirements




Nature





This document contains the set of requirements that forms the basis of the project’s design. Requirements will be gathered from the perspective of the target users, as well as for technological and pedagogical aspects. Data gathered through user research (focus groups with learners; interviews with teachers and/or pedagogical administrators) will be combined with an overview of the most important technology requirements.

Annexes to this document will include

the transcription of the focus groups/interviews with language learners, language teachers and coordinators (ICT, pedagogical advisors, …);

an updated list of educational minigame software for language learning;

an updated list of CALL software which features speech recognition;

references to (where possible, validated) scales which can be used to gauge enjoyment and motivation of game-players (for WP5);

an academic bibliography on the topics addressed.


G.2 Deliverables – outputs / products / results Deliverable number D2.2

Title Conceptual design

Type of outcome / product / results Report with specification of the design




Nature





This document contains the specification for the technology (WP3) and content and integration (WP4) developers. It will consist of:

a list of features that will be / have been implemented in the project, along with their priority of development;

a set of design notes and visual mock-ups which describe and visualize the required features;

flow charts and/or use case documents in order to demonstrate the logic of the system;

data models for the content of the application.




As we want to maximize our chances on getting sufficient and adequate target users participate in the design process (through focus groups, interviews), we foresee some costs for the participants of the requirement surveys, e.g. to cover travel expenses and for incentives (e.g. film tickets as a reward for taking part in the interviews). Other than that, the lead and other partners in this WP have the necessary means (basic computer hardware, library access, etc.) to fulfil the tasks mentioned above.


G.1 Identification

Work package number 3 Work package title Technology development

Work package type






This work package addresses the development of minigames to practice communicative strategies, vocabulary and linguistic features of the target language. In addition, ASR technology for Dutch and Englishversions of the minigames will be developed to convert the learners’ speech output into text for the exercises addressing speaking skills. Subsequently, dedicated technology to analyse the learners’ speech and detect possible errors will also be developed. Finally, appropriate feedback techniques will be designed for thevarious exercises to indicate to the learners whether and where they have made errors. In order to develop the ASR technology required for the productive oral exercises, we will collect speechdata and possible corresponding orthographic or other relevant annotations at the various locations. These data will be used to train the ASR engine. Subsequently specific technology will be developed to identify thereading errors in the oral exercises. Both types of technology will be developed for Dutch and English.




Title Data & annotations

Type of outcome / product / results Data and annotations




Nature


Language versions English, Dutch

Target languages English, Dutch


Developing ASR-based applications for language learners implies having to deal with non-native speech which, for many reasons, is more challenging than native speech. While for many languages databases of native speech are available, corresponding databases of non-native speech are in general lacking, which makes it even more challenging to develop ASR applications for language learners. In this project we will try to cope with this dearth of data by trying to collect existing speech data as much as possible. Many of these data do exist at various institutions because they have been recorded for testing purposes, but have so far not been exploited for the purpose of training ASR modules. This will benefit the present project, but possibly also others as these data will be made available as much as possible.

Subsequently, once the system is developed, additional speech data can be collected throuh it. This could be used for fine-tuning the system, but also for other applications.




Title L&ST

Type of outcome / product / results Technology




Nature


Language versions English, Dutch

Target languages English, Dutch


Language and speech technology (L&ST), esp. ASR, will be employed to analyse the learners’ language output. For Dutch and English L&ST will be developed to recognize the spoken utterances produced by the learners. Since it is known that recognition of non-native speech is problematic, exercises will be developed such that the possible answers by the users are restricted. A list of correct and incorrect responses will be used to limit the recognition task. It will be studied which decoding technique is most suitable for this task: a possibility is to use confidence measures to identify an utterance in the list of possible responses, another possibility is to use the list of responses to train constrained language models. In doing so, care will be taken to also include a number of possible meta-responses, such as the equivalents of ‘I don’t understand’.




