Key Note Talks

Keynote Speakers: https://ceh.elach.uminho.pt/techling/

Alex Boulton

University of Lorraine, ATILF

Incorporating GenAI in language teaching

With GenAI, many teachers have gone to the extreme of abandoning marked assignments out of class, fearing they can no longer be assumed to consist entirely of student output; a return to exams has its drawbacks though. This paper briefly surveys some of the obvious strengths and weaknesses of GenAI in language teaching/learning, then presents two cases where it was incorporated into classroom work and assignments at our university in France last semester.

The first involved several hundred third-year undergraduates in Social Sciences who worked on small-group projects on a topic of their choice but connected to their studies. Investigation the previous year had found many students using GenAI inappropriately; this year, they were encouraged to use GenAI to help prepare their topic, though the written and oral marks were based partly on questions unknown in advance. We will look at language analysis from the previous cohort (Yibokou et al., 2025), the successes and failures of the new procedures, along with student feedback, among other things.

A separate situation featured an intact class of 33 first-year master’s students in Geography, again working in small groups on a disciplinary topic of their choice. Each group was required to choose at least 15 research articles for analysis using corpus linguistics tools and techniques, writing up the results on a form which made the basic work unavoidable, though they were encouraged to use GenAI to help with reading the texts and checking the language in their written submission. The presentation will draw on the completed assignments as well as a post-course questionnaire focusing on the integration of the electronic tools – AntConc and GenAI (Boulton, 2025).

In both cases, the students were motivated by the collaborative work and the trust to choose their own topic; weaker students also appreciated being allowed to use electronic tools, such that the mark was not solely for their level of proficiency in the language. GenAI is likely here to stay, but there are alternatives to embracing it wholesale or seeking to ban it entirely.

References

Boulton, A. (2025). Corpus and GenAI tools for learning language and content. EUROCALL international conference. Advancing CALL: New research agendas. Milan, 27-30 August.

Yibokou, K.S., Boulton, A., Kalyaniwala, C., & Schires, M. (2025). Spontaneous use of Generative Artificial Intelligence and influence on collaborative learner writing. Alsic, 28(1). https://doi.org/10.4000/13f6g

Biography

Alex Boulton is Professor of English and Applied Linguistics and former director of the ATILF research group (CNRS & Université de Lorraine). He is editor of ReCALL, and is on committees for several other scientific journals (Alsic, ASp, CALL-EJ, the EUROCALL Review, IJCALLT, JALT-CALL Journal) and associations (EUROCALL, TaLC and AFLA).Particular research interests centre on corpus linguistics and potential uses for ‘ordinary’ teachers and learners (aka data-driven learning – DDL), with over 100 publications including several syntheses of DDL in recent years. 

Geoffrey Williams & Emmanuelle Pensec

Universities of Grenoble-Alpes & Bretagne Sud

The role of humanities in achieving sustainable development goals:
Bridging Culture, Technology, and Inclusivity

“Now I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds”,

J. R. Oppenheimer, father of the Atomic bomb, quoting the Bhagavad Gita in 1945 after the first test explosion at Los Alamos.

By definition, the humanities are concerned by the activities, social, cultural, economic of humans. We are users, and not creators of technology, but our responsibility is vast as only the humanities can judge whether technology is good, or not, for humanity, and whether it is sustainable in the sense of preserving the environment, in its widest sense, necessary for our survival as a species. The humanities have the role of deciding whether the outcomes of science and technology are legal and ethical. As such, the *Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations can only be evaluated through the humanities as they are about humanity.

In this paper, we shall look at the SDG as a template for valorising humanities research. The SDG will be seen as a means of demonstrating the key roles of the humanities across the board and not as a constraint into which they are destined to fit. This will be illustrated through case studies into two research units to show how funded projects provide input to different SDGs. This will clearly show how our ethical choices in terms of, for example, technological choices and inclusivity valorise our research choices a posteriori and can contribute to the overall ranking of institutions.

*Sustainable Development Goals — a set of 17 global goals adopted by the United Nations to promote prosperity while protecting the planet, with a target date of 2030.

Biography

Geoffrey Williams is Emeritus Professor in Digital Humanities and Lexicography at the Universities of Grenoble-Alpes and Bretagne Sud. He is a corpus linguist and lexicographer, but also a specialist in research policy and evaluation.  He founded the Journées de la Linguistique de Corpus in 2001 in Lorient. He is Principal Investigator of the ANR BaSNum Project and Honorary President of ENRESSH, the European Association for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Emmanuelle Pensec has a PhD in corpus linguistics in the field of special language analysis of company reporting. She is an independent researcher specialised in the analysis of sustainable issues and data. She is also a consultant and trainer in SDGs and ISO26000 standards for companies and universities. She is also member of ENRESSH. 

Enrica Piccardo

OISE, University of Toronto

Making space for agency: Action-oriented scenarios for an inclusive, multimodal and creative language education

While common misconceptions favouring compartmentalised, grammar-based methodologies and monolingual orientations to language education continue to
permeate language policies, curricula and classes, the understanding of language teaching/learning is rapidly evolving. There is increasing awareness that a plurilingual, action-oriented approach (Piccardo et al.,; North, 2019) to language education, positioning learners as social agents and leveraging an individual's linguistic and cultural resources, is crucial for the development of an inclusive society.

After introducing the notion of agency as a pivot for innovating the teaching/learning process, the presentation will discuss the potential of a curriculum organized around action-oriented scenarios to enable a shift from a linear to a dynamic view of language education, one that supports learners’ agency and makes space for diverse forms of mediation and creativity. The presentation then reports on the conceptualization, methodology and initial findings of the multi-year, Canadian research project, Advancing Agency in Language Education (AALE), designed to support language teacher agency in the pedagogical reimagining of digital plurilingual, action-oriented language education, highlighting the relationship between teacher beliefs and pedagogical innovation along with the challenges educators face when trying to innovate in a range of contexts.

