Webheads in Action, a world-wide multi-cultural online community of ESL/EFL educators and other professionals, invites your participation in a unique international conference held entirely online. Participation is free and open to all who are interested.
Description of Event:
WiAOC 2009 follows on the success of our first two completely free online global convergences in 2005 and 2007. This year's unConvergence will be a celebration of the work of educational professionals from a variety of fields in a wide variety of formats.
Why the 'un' in unConvergence? The WiAOC 2009 committee provides a framework for the convergence; however, the participants/presenters determine the focus and content of the convergence based on the identified tracks, so instead of submitting a proposal for review, we invite you to simply sign up for a time slot to present your ideas or research for discussion.
Who should present at WiAOC?
Students, Teachers, Educators, Administrators, IT professionals, librarians, and others interested in teaching, learning and technology. We encourage anyone interested in sharing expertise or discussing educational issues related to our theme to offer a session. WIAOC 2009 invites presentations (non-commercial only) that meet the needs of introductory through advanced users of educational technology on one or more of the conference tracks.
Tracks
Ubiquitous and Lifelong Learning
How can we leverage the unprecedented anytime anywhere access to information, networks and expertise? What teaching-learning paradigms are best suited to these new realities? How do we harness distributed learning networks and communities of practice to foster ongoing intercultural understanding, collaboration and professional development?
Emerging and Future Educational Technology
What technology and tools do you fee most impact education? What is the future of teaching and learning given the trends predicted in publications such as the Horizon Report: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/ ; e.g. use of mobile devices, cloud computing, geolocationary tools, the personal web, semantic aware applications, smart objects, virtual worlds, augmented reality, gaming, ubiquitous computing
Educational Technology Worldwide
What are the practical realities of worldwide digital divisions? How do we overcome societal, administrative, technical and financial constraints to create powerful learning experiences? What joys have we encountered in intercultural collaborations?
Technology Innovations for Teaching and Learning
What technology tools, open source or otherwise, have you used successfully to engage students in the learning process, create a sense of community, or promote collaborative peer-to-peer learning? What innovative practices with web 2.0 tools/features have resulted in deeper learning or enhanced productivity? Sub topics: digital portfolios, digital storytelling, blogs, wikis, microblogging, podcasting, international collaborative projects, social networking applications, voice / VOIP tools
Virtual Worlds and Learning
To what extent is the potential future of the Internet and education being realized for teachers and learners worldwide? What locations, tools and networks are essential for broadening understanding and educational practices in virtual worlds? How are libraries, museums, universities and private organizations providing freely available educational opportunities?
Other
Feel free to offer sessions in other areas if you feel your area is pertinent to our theme.
Session Types
Proposals are invited for synchronous events, asynchronous events, or a combination of the two. Session topics can be pedagogical or technical, and might include examples of practical work with students, training sessions, reports of research or research in progress, demonstrations of new media, or descriptions or explorations of how interaction takes place over the Internet-e.g., how online communities form as a result of computer-mediated communication.
We encourage facilitators to incorporate an interactive component into the session (e.g.: an information presentation plus 15 min. question/answer period, or asynchronous presentation materials posted beforehand and a synchronous session to discuss them; interacting with other participants in hands-on demo or workshop format, etc.).
Technical Requirements:
Synchronous events (including, but not limited to presentations, workshops,
demonstrations, panel / roundtable discussions, chats and conversations) can be held at any of our partners' voice-enabled presentation portals, or one of your own choosing. Training and assistance will be available for presenters wishing to use our partners' venues. Asynchronous events might include bulletin board discussions, online poster sessions, integration with content management systems, or other formats.
Scheduling Presentations:
To propose a session, simply join the wiki and fill in the information requested at http://wiaoc09.pbwiki.com/schedule
In order that we can finalize arrangements for presenting, streaming, recording and archiving, please sign up for a time slot by May 15, 2009.
Date & Location of Events:
May 22-24, 2009, on the Web, at a computer near you - for information and registration go to: http://webheadsinaction.ning.com
+++++++++++++++ Blog URL: http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Teaching the Pragmatics of a Second Language
A truly daunting challenge for second language learners is to adjust their language use so that it is appropriate for different socio-cultural contexts. How, for example, are learners supposed to address strangers, close friends, or people of higher social status in that culture? While acquiring discourse practices can take learners many years, research has shown that the process can be facilitated through explicit instruction.
