Multilingual eLearning in LANGuage Engineering

Project Overview  Project span: Oct 2004 – Oct 2007  Kick-off meeting Oct  Project goals:  Produce language training resources  Tailored to the needs of the translation market  Deliverables in: CA, DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, (CZ)

Promoter Intercultural studies and Applied Languages Department, University Paris 7 Denis Diderot

Academic partners  Centre for Translation Studies, University of Leeds, UK  Institute for Applied Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting, University of Saarland, Germany  Department of Translation and Philology, University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain  Advanced School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators, University of Bologna in Forli, Italy  Translation and Interpreting School, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Academic partners  Institute of Translation and Interpreting, Milton Keynes, UK  Translation and Interpretation Institute, University of Vienna, Austria  Praetorius France, Gif-sur Yvette, France: localisation, translation, technical writing  Olomouc Training Center, Olomouc, Czech Republic: management and linguistic skills

Project Objective Adapt vocational training of translators and language professionals to the new needs of the market

Context  Changes in the translation market  New skills and competences required  Focus on innovative, dynamic, and collaborative learning environments

Target audiences  Students in initial vocational training  Practising translators and language professionals  Trainers of translators and language professionals

Target sectors  Education  translation departments  institutions focussing on training language professionals  Industry  translation market  language industry  other industries dealing with multilingual language resource management

Objectives  Propose a methodology for the collaborative creation of corpus- based eLearning teaching content in translation  Design a framework for an European Master in translation

User needs evaluation  April 2005: questionnaire sent to  ITI’s 3000 members  translation lists in partner’s countries  Questions on  IT tools  Corpora use  eLearning

Results: web vs. corpora  600 responses in UK, France, Italy, and Germany  90% professionals, 10% students  90% use Google  of these, 68% refine their searches  40% collect specific texts for translating so 40% use corpora

Responses: Corpus Tools 65.9%  Search facility in word processor 19.0%  Concordancer 14.4%  Other search tools (Trados, Concordance in translation memory) 0.7%  UNIX utilities

Responses: eLearning eLearning domains of interest :  28.2% Exploitation of the web for linguistic purposes  25.7% IT skills for translators  24.1% Building their own corpora for specific projects  19.7% Exploitation of corpus data

Corpus-based approach  Comparable and parallel corpora  Learner Translator Corpus (LTC):  on-line submission of translations  students and professionals  Meta-data (L1, L2, training, etc.)  First round of translation collection: EC document on workers’ mobility  Upcoming rounds : journalistic, administrative and technical translation

Error-annotation of the LTC  Short annotation scheme  Content transfer errors  Language errors  Translated in all partners’ languages  Used by teachers to annotate translations  XML annotation tool developed at the University of Geneva

LTC Design  All translations are aligned with source texts  Linked to anonymised translator’s metadata SL1 SL2 SL… TL1 TL2 TL… sTT1 sTT2 sTT... rTT1 cTT1 Abbreviations T – TextS – Source L – LanguageT – Target sTT - student Target Text cTT - corrected student Target Text rTT - reference Target Text

Online Content Topics  Machine translation  Translation memory  Terminology  Corpus use  Localization  Project management  Information management  Specialised translation  Mark-up languages

eLearning Development Methodology Proposing a general methodology (‘best practices’) for collaborative online course creation in terms of:  Course design  Meta-data  eLearning standards conformance  Implementation

Course development According to Bologna process hierarchy:  Units-> Courses-> Modules (smallest to largest)  Content organized into units according to:  Learning outcomes (competencies)  Size of the unit (rough time estimate)  Objectives and Pedagogical approach  Resources and Prerequisites  Evaluation  Content / Activities  Relation to other units (reducing the number of credits needed)

Learning Objects (LOs)  Building block for Units  Discussion on meta-data to be used (subset of LOM)  Los designed according to Moodle eLearning platform activities:  Lessons  Tests  Quizzes  Workshop  Resources (e.g. LTC, parallel corpora)

eLearning Platform  Moodle chosen for its sound pedagogical principles and features it offers  eLearning standards compliance:  SCORM (interoperability, reusability)  LOM (meta-data description)

Course Testing Teaching material and online courses will be tested in:  2006 with students, trainers and professionals  2007 idem + CEE countries universities

Quality Assurance  Ensure that the contents are adapted to real market needs  Maintain contact with industrial development

European Masters  Existing curricula at partners’ sites  Existing curricula related to the field  Development within the consortium of a general framework for a European Masters (curriculum down to learning objects)  Complete or partial adoption byall partner institutions

Dissemination  Results tested with universities from CEE countries  Current results presented at conferences  Organisation of workshops  Dissemination to  translation companies  companies in need of multilingual language management