Innovation in Language Learning

A multidisciplinary project team in The Language and Language Technology Group at Uni Research has since 1996 been working on developing the Norwegian version of the Swedish dictionary series LEXIN. The Swedish series with dictionaries from Swedish to approx. 20 languages was launched in the 1980's, designed specifically for minority language immigrants living in Sweden. The dictionaries are customized for non-native speakers who have limited proficiency in the source language and who may also be unfamiliar with the use of dictionaries as such. The dictionaries are illustrated, lucid and user-friendly, and the entry words and examples are selected with this target group in mind.

            In 1996, The Norwegian Ministry for Education, Research and Church Affairs initiated the corre­­spon­ding Norwegian project, at present owned and funded by The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (Utdanningsdirektoratet). The Norwegian dictionaries are tailormade for minority lan­g­uage pupils in the primary and secondary education and training. In addition to everyday words, the dictionaries contain words and expressions that are important to know for persons living in Norway. The dictionaries are useful also for others who would like to learn Norwegian. At present the Norwegian LEXIN series consists of dictionaries between the two Norwegian official written standards Bokmål and Nynorsk into 16 target languages, as Arabic, Dari, Somali, Tigrinya, Urdu and Viet­na­me­se, and more are forthcoming, as Burmese and Lithuanian. All dictionaries are published online, and some of them also in printed editions: <www.udir.no/lexin>  The online editions are free.

The first Norwegian dictionaries were launched in 2002. Since then, the end users have been able to contact the project group directly through the project's website. This dialogue has proven to be of great value. Two user surveys have also contributed to our knowledge about the end user habits and needs in and outside the class rooms and about how they benefit from using LEXIN in their Norwegian language learning. According to the last user survey, 86% of the respondents found it easier to learn Norwegian by means of LEXIN.