eLingua Latina: Designing a classical-language e-learning resource
Adrian Mallon · Computer Assisted Language Learning · 2006
eLingua Latina is a computer-based reference and exercise-rehearsal resource designed to facilitate the learning of Latin. The design was undertaken as an exploration into Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to create a self-learning reference tool helpful to the translation of latin prose and extendible to languages other than Latin and English. It uses the Whitaker Latin and WordNet English datasets. The work is currently at a prototypical, mid-development stage, before controlled and clinical testing and midway in data input, refinement and verification. The purpose of this paper is to advise on the existence and nature of the project, to elicit any expressions of interest in test participation, and to seek partners with linguistic and multilingual text-to-speech specialisms who might be interested in the program's extensibility to their domains. This paper begins by justifying Latin as a starting point for its discussion of issues affecting the design of multimedia, multilingual resources generally. It describes the nature and functionality of the eLingua Latina prototype, what it can do and what it cannot do but would like to try, and its potential as an experimental testbed for CALL research into the design of e-Learning reference tools.