This institute provides practical insights for teachers on how to enhance the learning of pragmatics. Participants will have hands-on opportunities to develop activities and materials for the classroom.
This institute is designed for K-16 ESL and foreign language teachers, material developers, curriculum coordinators, teacher educators, administrators, and researchers.
Testimonials from past participants:
Becoming aware and excited about new aspects of teaching are an important part of our continual development as instructors. The professional quality of the workshop, the ideas and experiences of other participants will definitely result in benefits for my students.
Pragmatics positively encourages successful communication, and successful communication means getting what we want. Isn't that what teachers need to motivate and encourage students and to raise all student's achievements? We need this kind of training!
Presenters:
Noriko Ishihara, PhD, Hosei University, Japan
Andrew D. Cohen, PhD, University of Minnesota (guest speaker)
Readings include:
Ishihara, N., & Cohen, A. D. (in press).
Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. Pearson Education (latest manuscript to be shared with all participants)
2009 Registration Information
Registration Cost: $400 Early registration ($350*)
As a special incentive for early registration, the cost for each institute is $50* less if registration is postmarked on or before May 31, 2009. Many of the institutes regularly fill to capacity, so register early. Do NOT purchase airline tickets until you have received confirmation of your completed registration.
CARLA Summer Institutes, Event # 181999
College of Continuing Eduation
University of MN
20 Coffey Hall
1420 Eckles Ave
St Paul MN 55108-6069
This is a non-credit registration. You may register for credit on the first day of the institute for an additional cost for many of the institutes. See Clock Hours/Credit for more information.
Refunds can be issued up to 10 working days prior to the institute (minus a $25 processing fee). After that date, refunds minus $75 will be issued upon receipt of written request. Refunds will not be granted after the start of the institute.
The University of Minnesota (U of MN) reserves the right to cancel any institute if necessary, in which case participants will receive a full refund for that institute.
All registrants are sent an electronic receipt of registration payment. Sometimes participants don't see the receipt because their computer refers this email to their junk mailbox.
If you need a duplicate receipt you should send the following information to the registrar at: info@cce.umn.edu
+++++
New Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
This institute provides practical insights for teachers on how to enhance the learning of pragmatics. Participants will have hands-on opportunities to develop activities and materials for the classroom.
This institute is designed for K-16 ESL and foreign language teachers, material developers, curriculum coordinators, teacher educators, administrators, and researchers.
Testimonials from past participants:
Becoming aware and excited about new aspects of teaching are an important part of our continual development as instructors. The professional quality of the workshop, the ideas and experiences of other participants will definitely result in benefits for my students.
Pragmatics positively encourages successful communication, and successful communication means getting what we want. Isn't that what teachers need to motivate and encourage students and to raise all student's achievements? We need this kind of training!
Presenters:
Noriko Ishihara, PhD, Hosei University, Japan
Andrew D. Cohen, PhD, University of Minnesota (guest speaker)
Readings include:
Ishihara, N., & Cohen, A. D. (in press).
Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. Pearson Education (latest manuscript to be shared with all participants)
2009 Registration Information
Registration Cost: $400 Early registration ($350*)
As a special incentive for early registration, the cost for each institute is $50* less if registration is postmarked on or before May 31, 2009. Many of the institutes regularly fill to capacity, so register early. Do NOT purchase airline tickets until you have received confirmation of your completed registration.
CARLA Summer Institutes, Event # 181999
College of Continuing Eduation
University of MN
20 Coffey Hall
1420 Eckles Ave
St Paul MN 55108-6069
This is a non-credit registration. You may register for credit on the first day of the institute for an additional cost for many of the institutes. See Clock Hours/Credit for more information.
Refunds can be issued up to 10 working days prior to the institute (minus a $25 processing fee). After that date, refunds minus $75 will be issued upon receipt of written request. Refunds will not be granted after the start of the institute.
The University of Minnesota (U of MN) reserves the right to cancel any institute if necessary, in which case participants will receive a full refund for that institute.
All registrants are sent an electronic receipt of registration payment. Sometimes participants don't see the receipt because their computer refers this email to their junk mailbox.
If you need a duplicate receipt you should send the following information to the registrar at: info@cce.umn.edu
+++++
New Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Natural Language Processing Workshop RANLP-09
We are pleased to announce the workshop on Natural Language Processing methods and corpora in translation studies, lexicography, and language learning, to be held in conjunction with the main RANLP-09 conference in Borovets, Bulgaria, on 17-18 September 2009.
