Access To Language Education Award
CALICO (The Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium), lernu!, and ESF (Esperantic Studies Foundation) present the "Access To Language Education Award”, an annual award to a website offering exceptional language-learning resources. The chosen website is recognized at CALICO's annual business meeting and awards ceremony, and its developers are presented with an Award Certificate and an honorarium. Noncommercial (cost-free) websites, created and/or maintained by CALICO members, are eligible for this award.
In 2004, ESF began sponsoring an annual award for an outstanding language learning website, in collaboration with the Computer-Aided Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO). CALICO is one of the two largest organizations in the world focused on computer-aided language learning (CALL). In the last decade, CALL has become the foundation of foreign language teaching all over the world.
The Esperanto ‘Access to Language Education’ (ALE) Award is presented to a CALICO member or group for creating innovative language learning resources in any and all languages. Over its history, sites receiving the Award have varied from those focused on large languages like Spanish, Chinese, French, and Russian, to the very infrequently taught Macedonian and Aymara, to teacher training and instructional resources, and to specialized language learning sites, such as the multilingual employment-oriented EuroCatering Language Training initiative.
The recipients of the ALE award for every year can be viewed on the CALICO Awards webpage: https://calico.org/home/awards/
2024
During the 2024 CALICO Annual Symposium Awards Ceremony, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the ‘Access to Language Education’ website award was presented to #OnYGo, an open source Open Educational Resources (OER) website for French language learning that is explicitly built around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). CALICO President Jon Reinhardt presented this year’s Award to Géraldine Blattner, Amanda Dalola, and Stéphanie Roulon, and their team.
#OnYGo is an innovative, openly accessible, multimodal platform, which offers a deeply international and intercultural foundation for learning French, and exploring Francophone world, including its multiple ethnicities, social classes, and contexts of use across its diverse colonial histories. The course offers students an appreciation for different cultures, values, and perspectives, to help them become responsible, empathetic, and informed global citizens who can engage with people from diverse backgrounds and contribute to a more interconnected and harmonious world. https://onygofrench.com
2023
During the 2023 CALICO Annual Symposium Awards Ceremony, at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, the ‘Access to Language Education’ website award was presented to Introduction to Ukrainian language and culture, a website within the OpenLearn system of The Open University, based in the United Kingdom. CALICO member and ESF Board member Derek Roff presented this year’s Award to Mirjam Hauck, Caroline Rowan-Olive and Olga Volosova, and their team.
Introduction to Ukrainian language and culture is a free course for people displaced by the Ukraine war, and for those supporting them, such as hosts, volunteers, medical personnel and education professionals. Cultural learning is embedded in all course topics. Ukrainian celebrations, religions, geography and history are also covered, particularly the history of Ukraine as a nation. The main educational goal is to increase linguistic and intercultural understanding. Speaking skills and the ability to communicate in everyday situations are foregrounded. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/languages/introduction-ukrainian-language-and-culture/?active-tab=description-tab
2022
During the 2022 CALICO Annual Symposium Awards Ceremony in Seattle, the ‘Access to Language Education’ website award was presented to Multiʻōlelo, a website centered at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI. Former CALICO President, Board member, and ALE Award winner Gillian Lord presented this year’s Award to Huy Phung, Mery Díez Ortega, and the Multiʻōlelo team.
Multiʻōlelo addresses the daunting task of making language-related research findings more accessible to language educators, people in related fields, and to a wider public. Multiʻōlelo serves as a resource hub to provide language-related research findings in accessible, multilingual, multimodal formats for the general public including, but not limited to language educators, policy makers, parents, and learners. Articles presented on Multiʻōlelo bring important research out from behind pay walls, and the summaries help make technical research details and data accessible to a wider audience. Multiʻōlelo publishes language-related contents in multiple languages from multiple voices. Language-related issues can be L1 studies and/or multilingual studies from different perspectives and traditions.
Multiʻōlelo is run by a diverse team of almost 10 core members, shown in the photo below. More information can be found at the two links below.
https://multiolelo.com/about/multiolelo/
The Esperanto 'Access to Language Education' Award is presented each year by CALICO, Esperantic Studies Foundation to an outstanding website, created or run by a CALICO member, and providing diverse language learning resources. The 2022 Award was the 19th consecutive year for the ALE Award.
