The new version of the website “The sounds of catalan”. Goals, improvements, perspectives and impact.

This paper has two goals. On the one hand, to present the new on-line version of website “The sounds of Catalan”, available at the URL http://www.ub.edu/sonscatala/, initiated as a project in 2006, published for the first time in 2008, and broadly renovated in 2014. On the other hand, to expose and discuss its impact on one of the official courses (which has as part of its goals the study of Catalan phonetics and phonology) implemented in the degree of Catalan Philology at the Universitat de Barcelona. With this purpose, an inquiry has been conducted within the course Llengua Catalana II (descriptive Catalan linguistics) this second semester 2013-2014. The results of this inquiry are presented in this paper. Keywords: Teaching innovation, Internet-supported education, Catalan, phonetics, phonology 1 THE WEBSITE “ELS SONS DEL CATALA” 1.1 Origin and goals “Els sons del catala” (The sounds of Catalan) is a website that was initiated as a project in 2006 and published for the first time in 2006 by a team of the Universitat de Barcelona, composed by Joan Sola, Josefina Carrera-Sabate and Claudia Pons-Moll, professors of the Department of Catalan Philology. The official URL of the website, which has free access, is http://www.ub.edu/sonscatala/, and has been recently renovated in order to answer to the new technological needs, such as the access through tablets and cellular phones, or the possibility of self-managing the contents. “Els sons del catala” is essentially aimed at a) assisting in teaching and learning the mechanisms of production, transmission and perception of Catalan sounds; b) helping Catalan graduate and undergraduate students of those degrees that have phonetics and phonology as object of study or as a working means (such as Philology, Speech Therapy, Linguistics, Translation, Communication, Journalism, among others) in learning both disciplines autonomously, in accordance with the European Higher Education Area guidelines; c) improving the teaching of Catalan as a foreign language, by furnishing the learner of Catalan as L2 with the basic devices to acquire the main features concerning the production and perception of Catalan sounds; d) providing Internet support materials and resources to those professionals working in fields such as language advising, correction, and speech therapy. (For more information, see [1], [2] and [3]). 1.2 Team and funding The team, which is available at the URL http://www.ub.edu/sonscatala/en/development-team, was originally composed by Joan Sola, Josefina Carrera-Sabate, and Claudia Pons-Moll. Currently, the project is leaded by the two latter professors, both from the Universitat de Barcelona. The project, though, counts with a wide advisory committee, composed by professors from different Catalan universities, namely: Gabriel Bibiloni (U de les Illes Balears), Eulalia Bonet (U Autonoma de Barcelona), Teresa Cabre (U Autonoma de Barcelona), Jordi Cicres (U de Girona), Nicolau Dols (U de les Illes Balears), Dolors Font-Rotches (U de Barcelona), Ricard Herrero (U Catolica de Valencia), Jesus Jimenez (U de Valencia), Joan Julia (U de Lleida), Silvia Llach (U de Girona), Maria-Rosa Lloret (U de Barcelona), Joan Mascaro (U Autonoma de Barcelona / ICREA Academia), Blanca Palmada (U de Girona), Miquel Angel Pradilla (U Rovira i Virgili), Pilar Prieto (U Pompeu Fabra / ICREA), Joaquim Rafel (U de Barcelona), Daniel Recasens (U Autonoma de Barcelona), Francina Torras (U de Barcelona), Joaquim Viaplana (U de Barcelona). And also with external consultants from universities outside the Catalan region, such as Andrew Nevins (U College London), Eduardo Pineros (U of Auckland) and Rafeu Sichel-Bazin (U Osnabruck). The project, on the other hand, has hired a wide range of technicians, who have worked on the eleboration of specific aspects of the website, and has also hired two interns, Enric Blanco-Pinol and Nuria Gil-Bordes, students at the Universitat de Bacelona, who have worked on the implementation of the new website during the period 2013-2014. The project has been benefited with various research and teaching grants, from private institutions, like “la Caixa” in association with the Associacio Catalana d’Universitats Publiques (ACUP) (RecerCaixa 2011, PI: Claudia Pons-Moll), la Casa de les Llengues (with two institutional agreements), and from public institutions, such as the Universitat de Barcelona itself (Programa de Millora i Innovacio Docent; PI: Josefina Carrera-Sabate [formerly, Joan Sola]), the Generalitat de Catalunya (with two Ajuts a la Millora de la Qualitat Docent, PI: Claudia Pons-Moll [formerly, Joan Sola]), and the Institut Ramon Llull (with two institutional agreements). 1.3 Structure and appearance The website is structured around a tool bar menu, placed at the top and containing the sections Home, Phonemic charts, Team, Glossary, Links, News, and Funding, and it is available in two languages, Catalan and English. The appearance of the website is aimed to be attractive, contemporary, simple and fresh (see fig.1). Fig.1 The Home section contains information about the aims of the project, the essential contents of the website and some basic instructions for users. It also includes a link to the Tweeter and the Facebook of the website, where different news relative to the project are being announced and updated in a regular basis. The Phonemic charts is the main section of the website and brings the users to the interactive tables, available for different Catalan dialectal varieties and which contain the phonetic symbols corresponding to the vowel and the consonant sounds characteristic of these dialectal varieties (for more information about this section, see § 1.4.1). The Team section contains information about the leading team, as well as about the advising committee, and the professionals, interns, and informants that have contributed in the elaboration of the website. The Glossary section contains a comprehensive and interactive list of terms related to phonetics and phonology. The Links section is made up of a list of websites related to the website, distributed according to the subject. The News section offers a selection of the reviews about the website that have appeared in the media, a selection of the presentations of the project, the papers related to it, the teaching, the training, and the organized activities concerning the project. The Funding section, finally, acknowledges the financial support the project has received since its foundation in 2006.