VOCALL: Vocational Language-Learning for Less Widely Used and Taught Languages

Welcome to the VOCALL project home page! You are visitor number since we started counting in October 1998!

PARTNERS

• (Coordinator)
• Ballyfermot, Dublin, Ireland
• ILTEC, Lisbon, Portugal
• Athens, Greece (left 31/1/98)
• top Schulung, Hamburg, Germany (left 31/12/97)

Objectives: Providing electronic lexical and terminological resources for LWUTLs in a variety of vocational areas, as well as multimedia language learning aids, thus promoting linguistic skills as part of vocational training, and fostering methods of self-training in the workplace.

Activities: Putting on disk, using widely available technology (e.g. MS-Access, MS-Windows), a multilingual glossaryof technical terms for the vocational areas of Computer Science, Business Administration, and Electronics, for the languages of the partners, as part of a self-learning tool encompassing both video and speech technology.

Results: The multimedia product, which will be identical in all Member States, will be marketed as a self-learning tool for L1-disadvantaged learners as well as FL learners, in vocational and professional training.

If you would like more information about VOCALL, you can access a summary of activities for 1996 by clicking here, and a summary of intended developments for 1997 here.

We have presented papers on our research at a number of places, including:

• , a terminology conference in San Sebastian
• 1997 in Dublin

and also at:

• in Melbourne, July 98.
• the Languages for Specific Purposes Conference in UCD, Dublin.
• in Leuven, Belgium, September '98.

We shall also be presenting at:

• in Besancon, France, September 1999.

  Other related Leonardo projects include the following:

  1. Software Dynamics, who have 2 projects, Multined and Wococom.
  2. INESCOP, on Multimedia Training on Technical English for the Footwear Industry, co-ordinated in Alicante (in Spanish)
  3. CALS, the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Swansea
  4. Boo Hever's page in Gothenburg
  5. Telos, co-ordinated at the University of Tuebingen

  Some interesting sites you might care to visit which deal with CALL include the main Eurocall page, and if you wish to try out some demo copies of CALL packages you could try here.

  Another useful page is NCET, the National Council for Educational Technology.

  If you're interested in Foreign Language Teaching, you could contact FLTeach.

  An interesting new on-line journal is Language Learning & Technology, which started up in July 1997. Information on other CALL journals, as well as lots of other interesting stuff, can be found at CTI, the University of Hull's Centre for Modern Languages.

  This project is being carried out with the support of the European Community within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci Programme. Nevertheless, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the Commission's official position.

  If you would like more information about the Leonardo scheme, general information about accepted projects, including this one, can be found here, while the call for proposals can be found here.

  Andy Way, May 1999