Els Heughebaert

THE STANDARD VOCABULARY PROGRAMS OF DIDASCALIA: IN SEARCH OF EXTERNAL VERSATILITY AND DIDACTIC OPTIMISATION

Abstract The lexical CALL programs of Didascalia comprise a major part of our R&D over the past ten years. After a critical look at the subdivision in qualitative generations of software, the prin‐ciple of external versatility is explained as the internal adaptability of a program to external criteria. This adaptability is achieved through a selection system of contents and strategies within a multiple environment model. Other didactic aspects are finally discussed, such as the creation of tailor‐made menus, the systematisation of lexical progression, the use of translation, and the embedding of words into semantic reply‐forms with a high learning impact, as a middle course between an atomised approach and a whole‐language approach.

COMPANY‐SPECIFIC LANGUAGE COURSEWARE: BELLINGUA AND LINGUATEX AS CASE STUDIES

Abstract As an answer to an increasing demand of companies who wanted to optimise their internal and external multilingual communication. Didascalia started the development of company‐specific language courseware. In this article we want to give an overview of: how we specified an answer to that demand; how we have proceeded to develop a solution; the conclusions drawn after eight years producing company‐specific language courseware.