Title Feedback generation

Type of outcome / product / results Report on feedback




Nature


Language versions English, Dutch, French



This deliverable concerns the generation of appropriate feedback. The speech recognition module (see previous deliverable) will determine which utterance was spoken and which errors were made. The learner will be given feedback on the recognized utterance and on the errors produced. Different techniques for providing feedback to the learners will be investigated. Eventually, a selection of most appropriate feedback moves for the different exercises will be made. A report on this study will be made available as deliverable.




Title Minigames

Type of outcome / product / results Minigames




Nature





A number of minigame types will be developed, which can be used by the partners in WP4 to implement various types of content and activities. The minigames will be implemented as webservices, so that they can be launched from any platform. These minigame types will each have a separate authoring interface, so that content authors can easily add, change or delete parts of the content. Close collaboration will be set up with WP2, which will provide the data models as well as the flow of the minigame activities.




All partners will look for existing non-native speech recordings and make them available to the project.


G.1 Identification

Work package number 4 Work package title Content and Integration

Work package type






In this WP, we will develop content for the minigames, we will integrate the minigames into an architecture, and we will set up access to the content, architecture, and speech recognition service.

First, content will be developed for the three languages (English, Dutch, and French). As the aim of the project is to improve the language skills of low-skilled learners, we will focus on the A2 level of the CEFR. Content will be developed by partners in the country where the language is spoken, and validated in the countries where it is taught.

Second, we will develop a minigame architecture, which integrates the minigames into a coherent framework for its users. This integration will be adapted to the target groups, and will take place on several levels:

a) visual: a visually appealing interface through which users can navigate to the separate minigames will be developed;

b) rewarding mechanisms: learners will get rewards for their activities in the minigames, which may have consequences at the level of the minigame platform, or which may be used at later stages in the game flow;

c) sequencing: minigames will be sequenced for the learners on the basis of tracking and logging data, and appropriate minigame content will be selected 'under the bonnet'.

Finally, access to the minigame platform and ASR service will be set up. The starting point for this will be the platform developed by Televic which will be adapted to include a client-server architecture that integrates an ASR module, and several modules for further processing of the ASR output in an environment in whichmedia content produced by the various partners for the various languages can be incorporated. The system also supports a simple mechanism for the generation of feedback and it comes with a tool that supports theimplementation of new exercises on the basis of existing media content. The APIs of all components of thesystem will be re-analyzed and adapted/extended where necessary for the requirements of the minigames developed din this project. The ASR module will be based on the SPRAAK engine.

Users will be able to self-register, and will then log on to the minigame website through a username and password. If deemed necessary, single-sign-on (SSO) access can be set up, so that users can log on to the minigame website through their university's website or e-learning system.

Close links will be established with WP2 for the design, and with WP3 for the technical development of the minigames and human language technology. Through WP2, WP4 will also interface with WP5, where the minigame content and platform will be evaluated. The design will be adjusted, according to the recommendations of these evaluations.




Title Content

Type of outcome / product / results Content, learning materials




Nature





Content will be developed for the three languages (English, Dutch, and French).

a) Content will deal with grammatical, lexical and communicative aspects, clustered in (cultural) topics. In addition to the CEFR, content developers will take into account the findings gathered through focus groups in WP2.

b) The quality and cultural validity of the content will be evaluated by partners in other countries. Content needs to be cross-checked for cultural appropriateness. The Dutch content, which will be developed in the Netherlands, will need to be appropriate for learners of Dutch both in the Netherlands and in the Dutch-speaking community in Belgium. The same applies to the English content, which will be checked for appropriateness in the UK.

c) Sound recordings will be made for content focusing on speaking.

d) Finally, content will be integrated and distributed in the minigames through an authoring interface, which will be provided by P3.




Title Integration

Type of outcome / product / results Demonstrator




Nature





This deliverable concerns the software which will be responsible for the integration of the minigames into a coherent rewarding and progress mechanism. It consists of :

a) tracking & logging functions through which learners’ interactions with the minigames will be collected ;

b) algorithms which determine the rewarding mechanisms and game flow on the basis of tracking & logging data;

c) functions which translate the current progress of the learner into an interface (web pages).