2021
Due to the Covid pandemic, the 2021 award was presented during the online CALICO Annual Business meeting and Awards Ceremony, by ESF Board member Derek Roff. The award was presented to Claudia Kost and Crystal Sawatzky, for their Open Educational Resource (OER - open source) online e-textbook for learning German. This first-year textbook features a task-based, communicative approach which provides students with opportunities to communicate in German in a variety of contexts and situations, and is available to any individual learner, teacher, class or institution. https://openeducationalberta.ca/willkommen-deutsch/
The recipients of the ALE award for every year can be viewed on the CALICO Awards webpage: https://calico.org/home/awards/
2020
The Corpus-Aided Platform for Language Teachers: The Corpus-Aided Platform for Language Teachers (CAP) provides educational resource materials and teacher training for the use of language corpus databases as a foundational element of student engagement with language learning. Dr. Ma Qing and her team have helped train and support corpus-based learning at multiple universities around the world.
2020
As with most international organizations, health concerns relating to the corona virus led the Computer-Aided Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO) to replace its Annual Symposium with online alternatives. The Awards Ceremony and Business meeting took place on June 2nd at 4 PM, for people in the eastern US and Canada, and parts of South America. However, the moment was in the early morning, twelve hours earlier and half-way around the world, for Dr. Ma Qing Angel, and her team in Hong Kong, whose website, The Corpus-Aided Platform for Language Teachers (CAP), was awarded the 2020 Esperanto Access to Language Education Award, presented by the Esperantic Studies Foundation, CALICO.
The ALE Award is given each year to an outstanding CALICO website focused on language education. Dr. Ma Qing’s website provides educational resource materials and teacher training for the use of language corpus databases as a foundational element of student engagement with language learning. Her team has helped train and support corpus-based learning at multiple universities around the world.
The Corpus-Aided Platform for Language Teachers (CAP)
https://corpus.eduhk.hk/cap/
Dr. Ma Qing Angel
2019
LifeSpark: Subtitled ''The App Creation Tool for Language Revitalization’, the Lifespark website enables non-programmers such as teachers, and even students, to create language learning materials that will run on a mobile device, such as a smart phone. This allows the creation of important and accessible learning materials for the most endangered languages, including many indigenous languages.
2018
Tone Perfect: website for the learners of Mandarin Chineese with over thousand sound files and presenting words in all their tones, pronounced by men and women. By using the collection of recorded sounds, learners can listen and learn about the tones of the Mandarin, which can be very challenging for many.
2017
The Center for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS) at the University of Oregon. CASLS is one of sixteen National Foreign Language Resource Centers that work to increase the capacity for language teaching and learning in the U.S.
2016
Mezdhu nami: An Interactive Introduction to Russian (visit the website)
2015
Ayamel, ARCLITE Lab, Brigham Young University (Ayamel is a web-based system for streaming video and audio content especially as it applies to learning a foreign language).
2014
Resource Center for Teachers of Russian
Evgeny Dengub, Susanna Nazarova, Marina Rojavin and Irina Dubinina
2013
Papeirs-Mâchés is an online interactive tutorial to help learners improve their French writing skills.
2012
Macedonian Language E-Learning Center
The Macedonian Language E-Learning Center is an online non-profit organization dedicated to Macedonian language learning and cultural understanding world-wide.
This website is a complete, interactive curriculum for intermediate-level learners of Spanish developped by the University of Kansas Collaborative Digital Spanish Project “Acceso”.
2011
This course provides an overview of the ancient and unique Andean Aymara language and culture, as well as presents language study materials.
Gillian Lord, M. J. Hardman, Sue M. Legg, Elizabeth Lowe, Howard Beck
2010
EuroCatering Language Training
A free language kit for professionals in the kitchen and restaurant (English, French, Spanish, Galician, Slovenian, Norwegian and Dutch)
Jozef Colpaert
2009
Français interactif
Karen Kelton, Carl Blyth, & Nancy Guilloteau
2008
Arabic Without Walls
Robert Blake & Kirk Belnap (Project Co-Directors); & Sonia Shiri (Course Designer)
2007
French Online
Christopher Jones (Project Director & Coauthor); Marc Siskin (Technical Lead); & Sophie Queuniet & Bonnie Youngs (coauthors)
2006
Piet Desmet & the Lingu@tic team
Honorable mention:
Autonomous Technology-assisted Language Learning (The ATALL wikibook) Gary Cziko
Bauhaus and Beyond: Influences on Chicago's Skyline Franziska Lys, Denise Meuser, & Ingrid Zeller (Project Conception and Development); Denise Meuser & Ingrid Zeller (Video Production); Mark Schaefer (Camera and Editing); Franziska Lys, Daniel Escuatia, & Adam Bennett (Software Development)
2005
German Resources on the Web
Jim Witte, Donna Van Handle, & Anne Green (American Association of Teachers of German).
2004
Spanish Grammar Exercises Barbara Kuczun Nelson