NLP4CALL 2021 third call for papers

[David Alfter]

== 10th NLP4CALL, Online ==

=*NEW*=

This year, we open the research notes session to everyone interested. See below "Submission information" for more information.

=*NEW*=

The workshop series on Natural Language Processing (NLP) 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 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 competences 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 and 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 work done on second language vocabulary and grammar profiling, as well as the use of crowdsourcing for creating, collecting and curating data in NLP projects.

We encourage paper presentations and software demonstrations describing the above-mentioned themes primarily, but not exclusively, for the Nordic languages.

 
==Invited speakers==

This year, we have the pleasure to announce two invited talks.

The first talk is co-presented by Mark Brenchley and Kevin Cheung from Cambridge Assessment English.

The second talk is TBD.

==Submission information==

Authors are invited to submit long papers (8-12 pages) alternatively short papers (4-7 pages), page count not including references. We will be using the NLP4CALL 2021 template for the workshop this year. The author kit, including LaTeX and Microsoft Word templates can be accessed here, alternatively on Overleaf:

<https://spraakbanken.gu.se/cms/sites/default/files/2021/authorkit_nlp4call2021.zip>

<https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/nlp4call-2021-template/xwzrgkckkrvp>


Submissions will be managed through the electronic conference management system EasyChair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nlp4call2021>. Papers must be submitted digitally through the conference management system, in PDF format. Final camera-ready versions of accepted papers will be given an additional page to address reviewer comments.

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 (<https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/venues/nlp4call/>).

=*NEW*=Research notes=*NEW*=

We invite expressions of interest for the research notes session.

The research notes session is an opportunity to present and discuss ideas, projects, and work-in-progress. It is aimed both at MA/PhD students and senior researchers. Students will be paired with experienced researchers to discuss their ideas.

If you want to participate in the research notes session, please send an email to David Alfter (david dot alfter at gu dot se) with the subject line NLP4CALL 2021 research notes including the title of the presentation, the presenter, whether the presenter is an MA/PhD student, and a short (50 words) description of the talk. The deadline for expressions of interest coincides with the paper submission deadline (March 18) but the notification of acceptance is later (April 27).

Research note presentations will not be included in the proceedings.

==Important dates==

18 March: paper submission deadline and deadline for expression of interest for research notes

19 April: notification of acceptance (regular papers)

27 April: notification of acceptance (research notes)

6 May: camera-ready papers for publication

31 May: workshop date


==Organizers==

David Alfter (1), Elena Volodina (1), Ildikó Pilán (2), Johannes Graën (3), Lars Borin (1)

(1) Språkbanken, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

(2) Norwegian Computing Center, Norway

(3) Department of Computational Linguistics, University of Zurich, Switzerland


==Contact==

For any questions, please contact David Alfter, david....@gu.se

For further information, see the workshop website <https://spraakbanken.gu.se/en/research/themes/icall/nlp4call-workshop-series/nlp4call2021>

Follow us on Twitter @NLP4CALL <https://twitter.com/NLP4CALL/>