Call for Papers: workshop on NLP in computer-assisted language learning

Workshop is organized as a part of SLTC, the Fourth Swedish Language
Technology Conference, which takes place on 24-26 October 2012 in Lund,
Sweden. The workshop is held on October 25, 2012. Details about the
conference: http://nlp.cs.lth.se/events/sltc_2012/

Learning and teaching languages with the assistance of a computer,
i.e. computer-assisted language learning (CALL), has become widespread since
the early 1980s. Traditional CALL applications provide limited exercise
types, along with limited ability to provide feed-back, because the
exercises are static, i.e. pre-programmed, and the answers have to be
pre-stored.

To try to overcome this disadvantage, some researchers have started to use
techniques from the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in CALL
system, i.e. supplying CALL applications with some kind of intelligence. As
a result, the interdisciplinary field of Intelligent CALL (ICALL),
i.e. combining NLP and CALL, has emerged over the past 20 years or so.

There is an array of NLP resources and tools potentially available for
re-use in ICALL applications for Swedish as well as for many other languages
equipped with NLP tools and resources, but this opportunity has so far
remained relatively underdeveloped.

We welcome papers
* that describe research directly aimed at ICALL,
* that demonstrate actual or discuss potential use of existing NLP tools
or resources for language learning,
* that describe ongoing development of resources and tools with potential
usage in ICALL, either directly in interactive applications, or
indirectly in materials, application or curriculum development,
e.g. collecting and annotating learner corpora; developing tools and
algorithms for readability analysis, selecting optimal corpus examples,
etc.

We especially invite submissions describing work on Swedish or other Nordic
languages.

Papers should be a maximum of 8-10 pages long (excluding title, references
and author affiliations) and follow the ACL template
http://www.acl2011.org/authors.shtml. Only pdf files are accepted.

Every paper will be reviewed by 2 members of the program committee. All
accepted papers will be published in the NEALT Proceeding Series. Authors of
the accepted papers will have to sign an agreement with NEALT publishers.

Important dates:
* 10 September: paper submission by email to elena dot volodina at svenska
dot gu dot se
* 1 October: notification of acceptance
* 22 October: camera-ready papers for publication


Program committee
------------------------------------
* Detmar Meurers, University of Tübingen, Germany
* Elena Volodina, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
* Hrafn Loftsson, Reykjavik University, Iceland
* Lars Borin, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
* Ola Knutsson, Stockholm University, Sweden
* Serge Sharoff, University of Leeds, UK
* Sofie Johansson Kokkinakis, University of Gothenburg, Sweden


Workshop organisation
----------------------------------------
There will be an invited speaker (_Hrafn Loftsson
(http://www.ru.is/%7Ehrafn/), _Reykjavik University, Iceland) as well as
regular (short) talks

Details on place and time are provided at the conference website
(http://nlp.cs.lth.se/events/sltc_2012/workshops/)


Workshop organizers
-----------------------------------------
Lars Borin, Elena Volodina, Språkbanken, Department of Swedish, University
of Gothenburg; lars dot borin at svenska dot gu dot se, elena dot volodina
at svenska dot gu dot se