Organizations, departments, institutions, groups, companies
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The Association for Computational Linguistics is THE international scientific and professional society for people working on problems involving natural language and computation. Membership benefits include the ACL quarterly journal, Computational Linguistics, reduced registration at most ACL-sponsored conferences, discounts on ACL-sponsored publications, and participation in ACL Special Interest Groups. The ACL journal, Computational Linguistics, continues to be the primary forum for research on computational linguistics and natural language processing. Since 1988, the journal has been published for the ACL by MIT Press to provide a broader distributional base. The ACL has two related regional associations: The European Chapter of the ACL (EACL) and the North American Chapter of the ACL (NAACL).
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is the only national organization dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction. ACTFL is an individual membership organization of more than 9,000 foreign language educators and administrators from elementary through graduate education, as well as government and industry. Since its founding, ACTFL has become synonymous with innovation, quality, and reliability in meeting the changing needs of foreign language educators and their students. From the development of Proficiency Guidelines, to its leadership role in the creation of national standards, ACTFL focuses on issues that are critical to the growth of both the profession and the individual teacher. Through their membership, new as well as veteran teachers are making an important investment in the future. Publications include: The Publications segment of the ACTFL Web Site contains a wealth of information related to ACTFL publications past and present. Foreign Language Annals contains information on ACTFL's premier journal for foreign language education, including submission information for future authors, and institutional subscriptions. The Language Educator the latest publication for ACTFL members that serves educators of all languages at all levels as a single, comprehensive source of news and information.
Founded in 1889, the American Dialect Society is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it. Our members include academics and amateurs, professionals and dilettantes, teachers and writers.
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The European Chapter of the ACL (EACL) is the primary professional association for computational linguistics in Europe. It provides a number of services to its members and the community including: The now triennial EACL conference. The next EACL is taking place in 2009 in Athens. In addition, the ACL conference is hosted in Europe every third year; Twice-yearly newsletter carrying news about activities organised or supported by EACL, and major European happenings and events; Support for educational initiatives in the field -- for example, EACL-sponsored introductory courses in CL at ESSLLI summer schools and studentships at specialist workshops; A calendar of forthcoming events of interest to computational linguists.
ELRA is a non-profit making organisation founded in 1995, with the support of the European Commission and the European HLT key-players, whether industrial or academics. The mission of the Association is to promote language resources (henceforth LRs) and evaluation for the Human Language Technology (HLT) sector in all their forms and all their uses, in a European context. Consequently the goals are: to coordinate and carry out identification, production, validation, distribution, standardisation of LRs, as well as support for evaluation of systems, products, tools, etc. - related to language resources. To find out more about ELRA, please visit our web site: www.elra.info Contact: Helene Mazo (mazo @ elda.org)
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The North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) provides a regional focus for members of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) in North America as well as in Central and South America, organizes annual conferences, promotes cooperation and information exchange among related scientific and professional societies, encourages and facilitates ACL membership by people and institutions in the Americas, and provides a source of information on regional activities for the ACL Executive Committee.
The National Capital Language Resource Center (NCLRC) is a joint project of Georgetown University (GU),The George Washington University (GWU), and the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). We are located in Washington, DC, and are one of fifteen nonprofit Language Resource Centers nationwide, created to improve and strengthen the nation's capacity to teach and learn foreign languages. Funding for the center comes from the U.S. Department of Education. Since its inception in 1990, the NCLRC has conducted activities in the areas of testing, learning strategies,materials development & methodology, technology, professional development, and dissemination of information on commonly and less commonly taught languages. Management of the NCLRC is under the supervision of Co-directors Dr. James E. Alatis and Dr. Anna Uhl Chamot, Associate Director, Dr. Catharine Keatley and Associate Project Director, Dr. Jill Robbins.
The National Council of Teachers of English is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. Since 1911, NCTE has provided a forum for the profession, an array of opportunities for teachers to continue their professional growth throughout their careers, and a framework for cooperation to deal with issues that affect the teaching of English. The Council promotes the development of literacy, the use of language to construct personal and public worlds and to achieve full participation in society, through the learning and teaching of English and the related arts and sciences of language. NCTE has over 60,000 members and subscribers in the United States and other countries. Individual members are teachers and supervisors of English programs in elementary, middle, and secondary schools, faculty in college and university English departments, teacher educators, local and state agency English specialists, and professionals in related fields. Anyone interested in advancing English language arts education is welcome to join the NCTE membership community.
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TESOL's mission is to ensure excellence in English language teaching to speakers of other languages. TESOL's values include: professionalism in language education; individual language rights; accessible, high quality education; collaboration in a global community; interaction of research and reflective practice for educational improvement; respect for diversity and multiculturalism. TESOL's mission statement is: Effective communication among communities and their individual members is essential for peaceful coexistence and for solving many of the problems now facing the world. The constant flow of information from country to country and continent to continent in our shrinking world creates the need for institutions that encourage and support the development of language and intercultural communication skills. TESOL, an association of English language educators who work with learners from diverse cultural backgrounds in a wide variety of settings, is uniquely positioned to give a coordinated, knowledgeable response at the international, national, and local levels to issues affecting institutions that foster the development of effective. TESOL publications are resources for teachers working with learners of English as an additional language. TESOL's Publications include the serials Essential Teacher, a complimentary member benefit, TESOL Quarterly and a full catalog of books that offer principled and insightful approaches to practice.