The purpose of VocApp is to support refugees studying at university in a second language. Refugee students starting courses in Europe in a second language (English, German and French) often struggle in the initial stages with the academic and technical vocabulary used in their courses. They receive lots of offers language training to access university but this is conversational English or Turkish, and not the same as what their lecturer is saying in class. This means that refugee students, amongst other pressures, are not only learning their new subject and trying to become fluent in a new language, but also learning a new academic vocabulary. VocApp will be a web-based platform that provides contextualised translation of terms Arabic<>English/German/French, online support from Syrian peers and Syrian academics, and an intuitive learning software to help speed students' transition into a new course in an unfamiliar language.

An online web-based academic language learning tool to support refugee students studying in second languages. The goal of the first phase of this project is to build a prototype language learning tool as a proof of concept to test with students in the field. The platform tool will provide contextualised translation of terms and online support from Syrian peers and Syrian academics, and initially the languages involved will be Arabic and English.

More information in wiki

• Design, build and deploy a prototype to pilot with students for feedback

• EmpowerHack - Kim Lawrie, Eddie Jaoude
• Jamiya Project - Ben Webster

• [Natsuki Pope] (https://github.com/nzi102)

Architect & Development Team:

• TBC - UX
• Developers: [Erika Pheby] (https://github.com/eripheebs), [Paul Rees] (https://github.com/paulalexrees), [Kevin McCarthy] (https://github.com/kevinpmcc), [Rhiannon Lolly Neville] (https://github.com/rhiannonruth)

Research & Content

• Content & User Research - Malaz Safarjalani, Jamiya Project (Slack: malaz_jamiya, Email: [email protected])
• Advisory - Ben Webster, Jamiya Project (Slack: benwebster, Email: [email protected])
• Data Gathering - Oula, Jamiya Project (Email: [email protected])

• Monolith - for prototype phase keep simple as possible
• Ruby
• Twitter Bootstrap
• MySQL

• TBC

• “Contextualised translation” - (as we'd conceived in the hack) As well as providing the equivalent term in a second language, providing an explanation of use and application in a subject matter context relevant to the user

• Potential collaboration with Arabterm - a dictionary for students and professionals

• TBC