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<Paper uid="W05-0110">
  <Title>Teaching Language Technology at the North-West University</Title>
  <Section position="4" start_page="2531" end_page="2531" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Conclusion
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Since its very inception, the BA Language Technology program at the North-West University was designed as a vocationally directed, future-oriented teaching program. A curriculum with a core of computational linguistic subjects, strengthened by a strong foundation in languages, computer science, mathematics, and statistics, equips students both with enough practical experience to start working in the industry, and with enough theoretical knowledge to continue with postgraduate studies. null By taking a problem-based, project-organized approach to curriculum design, students and researchers alike benefit from working side by side on research and development projects (as illustrated by the incorporation of a spelling checker project in the curricula of various subjects). The same approach is followed in other subjects, such as &amp;quot;Language Technology: Speech Applications&amp;quot;, where students are working in collaboration with their lecturers on various speech-based projects. As new research projects are initiated, the curricula of the various subjects are adapted accordingly. For example, in 2005 a new research project on syntactic parsing commenced - consequently, new students are confronted with other problems than their predecessors, while still learning, for example, about the differences between linguistic and statistical approaches to NLP. With the help of students in the program and others involved, the program is constantly evaluated and adjusted accordingly, thereby ensuring that it delivers well-educated and informed students, prepared for the challenges of a career in language technology.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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