A synthesis of data from the first phases of the AALE project will be presented that show the crucial role of both learner and teacher agency in enabling the above-mentioned shift. Based on these data the potential of action-oriented plurilingual scenarios to innovate language education is discussed together with the affordances of emerging digital tools and approaches to support innovation. The issue of teacher agency when it comes to operationalizing plurilingual, action-oriented and technology-mediated pedagogies, will then be highlighted, showing the importance of supporting both teachers and learners in their ability to adapt and mediate in the face of novelty and uncertainty. Finally an overview will be provided of an online teacher-driven resource hub, a toolkit, aimed at fostering teacher agency in a digital revisioning of plurilingual, learner-centred language teaching and learning.

Biography

Enrica Piccardo PhD is a Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto and distinguished Maître de Conférences (Associate Professor) at the Université Grenoble-Alpes (France). She has extensive international experience in second/foreign language education research, teacher development and teaching of multiple languages. A collaborator with the Council of Europe (CoE) since 2008 and Co-author of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020), she has coordinated international research projects on language teaching innovation and teacher education in Canada and Europe. She has presented in numerous countries and in different languages (English, French, Italian and German) and has published extensively - scholarly articles and books as well as publications for teachers. Her research spans language teaching approaches/curricula, multi/plurilingualism, creativity and complexity in language education. She is presently coordinating the SSHRC-funded ‘Advancing Agency in Language Education’ research project, which spans three Canadian Provinces and includes four languages (English, French, German and Spanish).

Among her recent publications: The Action-oriented Approach. A Dynamic Vision of Language Education (2019) Multilingual Matters, co-authored with Brian North; The Routledge Handbook of Plurilingual language Education (2021)Routledge, co-edited with A. Germain Rutherford and G. Lawrence; Activating Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in the Language Classroom. Springer International Publishing, co-edited with G. Lawrence, A. Germain Rutherford and A. Galante; La classe plurilingue. Insegnare con un approccio orientate all’azione, Sanoma, co-edited with G. Langé.; and Piccardo, E. & Chen, L. (Eds.) (2024). Autoethnographies of Plurilingualism. Voices of the Selves. Routledge, co-edited with Le Chen.

Amit Moryossef

University of Zurich

Advancements in Sign Language Processing: Bridging Communication Gaps with Technology

Sign Language Processing has long been overlooked in mainstream language technology due to the challenges of bridging visual-gestural languages with text-based AI. In this talk, I will show how SignWriting—a universal transcription system—creates a structured, scalable bridge between video-based sign language input and spoken language text, redefining sign language translation and generation. 

Leveraging this framework enables both accurate translation from sign language and natural generation into it, unlocking new possibilities for real-time, multilingual sign language applications. This approach makes AI-driven interactions more natural, accurate, and accessible. 

I will demonstrate how SignWriting establishes a clear separation between Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision in Sign Language Processing. This division allows researchers to contribute within their expertise while fostering real-time, multilingual applications. By bridging text-based AI with the visual-gestural nature of signed languages, this approach paves the way for truly inclusive language technology.

 Biography

Amit Moryossef is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Zurich and Co-Founder & CTO of Sign.mt, where he specializes in AI-driven sign language recognition and translation. His work focuses on enhancing accessibility for Deaf and signing communities through real-time sign language detection models and the integration of signed languages into natural language processing. 

He received his PhD in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University (Israel) under the supervision of Prof. Yoav Goldberg, with a dissertation on automatic sign language processing. Previously, he interned at Google Zurich, developing technology to improve sign language visibility in video conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom, and he has also served as Chief Technology Officer of a data analytics start-up.

In addition to his academic and professional activities, Amit disseminates knowledge through an educational YouTube channel on sign language technologies (YouTube) and shares his research outputs on his Google Scholar profile.

Ângela Ferreira

Minho University, EAAD and Lusofona University

Integrating Indigenous Art and Artificial Intelligence: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges 

This presentation examines the convergence of Indigenous art and Artificial Intelligence (AI), highlighting both opportunities and challenges. The rise of AI-generated art has sparked ethical debates, particularly concerning the unauthorized use of Indigenous styles, raising questions about cultural appropriation and intellectual property rights.  Addressing these concerns requires a collaborative approach, ensuring that AI development respects Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty, and that artists retain control over their cultural expressions. By navigating these complexities thoughtfully, AI can become a tool that amplifies Indigenous voices while honoring their rich cultural heritage. 

 Ângela Ferreira is an artist, curator and researcher born in Porto, Portugal. She holds a doctorate in visual communication with a focus on photopainting and self-representation of indigenous nations from the University of Minho, Portugal. She graduated in curatorial studies and completed her master’s in photography at the Utrecht School of Arts in the Netherlands. Her post-doctoral research was conducted in the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where she explored contemporary visual practices that challenge hybrid forms of photography. Over the past decade, Ângela has curated contemporary photography exhibitions across Europe, Asia and Latin American countries, with a special emphasis on Brazil. Ângela is also a consultant for international awards and is a member of the global photography association Oracle, the Curatorial Council of the FotoFestival Solar and the Museum of Photography in Fortaleza, Brazil. She is a guest professor in the School of Architecture, Art, and Design at the University of Minho and Lusofona University in Lisbon. Ângela is also a co-founder of the Nervo_Portuguese Photobook Observatory (2022).