Projects
This page contains a list of research projects (divided into two sections: current and completed). Members of the SIG are free to add to the list if they actually participate (or have participated) in a relevant project. Each entry should have 6 fields: Name, Coordinator, Funding details, Dates, Summary and URL.
Current projects
Name: Digital communication - the key to enhanced integration
Coordinator: Linda Bradley, FOLKUNIVERSITETET STIFTELSEN KURSVER KSAMHETEN VID GÖTEBORGS UNIVERSITET - Huvudkontoret - Göteborg
Funding Details: Sweden's innovation agency, Vinnova SEK 6 040 792
Dates: 2020 - 2022
Summary: The project takes a holistic approach to how foreign-born persons can be supported in language development so that accessibility to the workplace becomes more sustainable and is extended s beyond internships and short-term contracts. In the project idea is a method change around how we look at digital meeting areas that will be able to have an overall significance even outside the project itself. The project results will eventually be used by foreign-born women and men. Also, we believe that the project´s results will have an impact on the system level that is beyond our solution / product (copied from Vinnova - URL below).
URL: https://www.vinnova.se/en/p/digital-communication---the-key-to-enhanced-integration/
Name: Online courses for mobile students who perform placements abroad
Co-Coordinators: Mercedes Burguillo, Soraya Garcia- Esteban, Elisa Rojas
Funding: ERASMUSX, KA203: Strategic Partnership (Higher Education), Ref.: - 2018-1-ES01-KA203-050886
Date: 2018-2022
Summary: ONLINE COURSES FOR MOBILE STUDENTS (ErasmusX) is a European KA203 project coordinated by The University of Alcalá devised to offer students the possibility to increase the impact and add professional value to the Erasmus period abroad by combining certified on-line academic studies with professional/sport/social experience overseas. This new scheme supports study + placement mobility as an additional value to the current internships being done abroad.
URL: https://erasmusxproject.github.io/
Completed projects
Name The StratApp Project -
Cooridinator: Mar Gutiérez-Colón, Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Other members: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), Wyższa Szkoła Lingwistyczna in Częstochowa (WSL) from Poland, Universite de Pau et des Pays de L’Adour (UPPA) from France, Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya (CSUC) and Amistad IT company from Poland
Funding Details: This is an Erasmus+ program supported by the European Union KA2 2016-1-ES01-KA203-025164
Dates: 2017 - 2019
Summary: Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in collaboration with 5 other European institutions, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), Wyższa Szkoła Lingwistyczna in Częstochowa (WSL), Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya (CSUC), Amistad IT company from Poland and Universite de Pau et des Pays de L'Adour (UPPA), have developed StratApp (StrategiesApp), a mobile application that combines the educational purpose of boosting students' academic reading skills with game-design elements and game principles (from strattapp.eu).
URL: HTTP://stratapp.eu
Name: Integration with Mobile Minclusion
Coordinator: Linda Bradley
Other members: Nataliya Berbyuk Lindström , Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi, Khaled Al-Sabbagh, Lorna Bartram, Mihail Anton, Maisaa Abughalioun , Lisanu Tebikew Yallew, Snezina Racheva
Funding Details: University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology and has been co-financed by the Asyl, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF)
Dates: 2016 - 2018
Summary: The purpose has been to investigate mobile learning and to develop an app for Arabic speaking newly arrived persons in Sweden. During the two years of the project, we have met close to 200 Arabic speaking persons and have conducted a number of field studies to find out about the language learning needs of the target group.
We have also investigated ways forward learning Swedish connected to different professions. Together with the research institute RISE Interactive we have organized design-based workshops where newly arrived persons and their teachers have been an active part of the design process.
Our studies show that there is a great interest among newly arrived Arabic speaking persons to use mobile phones more targeted as a way to learn Swedish and enter into the community. Many persons are already active daily users of mobile phones. Our results indicate that if an app supports the user’s everyday situations, it increases the motivation for using the app for language development.
