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EXILLS presentation

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In its European Research Centre (XRCE), Xerox The Document Company© has conceived EXILLS, an innovative environment to scenarise and design on-line language courses. EXILLs integrates Virtual Reality with linguistic and collaborative technologies coming from XRCE.
EXILLS is a truly Internet-based training environment and as such is different from face-to-face , video and CDRom trainings

EXILLS specificities can be summarized as follows:

pedagogy, traditional content, virtual reality, interaction asynchronous and synchronous, game aspect and Xerox technologies (linguistic, collaborative, and multi-lingual information retrieval).

Although EXILLS integrates together up-to-date research technologies, it focus on the pedagogical goal as well as on content of quality. EXILLS focuses on the interaction aspect of learning driven by the use of the internet, in particular, on interaction/collaboration and information access.

The purpose of EXILLS is to increase language understanding through writing and listening. In its current version, typical users are Xerox professionals with an intermediate level in English or French.
Learning through the Internet, or e-learning, opens the way to a new type of courses which complements the face to face course, it is called blended learning. While traditional and Computer Based trainings are targeted to a group of learners, e-learning is "my-learning" as it provides learners with just what they need to learn, at the moment they need it, wherever they are.
The characteristics of e-learning is to be able to learn exactly what one needs, when they need it and wherever they are. The main aspects of e-learning is that it is highly personalized, that is, learner centered, granulized, on demand and is highly interactive.

EXILLS proposes a way of integrating new technologies in order to strengthen course's personalization on the web and to take real advantage of interaction as well as of information access on the web.

During the training process customized scenarii are proposed to students. They are immersed in real linguistic situations: their own work environment, tourist situation depending on why they need to learn a foreign language. Customized scenarii are like role playing games and push student to interact more, which is the main goal in language courses.

Integration of virtual reality, linguistic, collaborative and smart search technologies in a web application permits propose a truly e-learning solution that can be use both synchronously (with robots, avatars, and tutors) and asynchronously (by yourself) .

Virtual reality because of the cognitive context it implies for the learners and thanks to the interaction it enables. Smart search technologies to get information, texts and documents from Internet or specialized databases related to a specific subject eventually matching with the language level of the learner. Collaborative technologies to share information gathered on the Internet between learners and to provide adequate content to teacher to make new exercises or lessons. Linguistic tools to provide autonomy to learners by showing them concepts, give them assistance to understand words meaning or different senses within a particular context by presenting various examples, to provide feedback towards their production (in the chat as well as during exercises or even free activities).

The scenario puts users in typical work situations such as introducing themselves, reading emails, searching for and understanding information, writing and making a presentation, ordering your meal, interacting with your colleagues and customers, and discovering cultural aspects.

The content includes traditional content such as grammar rules, exercises, and speech acts.
Users interact either via chats or during different activities proposed.

Team

Frédérique Segond

Frédérique received her PhD in Applied Mathematics at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, implementing a categorial French grammar at IBM-France at the same time. After a post-doc at IBM-Yorktown working on the links between syntax and semantics, she was Maître de Conférence at the Institut National des Télécommunications. In 1993, she joined the Xerox Research Centre Europe to work on computational linguistics and lead the Lexical semantic project. Dr Segond is currently in charge of e-learning projects for the XRCE Business Development Unit. She is also the author of many scientific publications and acts as so much scientist expert at the national and international level. You can find more information about her, here.

Thibault Parmentier

Thibault is working as a consultant in computer science, he is specialized in object modeling and software architecture. Following its PhD thesis in knowledge representation within the Inria (Grenoble), devoted to the representation of methodological knowledge, he was contracted by Objet Direct. Currently in mission at Xerox Research Centre Europe, he carried out the implementation of Exills and the integration of the different XRCE technologies. He also takes part in the development and the technical definition of the language e-learning offer of Xerox. You can find more information about him, here.

Former members

• Frédéric Le Diberder (ICVLE) has participated to Exills as consultant for Virtual Reality integration and interactions.
• Elvira Afonso is a teacher specialized in French as a foreign language and the usage of multimedia in language learning. With Pierrette, she has realized the pedagogic contents present in Exills and defined the scenarios.
• Pierrette Desbiolles is a teacher specialized in French as a foreign language. With Elvira, she has realized the pedagogic contents present in Exills and defined the scenarios.
• Mary Ellen Brown has realized a study on the e-learning market in languages.
• Daniel Purlich has participated to Exills as consultant on the business aspects.