The results of this software will be made available to the target group through deliverable D4.3, in which all the modules are implemented and linked to each other.




Title Platform configuration and access

Type of outcome / product / results Prototype




Nature





A configuration will be set up that allows maximum flexibility. The software will be modular and language-independent, making it possible to include content for different languages and enhancing the possibilities to reuse (parts, modules of) the software.

A likely, flexible configuration is the one outlined here. However, if the outcomes of WP3 and WP4 require changes to this configuration, this will obviously be taken into account.

A client-server configuration will be used, in which various clients (users) can communicate with the CALL server which will consist of three components: two software packages [1] the course software, [2] the L&ST software, and [3] the content. The two software packages result in two different processes that can run on two different servers, the same server, and even on the same PC as the client, if required. A protocol will be defined for access to and communication between client and CALL server and for the communication between the course and L&ST software.




During the project (e.g. for user requirements surveys, development, evaluation, demo, etc.) software has to be developed, and has to be made available on servers. Probably the speech technology (ASR, etc.) and the minigames will run on different servers. This requires hosting, computer server facilities.


G.1 Identification

Work package number 5 Work package title Evaluation

Work package type






The aim of this work package is to gauge user experiences (both learners and teachers) with the system, and to improve the system on the basis of the feedback we get from the various target groups. We consider the educational minigame system successful if the interface is clear, if learners report positiveexperiences and enjoyment immediately after play, and if the system is voluntarily used in informal, non-educational contexts. From a pedagogical point of view, we consider the objectives of the project met ifteachers report that their students learned from the content, and if they express desire to reuse the system in a blended learning approach or in the classroom. Together with WP2, we will also look for 2 external experts who can judge the quality of the educational minigames. On the basis of the needs’ analysis carried out in WP2, instruments will be developed to measure enjoymentand satisfaction immediately after using the software. Questionnaires will be developed and made available in English, French and Dutch, so that they can be administered in all countries involved. These will be followed up selectively by individual interviews or focus groups with some of the participants. Individualinterviews and questionnaires will also be conducted with teachers. These instruments will be administeredcyclically, in two phases of the project, using two different versions of the system. The first classroom evaluations will be carried out starting at M18, using the initial proof-of-concept of the system. The results of this evaluation will be used as input for the second cycle of the design and development process, which starts at M23. The improved version, which will be available at M30, will then be evaluated along the same procedure. We consider the educational minigames to be motivating if we can also ascertain free, voluntary use of the system outside of formal educational settings, granted that all practical conditions are met for the learners toaccess the materials (internet access, computer availability, sufficient time, etc). Therefore, we will tell usershow they can access the materials outside of school settings, and use of the materials will be logged by thesystem during M18-M29, providing a record of information such as when students log on to use the material,which material they use, and how long they spend working on it. To this end, we can make use of the tracking and logging functions inherent in the Edumatic e-learning platform. Additional statistics will be gathered through Google Analytics. Specific questionnaires will be e-mailed in the second evaluation cycle (starting M30), targeted at investigating the context of this long-term use of the system (where they used the software, for what reasons, whom they used it with, etc). In this way, we hope to ascertain instances of usage outside of formal learning contexts. The results of this analysis will be written down in a final report, which will be made available at M34.




Title Develop evaluation instruments

Type of outcome / product / results Measurement instruments (questionnaires, interview plans)




Nature





This deliverable contains the questionnaires, interview plans and focus group schemes which will be used for the evaluation of the software in classrooms, and a questionnaire that will be used to tap into long-term usage of the minigames outside of classrooms. These instruments will inquire into aspects such as enjoyment with the software, ease of use, intention to re-use, pedagogical usefulness (what students believe has been learnt, how well), etc. The questionnaires will be translated into Dutch, English and French, so as to have versions that are either in the first language of the users, or in an intermediate language which is sufficiently comprehensible.




Title Perform evaluations

Type of outcome / product / results Evaluation report




Nature





This deliverable reports on the evaluations of the software, which will be conducted in two phases: one in the period spanning M18-M22, and one in the period covering M30-M33. The report will present the conclusions of learners’ and teachers’ appreciation of the software immediately after usage, and will contain the statistical questionnaire analysis, the qualitative content analysis of the transcripts and the technical evaluation.

