Case Studies

The project called “Language Robot” started 1 year ago when one language teacher from Estonian Academy of Security Sciences wanted to reinforce or increase the teaching possibilities and learning opportunities for professional language development of border guards. The reason for launching the new project was a reduction of language lessons due to budgetary reasons but still the expectations of the learning standards remained the same we needed to find new innovative means to improve the professional language for those who guard the European external border to make our homes safer and our service better.

We found that the current e solutions are good but there is not yet a platform what allows actually speak and get the immediate feedback of progress when teacher is not present. And on the other hand similar solutions did not have the competency oriented learning approach or where to passive not activating the student as it should.

Thirdly Estonian Academy works hand in hand with European wide networks like CEPOL (European Police College) and European border guard agency Frontex- both of them were searching for innovative practice and drill solutions to harmonize common standard of expressions used in their daily tasks so our customers would understand us better and more importantly the same language will be used similar ways in cross border issues.

We started with English language and now there is a need to continue with other languages based on the feedback from our users.

Increasing the level of professional foreign language skill by creating interactive voice recognition simulator for border guard officials


• Creating and selecting typical expressions used by border guard officials for certain professional procedures like passport control, car check etc.
• Finding solutions to use voice recognition as an interactive tool for language training
• Creating an electronic online training environment

Language robot can be seen also as a perfect example of good cooperation between educational sector, private sector and with other training institutions.

Estonian Academy of Security Sciences was the one who initiated this project – we found a small sized company who has done some work with cognitive learning simulators for people with brain damages (Jukulab)- together we designed a common project, which was supported by EAS (European development fond) and later on we discovered that one language training simulator used for persons with language disabilities (logopedical problems) can be used for voice recognition purposes for professional foreign language training. This competency we found in Tallinn Technical University (Phonetics Institute). And as a result of this 3 partner cooperation a first demo of Language robot was introduced to users 10 April 2011.

The product has now a second version available with some new features based on the commence of users and language teachers. We check the usability on regular bases and gather the immediate feedback from our users in order to improve the product even more.

The main purpose of the version 1 was to attack the attention of security networks like Frontex and Cepol as a result we are known designing a common project with Frontex to reach 10 000 border guards within 1 year. Right know we use it mainly for our local needs aprx 200 users with the version 1 and we hope to double it with version 2 (what just started)

The result can be seen here: www.keelerobot.eu

We are sure that our invention can serve other professions as well as our internal security customers. We want to share our findings and improve our competence in that area. We think this is wonderful opportunity to raise the visibility of this product and we expect that this application due to result of this label award can reach new areas or professions and serve as usefully for others as it has done for us.

As mentioned before the product will be used for all the border guards in Europe and we hope that the label will give the necessary boost for that.
We will improve the product for also other languages
Different difficulty levels will be added
The product will be customized for other fields of professions if interest shown anywhere in Europe
Articles of promotion will be published

It will attract new users and many other fields can improve their foreign language terminology in order to improve their quality of service.


Impact of the initiative following the awarding of the ELL

ELL can be seen as a quality trade mark for good improvements in the area of language training for us it is an important and honourable milestone for new peaks to be reached


Consistency of the impact with initial expectations

We hope that the current and future users find that application useful and that learning can be flexible, interactive, exciting and language teachers will become more creative and enthusiastic about the new means and possibilities what modern technology has to offer know and in the future.

according to Marek Link, Head of Innovative Learning Technology Center, there is nothing exptraordinary, you have just to do it:-)

All aspects of the project are associated with
language learning (learners, teachers, materials
and methods) and the needs of learners have been
taken into account; it increases motivation for
learning and teaching of languages; it represents
real innovation and will serve for qualitative as
well as for quantitative improvements; it has
a European dimension and addresses linguistic
diversity. The project is important from the point of
view of national as well as European security.

The project results correspond to the priorities of the year - the project promotes new, technologically supported ways of learning languages, increasing students' motivation and contributing to the national and European security.

According to Made Kirtsi, Head of General Education Unit at the Centre for Educational Programs Archimedes Foundation, the project Keelerobot was awarded for being innovative, functional, with focus on professional language teaching and learning and for its importance considering the national and international security. The project is not final meaning that is being developed and it can be used for wide range of languages.