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About this project

The Project’s Origins

The LanguageQuest project originates from the Dutch TalenQuest Project (Talen is Dutch for Languages).

This state funded project was initiated by the National Bureau for Modern Languages in 2000 and aimed to develop the concept 'TalenQuest' as an innovative approach in language Education.

The project's main goal was to adapt the WebQuest concept to the specific requirements motivated by theoretical insights from Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research resulting in improved task design.

Dissemination of the TalenQuest Project Results

With the adoption of the project deliverables by Kennisnet, the national educational network and content provider for Dutch schools, project targets at a national level have been realised and wider dissemination in Europe is being promoted through workshops at the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) and the EU project ‘Moderating Intercultural Communication and Language Learning’ (MICaLL).

The ECML LQuest Project

The European Centre for Modern Languages, an initiative of the Council of Europe to promote Language Education in Europe, supports (research) projects, professional networks and workshops and conferences that address various aspects of language teaching and learning in general, including the training of language teachers.

The LanguageQuest project was selected to coordinate the project “Task-based second language acquisition with the help of Internet resources” in the strand “Innovative approaches and new technologies” of the 2nd medium-term of four-year projects programme the Centre runs.

The 2006 LQuest workshop aimed to familiarize the 23 participants from 21 countries with the LanguageQuest concept and the underlying SLA principles and raise competence and skills levels enabling them to:

- estimate the effect of a LanguageQuest on SLA

- improve existing LanguageQuests in terms of better SLA outcomes

- design and construct an effective LanguageQuest.

The collective dissemination endeavours of animators and participants are geared to further the growth of the LQuest network into a professional communtiy of practice: LQuest CoP.

For more information on the project's rationale watch this two minute interview with the project coordinator, Ton Koenraad

LanguageQuest and the MICaLL Project

Another dissemination channel is the project “Moderating Intercultural Communication and Language Learning” (MICaLL). This EU project is supported by the Socrates grant programme. The main goal of the MICaLL project (2004 – 2007) is to contribute to the innovation of teacher education in general and the training and professional development of (student) teachers of modern languages in particular.