The outcome of the first evaluation will be used as input for the second design and development cycle of the project (M23-M30).

Additionally, a report will be written on the long-term usage of the minigames from M18 until M29, during which a first version of the system will be available publicly.

The results of the ongoing and long-term evaluations will be written up in a series of reports, to be disseminated initially among the partners. They will be made publicly available, with the agreement of the participants at the end of the project.




We want participants to evaluate the CALL systems, the minigames we develop. I order to stimulate them to evaluate the systems in the proper way, and to finish all the exercises, we want to reward the participants that successfully finish the complete evaluation. In addition, there may be related costs, e.g. moving expenses to/from schools/research centres where the evaluations will be held, etc.


G.1 Identification

Work package number 6 Work package title Dissemination

Work package type






At the beginning of the project a website will be set up containing (gradually increasing) information aboutthe project. At the beginning of the project we will also invite publishers, who are extremely interested in this project, teachers and serious gaming companies to participate in a user advisory group. The project will be presented on the website, at national and international conferences and symposia, and the results of theresearch will be reported in scientific publications (conference proceedings and journal papers). Email lists and newsletters will also be used to disseminate the information within the relevant communities. Where possible the project results will be made available to interested users through specialized channelssuch as the Dutch-Flemish Human Language Technology Agency, ELDA, the Common LAnguage and technology Research Infrastructure (CLARIN) project to the CLARIN data centres, and META-SHARE.




Title Website

Type of outcome / product / results Website




Nature





Website A website will be set up for the project where information related to the minigames, language learning material, exercises, resources and developed products will be made available, as well as samples of the protocols, reports and evaluation forms. The website will act as a portal to access information and material developed in the project and to provide information about relevant events. The aim is to facilitate information exchange within the consortium and to the outside world.




Title Workshops

Type of outcome / product / results Workshops




Nature





Two workshops will be organized to reach the target groups. 1. The first will be held in the initial phase of the project (in the first 6 months) and is aimed at obtaining

input from the various target groups. In addition, this will provide us with the opportunity of reaching more institutions that might have relevant speech recordings of L2 learners which can be used to train the speech recognizer.

2. The second one will be held towards the end of the project and is aimed at disseminating the knowledge gained and the results achieved within the project, as well as at providing hand-on experience to potential users.




Title Papers and articles

Type of outcome / product / results Papers and articles




Nature





To disseminate the knowledge gained and the results achieved within the project, we will attend relevant academic and industrial events, either through paper and poster presentations or the organization of dedicated workshops and symposia, such as SLATE.




Title Reports

Type of outcome / product / results Reports




Nature





The results of the project will be summarized in reports which will be made publicly available both on the web and in paper format.




The costs incurred concern the work carried out by the partners to disseminate and promote results of the project in their networks and beyond. P1 will coordinate these activities which cover: The project website The creation of a logo Printing dissemination material, e.g. a brochure for the project Presentations at international conferences where key audiences can be reached The publication of articles in professional journals The organization of events for national and international stakeholders


G.1 Identification

Work package number 7 Work package title Exploitation

Work package type






The present project will produce a large number of outputs varying from reports on technical andpedagogical requirements related to serious gaming, language learning material, speech technology and a platform for language learning through minigames that can also be used for conducting research. It isabsolutely crucial that such results remain available to interested users, professionals, students, teachers,researchers, companies and publishers even beyond the lifetime of the project.