The studies lead to the development of an app, Minclusion , which supports training of pronunciation and everyday phrases. The app contains texts, images, audio and video to create a variation for the user. The development has taken place in different stages, where we have involved users who have made suggestions and requests about the content. The app is available to download free to Android phones on Google Play (from the Minclusion URL below)
URL: http://minclusion.org/en/about/
Name: ILOCALAPP (Incidentally Learning Other Cultures And Languages through an APP)
Coordinator: University of Bologna (Italy)
Other members: Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan, Poland), University of Lapland (Rovaniemi, Finland) and Centre for Social Studies (Coimbra, Portugal)
Funding details: Erasmus + Strategic Partnerships for higher education
Dates: 01 October 2015 – 31 August 2018
Summary: The ILOCALAPP project (Incidentally Learning Other Cultures And Languages through an APP) aims to facilitate student mobility by means of a smart tool specially designed for mobile devices. The popularity of mobility programmes like Erasmus is growing more and more among youth, but this quantitative trend does not necessarily correspond to the high quality of the experience in terms of growth of proficiency in the language of the country of destination, and consequently in terms of intercultural comprehension and integration in the new environment as well. The ILOCALAPP project will face this challenge by developing an app for the incidental learning of 4 cultures and languages: Finnish, Italian, Polish and Portuguese. Following the principles of incidental learning, the acquisition of language and culture will rely on the learners’ participation in the process of knowledge creation, and will happen in a informal setting. ILOCALAPP will offer to mobility students the possibility to get acquainted with local language and cultural in a smart way, thus enabling them to integrate in and interact with the country hosting them. The objectives of the ILOCALAPP project are in fact: 1) to promote the integration of students in the new reality by providing them with a tool easy to be used; 2) to boost communication thanks to contents and situational experiences useful for everyday life; 3) to develop a tool aimed at the removal of cultural barriers thus improving social and behavioural competences and fostering integration and intercultural dialogue.
ILOCALAPP will be carried out by a transnational consortium composed of 4 partners: the University of Bologna (from Bologna, Italy), the Adam Mickiewicz University (from Poznan, Poland), the University of Lapland (from Rovaniemi, Finland) and the Centre for Social Studies (from Coimbra, Portugal).
After a preparation phase, the project is articulated in 3 macro-phases: 1) a methodological phase which includes the methodological discussion, the final users’ consultation and the production of a framework of situational experiences to be recreated in the app; 2) a production phase which includes both the content development as well as its technological implementation; 3) a testing and revision phase which includes the preparation of pilot users, their testing of the app, the collection and analysis of their feedback, the revision of both learning materials and technical aspects, and which will lead to the delivery of the final product.
The project addresses the needs of mobility students who are the main target users. They will be involved in the activities at various stages throughout the project, starting from the initial months when a wide consultations on their expectations will be conducted. The culmination of the students’ involvement will be represented by the piloting phase of the app. Their feedback will be crucial as an indicator of achievement and will guide towards the finalised app. The results of the ILOCALAPP are thought to be exploited at all possible levels, from the local one to the international one. The app is based on the local contextualisation of the learning materials and it can thus be used in one of the four University cities of the project. But the final users are mobility students, i.e. students arriving there to spend a learning and/or training experience. They can come from all over Europe and even from the rest of the world. Moreover, the methodology which will be developed can be applied at higher levels than the local ones: it will represent a document for further exploitation related to other languages and cultures too. If the short-term impact is mainly linked to project participants, the main actors engaged in the long-term impact of the project results will be International Offices and Erasmus Offices of the participating institutions and of all institutions reached by dissemination activities, which will have the opportunity to propose the app to incoming and outgoing students also in the long term, after the end of the project.
Name: TELL-OP : Transforming European Learner Language into Learning Opportunities
Coordinator: Universidad de Murcia (Spain)
Other members : Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen (Germany), Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Bath Spa University (UK, Meliksah Üniversitesi (Turkey).
