The Linguist

20 The Linguist Vol/59 No/6 2020 thelinguist.uberflip.com FEATURES Why learning a language while you cook is so effective, and how online tool Linguacuisine can help. By Paul Seedhouse A significant challenge for nations worldwide is how to improve the foreign language proficiency of their workforce and students. The question is: how can we engage people with language learning? By helping learners to acquire a language while they cook, the Linguacuisine project 1 tackles the challenges of bringing the foreign culture to life and motivating people to study languages. It also addresses the age-old problem of classroom language learning – namely that students practise using the language in classrooms, rather than using it to carry out real-world actions. At Newcastle University, 2 linguists and computing scientists have been working together for 10 years to determine what language learning might look like if we took, as our starting point, what young people are interested in: digital technology, overseas travel, global cuisine and cooking, and hands-on experiences. My colleagues Phil Heslop and Ahmed Kharrufa and I used these as the design basis for our solution. Cooking is a universal physical activity which has considerable resonance with both culture and language. Such is its appeal that countless TV programmes are devoted to it. It involves all five senses, you can work with friends and you get to eat the end product. There are intimate connections between language, cuisine and culture. If you think of your favourite festival in your own country, certain food and language will be associated with it, which will give a window into the culture. Many adults are motivated to study languages through an interest in foreign cuisine and culture, and this project taps into that. Using the service is simple: click 'try it online now' on the website to browse recipes in 14 languages, including Chinese, German, Greek, Quechua and Turkish. Choose a recipe and your smartphone or tablet will speak to you in the foreign language, talking you through all of the cooking stages. There are photos and audio files of all of the ingredients and equipment you need, and video clips explaining the cooking processes. If you can't understand, just press a button to get a photo, audio file, text or video showing you what to do. Users can access different levels of help to support their language learning. It is best to work in pairs to help each other and practise speaking in the foreign language. Pedagogical concerns Linguacuisine is an adaptation of Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching (TBLT), a well-known and well-researched approach to language learning in which students learn while completing a task. When determining our pedagogical approach, TBLT had major advantages. There was a natural match with the chosen activity of cooking, which could be easily conceptualised as a task. TBLT has well-developed procedures and principles for task design. These blend well with Human- Computer Interaction (HCI) design principles, which also use an iterative development cycle. TBLT has so far predominantly been based on tasks to be undertaken within the classroom that simulate real-world tasks. There have been few attempts to employ the methodology in naturalistic settings outside the classroom, but this project takes TBLT principles out of the classroom and into the kitchen. Given the emphasis of the authentic task within TBLT, we have used the kitchen environment as a learning context. The act of cooking a meal is an authentic task with a clear goal and a motivating end product. The cooking task was designed according to Rod Ellis's criterial features of TBLT. 3 Firstly, we designed it to encourage learners to focus on meaning rather than purely on language – that is, they use the language to complete a culinary task rather than focusing primarily on the language itself. Secondly, learners must employ all four language skills in a holistic manner to achieve the task. Typically, pairs of learners listen to the audio/video, write down information, read the text instructions and discuss the task with each other. Thirdly, the task is situated in an authentic real-world context: the kitchen. The task is goal-oriented, involving the production of a dish. Fourthly, cooking tasks are carried out in pairs, which sometimes generates interaction in the foreign language. Finally, learners can measure their own success by non-linguistic goal completion, through cooking and consumption of the food. We adopted the cyclical TBLT framework put forward by Ellis, which divides activity related to the completion of a task into three Recipe for success

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