In order to be exploited by the users intended above, the minigames must be maximally accessible, practicable and useful. The functionality and the accessibility will be guaranteed by a clear style of reporting and documentation (accessible to both teachers, researchers and ICT-experts) and by offering the various outputs to institutes, websites and information channels that have a more permanent character than this LLL project. Since the project results will be made available as much as possible through specialized channels such as the Dutch-Flemish Human Language Technology Agency, ELDA, the Common LAnguage and technologyResearch Infrastructure (CLARIN) project to the CLARIN data centres, and META-SHARE, they will remain easily and durably accessible for interested users from academia and industry, who benefit from them indeveloping products or in conducting research. The consortium will draw up an exploitation plan to guarantee that the project outputs, varying from reports on technical and pedagogical requirements related to minigames in the languages involved in the project, to learning material, and speech technology that can also be used for conducting research, are exploitedbeyond the lifetime of the project and remain available to interested users such as professionals, students, teachers, researchers, companies and publishers even beyond the lifetime of the project.




Title Exploitation plan

Type of outcome / product / results Exploitation plan




Nature





The consortium will draw up an exploitation plan to guarantee the durability and viability of the project results in the long term. The exploitation plan will also include provisions on Intellectual Property Rights, as the partners in the consortium wish to have the right to use the results of this project in other projects.

The aim of this exploitation plan is to develop a feasible strategy to ensure that the project outputs are exploited beyond the lifetime of the project. This implies developing a market-based approach to promote the project results amongst potentials users.




The costs related to this work package concern the work required to set up an exploitation plan and the activities required to implement this plan.


Third country participation (where applicable)

Please complete this section if the application includes participation from third country partner(s). It must contain only information relating to organisations in third countries and their activities.

PART H. Organisation and activities This part must be completed separately by each third country organisation participating in the project. Third country partner number - P 5 [P1 – Pn] Organisation name Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

H.1 Aims and activities of the organisation Please provide a short presentation of your organisation (key activities, affiliations etc.) relating to the domain covered by the project.

Please describe the role of your organisation in the project. Provide information on the operational and financial management of the project within the organisation (limit 3000 characters).

Organisation profile: The CSIR was established in October 1945 to engage in technical innovation and multidisciplinary research in support of national imperatives to serve industrial and socio-economic development. The CSIR delivers R&D in support of private and public sectors, with a considerable contribution to national initiatives, strategies and projects. 15% of total government expenditure on R&D, or about 4% of the total South African R&D expenditure, is annually allocated to the CSIR. Within the South African S&T context, the CSIR is committed to: (1) advance sustainable socio-economic development of the country’s people; (2) enhance competitiveness of South African industry; and (3) promote economic growth. The organization employs some 2,300 employees, with the main campus in Pretoria, plus operations in Johannesburg, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth, Stellenbosch and Cape Town. The CSIR boasts strategic relationships with science peers in the region as well as internationally. Role in the project: The Human Language Technology (HLT) Research Groups form a competency area within the CSIR’s Meraka Institute. The groups (Technology & Applications) study the way in which speech- and language-related technologies can be created and applied to benefit the people of southern Africa. The participating members have expertise in developing automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis technology for under-resourced languages, such as South Africa’s indigenous languages. In addition, the experience the group has in automatic oral proficiency assessment could make a meaningful contribution to the activities envisaged for this project. Operational and financial management of the project: The research groups employ 27 members of staff consisting of 10 students, 9 research staff members, 3 developers, 2 project managers and 3 support staff. The competence area develops and manages its own budget. External income, generated from contracts with private and public entities, covers approximately 60% of its operating costs. The shortfall was covered by a state-subsidy in 2010/11. All projects within the CSIR must adhere to the policies relating to project approval (including legal approval), project registration, project management and financial administration (including an annual auditing process). Financial management of all projects adhere to a regulatory framework which includes The Public Finance Management Act, Act No 1 of 1999, as well as the Treasury Regulations issued thereunder (“PFMA”), the Value Added Tax Act, Act no 89 of 1991, as amended and the South African Statements of Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (“SA GAAP”). Operational management of HLT projects follows best


practices developed from in managing large-scale multi-year projects (our current flagship project will generate approximately 19 million ZAR over a 3-year contact period) and in collaboration with the project management office of the Meraka Institute, as required.

H.2 Technical capacity: Skills and expertise of key staff involved in the project / network Please add lines as necessary.


Summary of relevant skills and experience, including where relevant a list of recent publications related to the domain of the project (limit 750 characters per person).

