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<Paper uid="W05-0110">
  <Title>Teaching Language Technology at the North-West University</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="2531" end_page="2531" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> A new undergraduate teaching program, BA Lan- null guage Technology, was recently introduced at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU). The introduction of this program was motivated by two factors: (a) a need within the Faculty of Arts to develop teaching programs that are relevant, vocationally directed, and future-oriented; and (b) a need in the South African higher education system for capacity building in the field of in language technology (PanSALB &amp; DACST, 2000).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1">  To date, the BA Language Technology program is the only one of its kind in South Africa. It has therefore remained imperative that the program equips students adequately to fill positions in the emerging South African language technology industry. At the same time, students should be able to continue with graduate studies, and therefore the program had to be designed in such a way that students receive an academic training that incorporates a solid theoretical component alongside the need to get enough practical experience. These two imperatives are reflected in the program structure, and also in the project-based learning approach that we adopted.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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