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Dr Breffni O'Rourke delivers keynote at international seminar on eye-tracking and language learning


Breffni O’Rourke delivered a keynote talk at the recent seminar on eye-tracking as a research tool in language learning, hosted by the Open University in association with the British Association of Applied Linguistics and Cambridge University Press (12-13 June 2015).

Eye-tracking is a technology that records the gaze of individuals as they engage in visual tasks, including reading. Online chat is a relatively recent and unique form of communication that is in some ways like reading and writing, and in others like face-to-face conversation. It is increasingly being explored as a tool for language and intercultural learning.

Dr O’Rourke spoke about what eye-tracking data can tell us about how individuals process language in chat, about what is special about the communication patterns produced, and what these findings might mean for language learning.

Breffni O’Rourke is Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics in the Centre for Language and Communication Studies, and Director of the M.Phil. programmes in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, English Language Teaching, and Speech and Language Processing.