Funding details: Supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union - 2014-1-ES01-KA203-004782, a KA200 Higher Education Strategic Partnership, funded by the OAPEE and the EU.
Dates: 2014-2017
Summary: TELL-OP is a Strategic Partnership that seeks to promote the take-up of innovative practices in European language learning (Data Driven Learning, DDL) by supporting personalised learning approaches that rely on the use of ICT & OER by bringing together the knowledge & expertise of European stakeholders in the fields of language education, corpus & applied linguistics, e-learning & knowledge engineering in order to promote cooperation & contribute to unleash the potential behind already available web 2.0 services to promote the personalised e-learning of languages in the contexts of higher & adult education, in particular, through mobile devices.
The project aims at maximizing the role of learner language by promoting good practices in using these OERs in personalized language leaning contexts & thus contribute to the modernization of the HE systems in the EU & a more widespread use of innovative OERs that include not only English but also other EU languages that can serve as the basis for a more widespread use of these ICTs.
Instead of producing these OER resources, the TELL-OP consortium is interested in finding existing NLP OER that can suit the needs of language learner across different European languages (English, German & Spanish) & learning scenarios (Adult & HE education) & streamline these services by carrying out an exchange of good practices & evidence-based research that is focused on learners’ needs & not so much on context-free academic endeavours.
The objectives of TELL-OP are the following: (1) to promote the use of learner language information in the context of higher and adult education in Europe by offering concrete models of use that can be taken up by our target groups; (2) to survey and document the most relevant OE resources and services for language processing (text and voice) in the context of higher and adult education in Europe. That means,analyzing needs in the EHEA and primarily in the stakeholders’ countries and establish the starting point according to needs; (3) to raise awareness on the usefulness of using learner language input for the learning and teaching of languages in Europe in the 2 scenarios outlined in this proposal: formal HE and informal adult language education; (4) to promote a cluster group of EU experts and professionals who can bring together their different views and expertise in the fields of e-language learning, language education, corpus linguistics and knowledge engineering.; (5) to foster the usage of the OERs and ICT-mediated language processing methods for the creation of the language information suitable for pedagogic purposes in English, Spanish and German.
Name: Mobile Pedagogy for English Language Teaching
Coordinator: Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, with team members Lucy Norris and Jim Donohue, The Open University, UK
Funding Details: British Council ELTRA (English Language Teaching Research Awards)
Dates: 2014 – 2015
Summary: This project sought to understand ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teachers’ and learners’ everyday teaching and learning practices with their mobile devices, especially beyond the classroom and in informal settings, through interviews and discussions. The team then produced a guide for teachers, which set out a philosophy of mobile pedagogy and proposed a frame of reference to aid teacher-thinking when designing mobile language learning in and beyond the classroom. The ideas in the published guide (freely available) highlight the design and use of activities which exploit a dynamic language and technology environment while drawing on teacher wisdom, the distinctive capabilities of teachers and learners, and the characteristics of mobile technologies. The guide includes a framework that can be used for language activity designs or for reflection on current language learning practices.
URL: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/mobile-pedagogy-english-language-teaching-a-guide-teachers
Name: MASELTOV: Mobile Assistance for Social Inclusion and Empowerment of Immigrants with Persuasive Learning Technologies and Social Network Services
Coordinator: Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, The Open University, UK, for the Learning Services work package (Mobile situated language learning, Social learning, Playful cultural learning). Overall Project Coordinator: Lucas Paletta, Joanneum Research.
Funding Details: EU FP7-ICT-7 No. 288587
Dates: 2012 – 2015
Summary: This major multi-partner European project explored the potential of integrated mobile services for promoting integration and cultural diversity in Europe. It included participatory design and development of a prototype of anytime, anywhere support and social computing services on a smartphone app for immigrants from outside the EU, including assistance with language learning for everyday situations in the form of short lessons on the app. The app and its multiple services (including translation and recommendations) were trialled with groups of immigrants in several cities across Europe. The project also developed an Incidental Learning Framework to represent how planned and unplanned learning could take place across time and space in the city, when participants were using the smartphone services developed in the project.
