Exigen Services, one of the largest providers of IT outsourcing services in Central and Eastern Europe after the February 2007 merger with StarSoft Development Labs, a leading developer of custom software, has completed the development of an application for electronic language learning in the context of the Vocab Tool project commissioned by Vocab AB (Sweden).

The project implements Vocab’s language training method and is based upon Exigen Services’ in-house development in the field of computational linguistics. Vocab Tool allows users to learn foreign languages individually or in a training group with due consideration for the individual needs of every student in the training process. The training results are recorded and processed, allowing to model a personalized approach to the language training. It is commonly known that material learned in the course of language training tends to be forgotten over time; therefore, the learning algorithm is based on periodic refreshing of the material learned, with the refresh period determined individually for each user depending on correctness of his/her answers to the questions asked by the system. To increase one’s vocabulary, the student may personally select on Internet the foreign texts he or she is interested it, with Vocab Tool providing a word-for-word translation of this text and including new words in test assignments. Vocab Tool uses different mechanisms of perception for training purposes: the student is subjected to different types of test situations by means of audio and video materials presented as flash cards. The application can track the progress of training using the statistics collected.

At present, Vocab Tool may be used to study English, German, Swedish, Russian and Spanish, but the program shell of this product may as well be used for other languages – it would suffice to load the appropriate language material.

Vocab Tool may be installed on a PC, a PDA or a smartphone. It may be used as a basis for diverse training systems. For example, Genline (Sweden) commissioned a customization of this product for teaching genealogy; on the basis of Vocab Tool, Exigen Services has developed a system containing instructional situations to teach the users working with archival sources.