Mangalore:

The digital language lab software that is fuelling English communication skills in educational institutions in the coastal city has aided a move by the World Konkani Centre (WKC) in Shaktinagar here to start a Konkani language laboratory.
WKC under the aegis of Konkani Language and Cultural Foundation has taken up the project under ‘Vision TVM’ propounded by TV Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Global Education.
The Orell Digital Language Lab (ODLL), a professionally engineered, comprehensive, and end-user friendly language learning software tool has been developed by Kochi-based Orell Technosystems (India) Pvt Ltd.
The laboratory with 30 computers using this software saw a trial demonstration on Tuesday for a test of its efficacy with invitees from a cross section of Konkani speaking communities in attendance at WKC.
Gurudath Bantwalkar, assistant director, World Institute of Konkani Language who has taken keen interest in setting up the laboratory told TOI that the software has been dubbed as a super efficient double-edged solution both for the tutor and scholar. “We will now have to leverage the strengths that the software provides and customise it to come up with Konkani language learning modules,” he said admitting that the task in a challenging one.
The centre has planned a workshop featuring Konkani language experts who can help the task of creating corpora of text and speech for the language within next two to three weeks. The challenge also lies in creating corpora for various scripts of Konkani as well as its dialects.
“We intend to make a start by creating corpora for Gowd Saraswath Brahmin and Catholic Christian Konkani dialect and Devanagari and Kannada script as well,” he said.
Aneesh K Murali, area manager, Orell said ODLL serves as platform mainly for teaching English language skills. Text and video files that are professionally recorded can be incorporated to build up teaching modules for any language and the software allows users to customise it to meet their requirements. With plans to dedicate the laboratory for community use shortly, the Centre will hold training sessions for trainers who will teach the trainees in future.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> Cityu> Mangalore / TNN / November 21st, 2012