Dr Febe de Wet

Dr De Wet’s research focuses on the development of automatic speech recognition technology for South Africa as well as the application of automatic speech recognition technology in CALL. She is specifically interested in automatic oral language proficiency assessment. F de Wet, P Müller, C van der Walt & TR Niesler. Segmentation and

accuracy-based scores for the automatic assessment of oral proficiency for proficient L2 speakers. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa, Stellenbosch, South Africa, November 2010.

F de Wet, C van der Walt & TR Niesler. Automatic assessment of oral language proficiency and listening comprehension. Speech Communication, Vol.51, Issue10, pp. 864-874, October 2009.

H Strik, K Truong, F de Wet & C Cucchiarini. Comparing different approaches for automatic pronunciation error detection. Speech Communication, Vol.51, Issue10, pp. 845-852, October 2009.

Prof. Etienne Barnard

Etienne Barnard has been active in development and research related to speech-recognition systems for the past 20 years. His recent interests focus on the development of speech systems in resource-constrained environments, and the application of such systems in the developing world. He has published more than 150 refereeed papers on these and related topics, including the following: Barnard, E, Davel, M and Van Huyssteen,G.B. "Speech technology for

information access: a South African case study," AAAI Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, United States of America, Stanford University, March 2010, pp. 8-13.

Barnard E , Van Heerden CJ and Davel M, "ASR Corpus Design for Resource-Scarce Languages", In Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (Interspeech 2009), Brighton, UK., pp 2847-2850, September 2009.

Davel M and Barnard E, "Pronunciation prediction with Default&Refine", Computer Speech and Language, Vol. 22, pp. 374-393, Oct 2008.

Mr Jaco Badenhorst

Jaco is a PhD student investigating trajectory modeling for the limited speech data resources in the South African context. Current speech recognition systems utilize the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to model speech data acoustically. One of the assumptions that underlie the use of HMMs for this purpose is known as the conditional independence assumption. It implies that the observation output probability is conditionally independent of all other observations given the current state. Trajectory modeling may relax this assumption and aid to the better analysis of speech effects such as co-articulation.


PART I. Work plan and work packages I.1 Added value of the third country participation Please describe the added value that the third country participation will bring to the main project in terms of project outputs/results, the impact on the target groups in the main LLP application, the choice of partners and value for money. (limit 2000 characters)

The South African partner has been working in the field of automatic language proficiency assessment for a number of years and will contribute to the pool of relevant experience and technical skills required to execute the project successfully.

All of the tasks described in the main LLP proposal can be carried out without relying on the South African partner. On the other hand, the South African partner is well-versed in the technologies and pedagogical approaches of the main LLP partners, and can contribute to or help with the execution of the main tasks with its specific expertise, i.e. on speech technology for under-resourced languages. As such, it provides excellent value for money.

In the face of changing demographics, teachers and policy makers in European language education increasingly have to take into account the different needs of language learners from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as with learners who are less advantaged and less familiar with technologies. In order to come up with relevant strategies to cope with this situation, European language educators can learn from the South African context. The South African constitution recognises eleven official languages, including English. English is the predominant lingua franca, as well as the language of government, commerce and science. However, less than 10% of the South African population use English as a first language. Therefore, as in many parts of Europe, the country has a strong tradition of teaching English as a second and foreign language. In addition, language teachers in South Africa are used to teaching English in a multi-lingual environment to students from diverse cultural backgrounds, and to students who are less familiar with (e-learning) technologies than more resource-advantaged students. Input from teachers and students on this particular situation in South Africa can be used to the advantage of the main LLP proposed project, both during its design and evaluation phases.

IMPORTANT: Sections I.2, I.3 and I.4 should be duplicated and completed together for each work package.


I.2 Identification Please describe the activities that will be undertaken by the partner organisation(s) in third countries following the logic of the work packages already established in the main application form. Activities that are additional to existing work packages should be completed using the existing work package number. New work packages need to take a new work package number. All the information presented in this section should relate to the activities of the third country participants only.

Work package number 1 Work package title Management

Work package type





Description of the third country partner activities in the work package (limit 2000 characters).

