An inter-institutional collaborative project: The why, the what and the how.

Abstract

This seminar will start by outlining the OPTIMUS Pro-ject, the overarching goal of which is to produce an online resource for the use of Hong Kong tertiary level students to improve their English speaking skills. This large, Inter-institutional, UGC-funded project is im-portant because students need to orally present them-selves and their work both in the university and later in the professional world. At the heart of the project is a corpus of authentic video exemplars of best-practice speaking from expert and peer presenters. The user in-terface provides multiple points of access and pathways through the corpus and supplements it with learner-friendly support. In this seminar we will give an over-view of the project and discuss briefly the logistical oper-ations of such a large project. We will then demonstrate the user interface and discuss the potential for teaching and learning applications of the project.