Motivation
Corpora are now indispensable tools in research and everyday practice for translators, lexicographers, second language learners. Specialists in these areas share a general goal in using corpora in their work: corpora provide the possibility to find and analyse linguistic patterns characteristic of various kinds of language users, monitor language change, and reveal important similarities and divergences across different languages.
For professional translators corpora present an invaluable linguistic and cultural awareness tools. For language learners, they serve as a means to gain insights into specifics of competent language use as well as to analyse typical errors of fellow
learners. For lexicographers, corpora are key for monitoring the development of the vocabularies of languages, making informed decisions as to lexicographic relevance of the lexical material, and for general verification of all varieties of lexicographic data.
While simple corpus analysis tools such as concordancers have been long in use in these specialist areas, in the past decade there have been important developments in Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies: it has become much easier to construct corpora and powerful NLP methods have become available that can be used to analyse corpora not only on the surface level, but also on the syntactic, and
even semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic levels.
This workshop aims to bring together the developers and the users of NLP technologies for the purposes of translation, translation studies, lexicography, terminology, and language learning in order to present their research and discuss new possibilities and challenges in these fields.
Topics
Submissions are invited for the following topics of interest to the workshop:
- NLP methodologies for processing parallel and comparable corpora
- Context-sensitive dictionary look-up
- Corpus-based study and identification of cognates and false friends
- Compilation and use of corpora in translation studies
- Corpus-based study of properties of translated text: translation universals, phraseology, lexical and grammatical patterns
- Corpora in translator training
- Translation of terms and collocations using corpora
- Bilingual concordancing in translation applications
- NLP methods for Computer-Aided Translation
- Compilation of specialised terminologies
- Compilation of corpora for bilingual lexicography
- Detection of gaps in bilingual dictionaries
- Corpus-based estimation of lexicographic relevance
- Term and collocation extraction
- Discovery of illustrative examples and definitions of words and word senses in corpora
- Reading and writing aid applications for language learners
- Automated text glossing in Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL)
- Corpus-based design of assessment materials in CALL
- Error detection and error analysis in CALL
- Detection of first-language interference in learner corpora
Important dates
Submission deadline: 10 June 2009
Acceptance notification: 20 July 2009
Final copies due: 24 August 2009
Submission instructions
Papers must be submitted in PDF format as e-mail attachments to Iustina Ilisei at iustina.ilisei@gmail.com. The e-mail should use the subject header “RANLP-2009 workshop”.
Format
Authors are invited to submit full papers on original, unpublished work in the topic area of this workshop. Papers (in PDF format conforming to the RANLP 2009 stylefiles) should not exceed 8 pages. The RANLP 2009 stylefiles are available at:
http://lml.bas.bg/ranlp2009/submissions.htm
As reviewing will be blind, the papers should not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the authors' identities should be avoided. Papers that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected without review.
Reviewing
Each submission will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. Reviewers will be asked to provide detailed comments, and to score submitted papers on the following factors:
- Relevance to the workshop
- Significance and originality
- Technical/methodological accuracy
- References to related work
- Presentation (clarity, organisation, English)
Accepted papers policy
Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings. By submitting a paper at the workshop the authors agree that, in case the paper is accepted for publication, at least one of the authors will attend the workshop; all workshop participants are expected to pay the RANLP-2009 workshop registration fee.
Workshop webpage
http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~in0963/ranlp/
Programme Committee
Marco Baroni (University of Trento)
Jill Burstein (Educational Testing Service)
Michael Carl (Copenhagen Business School)
Gloria Corpas Pastor (University of Malaga)
Le An Ha (University of Wolverhampton)
Patrick Hanks (Masaryk University)
Marie-Claude Homme (Université de Montréal)
Federico Gaspari (University of Bologna)
Adam Kilgarriff (Lexical Computing)
Ruslan Mitkov (University of Wolverhampton)
Roberto Navigli (University of Rome 'La Sapienza')
Miriam Seghiri (University of Malaga)
Pete Whitelock (Oxford University Press)
Richard Xiao (Edge Hill University)
Federico Zanettin (University of Perugia)
Organising Committee
Iustina Ilisei – University of Wolverhampton
Viktor Pekar – Oxford University Press
Silvia Bernardini – University of Bologna
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
New Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
Motivation
Corpora are now indispensable tools in research and everyday practice for translators, lexicographers, second language learners. Specialists in these areas share a general goal in using corpora in their work: corpora provide the possibility to find and analyse linguistic patterns characteristic of various kinds of language users, monitor language change, and reveal important similarities and divergences across different languages.
