Page 102 - LanGuide Project: Research and Professional Insights
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a Pavletić, Klara Šumenjak, and Jana Volk
have become a ubiquitous part of our lives and thus affecte all segments of
human activity and pursuits – including learning foreign languages.
The authors of the articlejoined the LanGuide project at the beginning
of 2021, when the project was already in full swing, to design the Slove-
nian language exercises.¹ We encountered numerous difficulties already at
the beginning. The mobile app was one of the predicted outcomes of the
project,² but nobody knew with certainty what type of exercises can be de-
signed for the app, how they will look and appear on the mobile app.
The exercises are divided into four specific domains, i.e. mobility, aca-
demic language, i t language, and administrative language. Limiting the
exercises to specific domains is quite demanding, therefore certain exercise
topics are more general and not necessarily connected only to the fields in
question, while still retaining a common thread.
The Slovenian language exercises were initially designed at three levels
(a 1, a 2 and b 1), although to unify our exercises with those of other lan-
guages, the exercises had to be divided into only two levels, i.e. the begin-
ner and the intermediate level. From our perspective, this was not a good
solution as most of the a2 exercises are too difficult for the beginner level
and too basic for the intermediate level. We have, nevertheless, decided to
present all three levels of exercises in the article as the app offers the pos-
sibility of checking exercises at three levels, and because we believe that a
third level will be added in the future. Each of the three authors prepared
exercises for one of the levels, but for the exercises to complement and
reinforce each other, we have first prepared the exercises at the level a 1,
followed by those at the level a2 and finally proceeding to the level b1.
We have already thoroughly described the process of exercise design in
Pavletić et al. (2021), therefore the present article does not focus on mate-
rials development. It deals mainly with the evaluation of exercises, point-
ing out their advantages and shortcomings, offering some suggestions for
improvement, as well as discussing the reasons why these exercises are a
suitable tool for traditional learning and less appropriate for independent
learning.
(Slovenian) Language Guidance Apps
For users to stay up to date and learn foreign languages by adjusting the
time, manner, and level of learning to their needs, language guidance
¹ The exercises were also developed for English, Croatian, Italian, Romanian and Spanish.
² Visit https://languide.si/en to find out more about the project.
102
have become a ubiquitous part of our lives and thus affecte all segments of
human activity and pursuits – including learning foreign languages.
The authors of the articlejoined the LanGuide project at the beginning
of 2021, when the project was already in full swing, to design the Slove-
nian language exercises.¹ We encountered numerous difficulties already at
the beginning. The mobile app was one of the predicted outcomes of the
project,² but nobody knew with certainty what type of exercises can be de-
signed for the app, how they will look and appear on the mobile app.
The exercises are divided into four specific domains, i.e. mobility, aca-
demic language, i t language, and administrative language. Limiting the
exercises to specific domains is quite demanding, therefore certain exercise
topics are more general and not necessarily connected only to the fields in
question, while still retaining a common thread.
The Slovenian language exercises were initially designed at three levels
(a 1, a 2 and b 1), although to unify our exercises with those of other lan-
guages, the exercises had to be divided into only two levels, i.e. the begin-
ner and the intermediate level. From our perspective, this was not a good
solution as most of the a2 exercises are too difficult for the beginner level
and too basic for the intermediate level. We have, nevertheless, decided to
present all three levels of exercises in the article as the app offers the pos-
sibility of checking exercises at three levels, and because we believe that a
third level will be added in the future. Each of the three authors prepared
exercises for one of the levels, but for the exercises to complement and
reinforce each other, we have first prepared the exercises at the level a 1,
followed by those at the level a2 and finally proceeding to the level b1.
We have already thoroughly described the process of exercise design in
Pavletić et al. (2021), therefore the present article does not focus on mate-
rials development. It deals mainly with the evaluation of exercises, point-
ing out their advantages and shortcomings, offering some suggestions for
improvement, as well as discussing the reasons why these exercises are a
suitable tool for traditional learning and less appropriate for independent
learning.
(Slovenian) Language Guidance Apps
For users to stay up to date and learn foreign languages by adjusting the
time, manner, and level of learning to their needs, language guidance
¹ The exercises were also developed for English, Croatian, Italian, Romanian and Spanish.
² Visit https://languide.si/en to find out more about the project.
102