Name: SALSA: Sensors and Apps for Languages in Smart Areas
Coordinator: Mark Gaved, with team members Alice Peasgood and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, The Open University, UK.
Funding Details: MK:Smart Smart Cities Open Challenge
Dates: 2013 – 2015
Summary: This small project explored how smartphones combined with beacons (sensors) that had been placed in several locations around a city could support location-specific language learning activities among migrant populations. A trial of this innovative learning design was run in Milton Keynes in the UK with 27 beacons and 14 learners keeping diaries of their experiences. Milton Keynes has a diverse population; like many cities it includes young people who have migrated for work and study and do not have English as a first language. The project generated insights such the social challenge of using learning content with audio files in public places. Many local organisations helped in this project by allowing beacons to be placed on their premises: Milton Keynes Council, Arriva Buses, XpressoNet Cafe, Christ Cornerstone Cafe, Bletchley Leisure Centre, Shenley Church End Leisure Centre, Milton Keynes Libraries, Rivers Adult Continuing Education Centre, and MK Art Gallery.
URL: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/salsa/
Name: SO-CALL-ME (Social Ontology-based Cognitive Augmented Language Learning Mobile Environment)
Coordinator: Elena Bárcena (UNED)
Other members: Jorge Arús (UCM), José Javier Ávila (UNED), Cristina Calle (UCM), Mª Dolores Castrillo (UNED), Izaskun Elorza (USAL), Blanca García Riaza (USAL), Ana Ibáñez (UNED), María Jordano (UNED), Elena Mártin-Monje (UNED), Antonio Pareja (UCM), Lourdes Pomposo (UNED), Timothy Read (UNED), Pilar Rodriguez Arancón (UNED), Noa Talaván (UNED), Patricia Ventura (UNED)
Funding details: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (FFI2011-29829)
Dates: 2011 - 2014
Summary: The goal of this project is twofold: firstly, to design and develop a theoretical framework for a new hybrid computer assisted modality for learning second languages, which is social, ubiquitous, and includes augmented reality techniques. This will be undertaken using the new generation of hand-held mobile devices that are permanently connected to the cloud (i.e., Internet, via small devices that can be easily carried; for example, smartphones, tablets like the iPad or Samsung Galaxy, etc., and to a lesser extent, netbooks and portable computers). Such a learning modality is argued to be flexible, adaptive, interactive, practical, dynamic and strongly based in everyday sociocultural communicative situations and contexts, where the second language is used in an authentic way. Secondly, to design and develop a linguistic ontology of audio-visual learning objects that potentiate this second language learning modality, thereby avoiding the inherent problems present in standard didactic materials, which are, generally speaking, textual by nature, “instructivist”, static and decontextualized from the surrounding sociocultural reality. The underlying hypothesis in this project is that the growing technological and informational sophistication of mobile devices could provide a key support for second language learning, which is not only convenient and easy to use, due to its portability and increasingly widespread use in the professional and university communities, but is also didactically rigorous and effective. Specifically, a qualitative improvement is sought in the set of communicative competences that students need for a natural, independent and effective use of the second language. Such an improvement would be achieved via a methodological approach for a technological environment that includes constructivist learning activities (structured in a nonlinear way). These individual and/or social activities are contextualised, essentially audiovisual, and include feedback and scaffolding modules. The result of this project would be a theoretical framework and ICALL (Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning) architecture called SO-CALL-ME (Social Ontology-based Cognitive Augmented Language Learning Mobile Environment). The starting point for this research is the I-AGENT system (Generic Adaptive Intelligent English Tutor), which is currently being finalised by the same group, ATLAS (Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Linguistic Applications). I-AGENT will provide an activity, materials and user management mechanism, together with the reasoning module used to adapt the activities and learning resources to the progress of each student. All other work would be original and come from the research undertaken in the project presented here.