The South African partner will participate in all the standard project management activities, including project meetings.



Work package number 2 Work package title Design

Work package type






The South African partner will provide feedback on the design proposed by the LLP partners. The design will be evaluated specifically with regard to it's relevance for the South African target group.



Work package number 3 Work package title Technology development

Work package type






The South African partner will collect and annotate appropriate (non-native English) speech data in collaboration with associated (South African) partners. Thanks to the presence of many, different languages in its territory, the South African partner has ampleexpertise in dealing with multilingualism in human technology applications and in porting technology to lessresourced languages. Some of the group members are involved in research on automatic oral proficiency assessment which is very relevant for the evaluation and feedback strategies foreseen for this project. The South African partner will therefore collaborate with RU Nijmegen (P1) to develop the ASR technologyrequired for English.



Work package number 4 Work package title Content and Integration

Work package type






The South African partner will evaluate the content provided by the LLP partners, specifically with regard to its appropriateness for the South African context and target groups.



Work package number 5 Work package title Evaluation

Work package type






The South African partner will participate in the development of evaluation instruments and subsequently evaluate the minigames in collaboration with local associated partners.



Work package number 6 Work package title Dissemination

Work package type






The South African partner will contribute to text for academic publications and project reports. The partner will also attend national and international workshops and/or conferences to present project outputs.


List of Associated Partners (where applicable)

These organisations may provide the consortium with facilities or assistance that enhances the quality of work, but they may not be responsible for core activities of the project (e.g. management,

coordination, leader of a work group etc.). No financial contribution from EU resources will be allocated to these organisations.

Nr Name of organisation Type of institution City Country 1 Radboud In’to Languages Language learning center Nijmegen Netherlands

2 Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union)

Dutch-Flemish Language policy organisation

The Hague Netherlands

3 Business Language and Communication Centre (blcc.be)

company offering language courses

Vilvoorde Belgium

4 Belgian network for Open & Digital Learning (BE-ODL)

non-profit organization stimulating e-learning in business world

Gent Belgium

5 EuroCALL Belgium academic organization for CALL

Kortrijk Belgium

6 Alliance française de Flandre occidentale

network for the promotion of French language and culture

Kortrijk Belgium

7 K.U.Leuven Specifieke Lerarenopleiding academic teacher training department

Leuven Belgium

8 Heilige-Drievuldigheidscollege secondary school Leuven Belgium 9 Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege secondary school Avelgem Belgium 10 CVO 3 Hofsteden centre for adult education Kortrijk Belgium 11 Burgerschool secondary school Roeselare Belgium 12 Vita et Pax-college secondary school Schoten Belgium

13 Forem Walloon public employment service

Nivelles Belgium

14 West End Refugee Service A charity working with

refugees and asylum seekers Newcastle UK

15 Community Service Volunteers Organisation that promotes

volunteering in the community Newcastle UK

16 Gateshead College A further education college

offering ESOL courses Gateshead UK

17 City of Sunderland College Further education college running ESOL courses

Sunderland UK

18 Stellenbosch University, Dept. of Curriculum Studies

Faculty of Education Stellenbosch South-Africa

19 ABC International (www.abcinternational.co.za)

company offering language courses

Johannesburg South-Africa

20 Instituto Politécnico da Guarda President of ReCLes.pt (Portugese Cercles)

Guarda Portugal

21 Universidade do Algarve - Campus de Gambelas

member of Cercles Faro Portugal

22 Universidade da Madeira - English Linguistics

member of Cercles Funchal Portugal

23 CLiC - Centro de Línguas e Culturas do Instituto Politécnico

member of Cercles Portalegre Portugal

24 CLi - Centro de Línguas, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa

member of Cercles Lisboa Portugal

25 University of Alba Iulia - Department of Modern Languages

member of Cercles Alba Iulia Romania

1 Cercles is the European Confederation of Language Centres (http://www.cercles.org/).

Lifelong Learning Programme Application Form -...

Documents

Transcript of Lifelong Learning Programme Application Form -...