For professional translators corpora present an invaluable linguistic and cultural awareness tools. For language learners, they serve as a means to gain insights into specifics of competent language use as well as to analyse typical errors of fellow
learners. For lexicographers, corpora are key for monitoring the development of the vocabularies of languages, making informed decisions as to lexicographic relevance of the lexical material, and for general verification of all varieties of lexicographic data.
While simple corpus analysis tools such as concordancers have been long in use in these specialist areas, in the past decade there have been important developments in Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies: it has become much easier to construct corpora and powerful NLP methods have become available that can be used to analyse corpora not only on the surface level, but also on the syntactic, and
even semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic levels.
This workshop aims to bring together the developers and the users of NLP technologies for the purposes of translation, translation studies, lexicography, terminology, and language learning in order to present their research and discuss new possibilities and challenges in these fields.
Topics
Submissions are invited for the following topics of interest to the workshop:
- NLP methodologies for processing parallel and comparable corpora
- Context-sensitive dictionary look-up
- Corpus-based study and identification of cognates and false friends
- Compilation and use of corpora in translation studies
- Corpus-based study of properties of translated text: translation universals, phraseology, lexical and grammatical patterns
- Corpora in translator training
- Translation of terms and collocations using corpora
- Bilingual concordancing in translation applications
- NLP methods for Computer-Aided Translation
- Compilation of specialised terminologies
- Compilation of corpora for bilingual lexicography
- Detection of gaps in bilingual dictionaries
- Corpus-based estimation of lexicographic relevance
- Term and collocation extraction
- Discovery of illustrative examples and definitions of words and word senses in corpora
- Reading and writing aid applications for language learners
- Automated text glossing in Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL)
- Corpus-based design of assessment materials in CALL
- Error detection and error analysis in CALL
- Detection of first-language interference in learner corpora
Important dates
Submission deadline: 10 June 2009
Acceptance notification: 20 July 2009
Final copies due: 24 August 2009
Submission instructions
Papers must be submitted in PDF format as e-mail attachments to Iustina Ilisei at iustina.ilisei@gmail.com. The e-mail should use the subject header “RANLP-2009 workshop”.
Format
Authors are invited to submit full papers on original, unpublished work in the topic area of this workshop. Papers (in PDF format conforming to the RANLP 2009 stylefiles) should not exceed 8 pages. The RANLP 2009 stylefiles are available at:
http://lml.bas.bg/ranlp2009/submissions.htm
As reviewing will be blind, the papers should not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the authors' identities should be avoided. Papers that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected without review.
Reviewing
Each submission will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. Reviewers will be asked to provide detailed comments, and to score submitted papers on the following factors:
- Relevance to the workshop
- Significance and originality
- Technical/methodological accuracy
- References to related work
- Presentation (clarity, organisation, English)
Accepted papers policy
Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings. By submitting a paper at the workshop the authors agree that, in case the paper is accepted for publication, at least one of the authors will attend the workshop; all workshop participants are expected to pay the RANLP-2009 workshop registration fee.
Workshop webpage
http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~in0963/ranlp/
Programme Committee
Marco Baroni (University of Trento)
Jill Burstein (Educational Testing Service)
Michael Carl (Copenhagen Business School)
Gloria Corpas Pastor (University of Malaga)
Le An Ha (University of Wolverhampton)
Patrick Hanks (Masaryk University)
Marie-Claude Homme (Université de Montréal)
Federico Gaspari (University of Bologna)
Adam Kilgarriff (Lexical Computing)
Ruslan Mitkov (University of Wolverhampton)
Roberto Navigli (University of Rome 'La Sapienza')
Miriam Seghiri (University of Malaga)
Pete Whitelock (Oxford University Press)
Richard Xiao (Edge Hill University)
Federico Zanettin (University of Perugia)
Organising Committee
Iustina Ilisei – University of Wolverhampton
Viktor Pekar – Oxford University Press
Silvia Bernardini – University of Bologna
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
New Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
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