Modern language experts at the University of Leeds are developing computer programs which could alter how languages are taught and used around the world.
Currently, many computer-based systems for teaching and translating languages are out of date or not user-friendly. While there is a wealth of information about different languages and vocabularies available on the internet, much is badly-organised and difficult to navigate. Dr Serge Sharoff of the Centre for Translation Studies is working on three research projects - Kelly, TTC and Accurat - to bring things up to date. He has been awarded close to £700,000 from the European Commission in recent months to fund the work. In the Kelly project, a set of word learning cards for some of the most frequent words in Swedish, Norwegian, Greek, Polish, Arabic, English, Chinese, Russian and Italian will be developed, along with a scientific basis for measuring learners' abilities in these languages. According to Sharoff, some language teachers are unhappy with the word learning cards currently available because of inconsistencies in grading. The Kelly project is designed to produce word lists from large collections of data and adapt them into a new, learner-centred framework.
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