Vac: 0011.19

Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 14:00:42 +0100
From: Helmer Strik <strik@let.kun.nl>
Subject: Vac: 0011.19: Four-year PhD position at the Department of Language & Speech of the University of / OIO aan de afdeling Taal en Spraak van de KU Nijmegen (deadline: do 7 december 2000)

Vacature Nijmegen

The Department of Language & Speech offers a four-year PhD position (OIO in a PROO-project of NWO) for research in language learning and automatic speech recognition.

Project title:

Implications of potentially erroneous feedback in CALL systems. (Implicaties van potentieel foutieve feedback voor CALL-systemen.)

Project description:

The major objective of this project is to advance our understanding of the effects on learning of the frequency and the seriousness of feedback errors in advanced self-tutoring environments. The domain in which we intend to work is oral proficiency training in the acquisition of Dutch as a foreign language. Oral proficiency training is an outstanding example of a situation in which the need for interactive multimedia environments is obvious. At the same time it is obvious that state-of-the-art speech and language technology will make occasional assessment errors when it comes to evaluating the correctness of responses in interactive student-system dialogs, both with respect to contents and pronunciation quality or fluency. Empirical investigation of the impact of feedback errors in interactive multimedia CAL courses requires that such courses are available. In this project we will be working with the successful multimedia course for the Dutch language 'Nieuwe Buren'.

The successful applicant will undertake research into the application of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) in the Dutch multimedia course 'Nieuwe Buren'.

Required skills:

• MA in Education Science, Applied Linguistics, Speech Science or Computer Science
• Fluent in Dutch
• Ability to work as part of a team

• Perl and UNIX
• ASR and CALL
• ICT in learning environments

Information/Application:

Interested parties who (at least partially) fulfill above qualifications should send the following information as soon as possible (preferably by e-mail, before 7.12.00):

• name and affiliation,
• a short paragraph describing your qualifications
• list of publications and prior work
• pointers to web sites or other relevant resources

dr. C. Cucchiarini
C.Cucchiarini@let.kun.nl
Tel. +31-(0)24-3615785
http://zap.to/catia

or

dr. H. Strik
Strik@let.kun.nl
Tel. +31-(0)24-3616104
http://zap.to/helmer

postal address:
A2RT, Dept. of Language and Speech,
University of Nijmegen
P.O. Box 9103,
6500 HD Nijmegen,
The Netherlands.