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SECTION 4: About VISL
This section is divided into two parts: an opening chapter providing
background information about VISL, followed by a chapter which introduces
some of VISL’s basic grammatical principles.
4.1. Background
VISL (= “Visual Interactive Syntax Learning”) is a research and development
project headed by a group of language teachers at the Institute of Language
and Communication (ISK) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in
Odense. The VISL project was launched in 1996 and has so far involved more
than 10,000,000 Danish crowns and several thousand working hours from
staff, language students, and student programmers. The system is freely
available over the Internet at the following address:
visl.sdu.dk
Knowledge of the VISL system is already fairly widespread among secondary
school teachers. In 2002 the Danish Ministry of Education decided to
recommend the system as the standard for Danish and for the 9 foreign
languages taught in the traditional secondary school system (“gymnasierne”).
The system has also been introduced to a number of teachers and students in
Danish business schools (“hhx”). Many VISL courses have been held for
secondary school teachers and other interested staff from a wide range of
educational institutions. Course activity is growing year by year as
information about VISL spreads across the country. The most recent courses
have also had participants from primary schools and teacher training colleges.
If you are interested in arranging a VISL workshop for your students or
colleagues, please contact ISK’s IT-Center at SDU (telephone: 65 50 33 62).
Copyright
All rights to the materials on the VISL website belong to SDU and the
company, GrammarSoft ApS. These rights are administered by SDU. VISL
materials may not, in part or in whole, without the University’s prior written
consent, be reproduced, presented for a fee, or distributed to a third party.
4.2. Some basic principles (P0 – P8)
This chapter outlines and illustrates some of VISL’s basic grammatical
principles. We begin with the most basic principles of all – one that is a feature
of the scientific method in general:
4.2.1. Segmentation and classification (P0)
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John M. Dienhart