NLP4CALL, Rennes, France, 25 & 26 October 2024

We are happy to announce that the 2024 edition of NLP4CALL will be held in France at Université Rennes 2. As a result of the growing interest in the domain, the workshop series will be held over two days. Paper presentations, poster and demo sessions will alternate to offer a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in the field.

WATCH US on ZOOM: https://gu-se.zoom.us/j/66408120234

NOTE: As a pre-conference workshop to NLP4CALL, the A4LL team will be presenting some of the outcomes of the project. Feel free to join us for a two-hour session to understand the ins and outs of the A4LL CALL system.

Date: 24/10/2024 from 2PM to 4PM. Same venue as NLP4CALL.

The workshop series on Natural Language Processing for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (NLP4CALL) is a meeting place for researchers working on the integration of Natural Language Processing and Speech Technologies in CALL systems and exploring the theoretical and methodological issues arising in this connection. The latter includes, among others, insights from Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research, on the one hand, and promote the development of “Computational SLA” through setting up Second Language research infrastructure(s), on the other. 

The intersection of Natural Language Processing (or Language Technology / Computational Linguistics) and Speech Technology with Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) brings “understanding” of language to CALL tools, thus making CALL intelligent. This fact has given the name for this area of research – Intelligent CALL, ICALL. As the definition suggests, apart from having excellent knowledge of Natural Language Processing and/or Speech Technology, ICALL researchers need good insights into second language acquisition theories and practices, as well as knowledge of second language pedagogy and didactics. This workshop invites therefore a wide range of ICALL-relevant research, including studies where NLP-enriched tools are used for testing SLA and pedagogical theories, and vice versa, where SLA theories, pedagogical practices or empirical data are modeled in ICALL tools.

The NLP4CALL workshop series is aimed at bringing together competencies from these areas for sharing experiences and brainstorming around the future of the field.

We welcome papers:

- that describe research directly aimed at ICALL;

- that demonstrate actual or discuss the potential use of existing Language and Speech Technologies or resources for language learning;

- that describe the 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. learning material generation, assessment of learner texts/responses, individualized learning solutions, provision of feedback;

- that discuss challenges and/or research agenda for ICALL;

- that describe empirical studies on language learner data.

This year, a special focus is given to systems relying on AI trained for ICALL tasks. This includes, but not only, fine tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) and supervised-learning methods based on learning analytics. Issues related to data in SLA and learner corpus such as collection and feature extraction are also welcome.

This year we have the pleasure to welcome Helen Yannakoudakis (King's College London) and Kristopher Kyle (University of Oregon)

Authors are invited to submit long papers (8-12 pages) alternatively short or demo papers (4-7 pages), page count not including references. We will be using the NLP4CALL templates for the workshop this year.

• LaTeX

• Microsoft Word

• Overleaf

Final camera-ready versions of accepted papers will be given an additional page to address reviewer comments.

You may also find the links to the Latex and Word templates from 2023 here:

https://spraakbanken.gu.se/forskning/teman/icall/nlp4call-workshop-series/nlp4call2023#submission

Papers should describe original unpublished work or work-in-progress. Papers will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of the program committee in a double-blind fashion. All accepted papers will be collected into a proceedings volume to be submitted for publication in the NEALT Proceeding Series (Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings) and, additionally, double-published through the ACL anthology, following experiences from the previous NLP4CALL editions.

• January 2024 - First call for papers
• March - Second call for papers
• May - Final call for papers
• 30 June - Paper submission deadline (long, short and demo)
• NEW: 7 July - Paper submission deadline (long, short and demo)
• 1 September - Notification of acceptance
• 30 September - Camera-ready papers for publication
• 3 October - Registration deadline
  
• 4 October - Camera-ready papers for publication submitted online
• 15 October - Registration deadline extension
  
• 25-26 October 2024  - Workshop dates

Université Rennes 2, France

Thomas Gaillat, Cyriel Mallart, Fabienne Moreau, Jen-Yu Li, Griselda Drouet - Linguistique Ingénierie et Didactique des Langues (LIDILE)

University of Gothenburg, Sweden

David Alfter, Gothenburg Research Infrastructure in Digital Humanities (GRIDH)

Elena Volodina, Språkbanken Text

Linköping University, Sweden

Arne Jönsson

nlp4call2024 [AT] sciencesconf.org

Supported by 

ANR-22-CE38-0015-01