Hello
The School of Classics and IT Services (University of St Andrews) are in
the process of applying for funding for a Latin Computer Assisted
Language Learning (CALL) project called GOALS (Grammar Online:
Accessible Language Study). If you are interested in this proposal, we
would be grateful for a response no later than Monday 1 February 2010.
GOALS is an online tool that provides students of Latin with access to a
variety of grammar drill exercises. It utilises ontologies (dictionaries
for each language) and is thereby able to provide learners with
intelligent feedback on mistakes made during grammar drills. Tutors can
choose from a variety of texts as the basis of drills, and each text can
be used for exercises on a variety of grammatical features.
GOALS is a new tool. We are currently adding words to the Latin
dictionary and inputting texts for use in Latin language teaching within
the University of St Andrews.
We are aware of the lack of CALL software for Latin Grammar drills. If
the application for funding is successful we would make GOALS exercises
freely available via the Internet. Exercises would target different
groups of learner, so we would need to add textual content suitable for
beginners, intermediate, and advanced levels. If you wish to see some
screenshots of GOALS exercises and feedback, you can download them in
pdf format from our wiki. Please point your browser to
http://wiki.st-andrews.ac.uk:8080
and click on "GOALS for Latin teaching" to find it (to be able to show
more complex exercises that GOALS can produce we have included into the
pdf some examples from German).
At this stage we are looking for expressions of interest from
institutions that teach Latin. If you feel GOALS would be a useful tool
for your students, we would like to hear from you. We are proposing to
provide a completely free service; you would not be entering into any
commitment. If your institution is interested, we would like to learn
which texts you would consider useful for teaching. If our application
is successful, the project will run from April to September 2010. During
the project we would seek feedback from institutions on the usefulness
of various exercises. This would be done through a wiki.
We are intending to leave this wiki in place at the end of the project
as a resource for Latin teachers.
Though we cannot guarantee to meet every request, we are also proposing
to make new exercises available periodically if there is wider demand
for a particular type of exercise.
If you have any questions about this proposal, please feel free to
address them to us (Juan Coderch for language-related matters, Birgit
Plietzsch for computer technicalities).
Best wishes.
Dr Birgit Plietzsch
Arts Computing Advisor
IT Services
([log in to unmask])
Dr Juan Coderch
Senior Language Tutor
School of Classics
([log in to unmask])
--
Dr Birgit Plietzsch
Arts Computing Advisor T: 01334 462315
IT Services F: 01334 462759
University of St Andrews E: [log in to unmask]
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL W: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/its
The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No SC013532
|