Learning a foreign language often happens in the classroom or with your nose in a textbook, but languages are actually used in everyday interaction. There is therefore a divide between how languages are taught and how they are used. An EU-funded project called LanCook, or the European Digital Kitchen, aims to bridge the gap between the two.

The idea behind the Digital Kitchen is to bring language learning into familiar, everyday contexts, in this case the act of cooking. In the Digital Kitchen students cook according to instructions from a computer. The computer gives advice only in the language being learned. The ingredients and kitchen tools are fitted with motion sensors which allow the computer to determine whether or not the cooks have understood the instructions, and provide further assistance if necessary.

In each of the six countries participating in the project, students cook local cuisine. Students of Finnish have learned the mysteries of our language by making fish soup and berry fool. The Finnish “department” is led by professor Salla Kurhila. Lari Kotilainen works as a researcher on the project. At the moment, the actual project, which included developing the system and gathering data, has concluded. The video material and observations are now being used to write research articles. One of them is titled “Can a kitchen teach languages? Linking theory and practice in the design of context-aware language learning environments.”

Further reading:

• Official LanCook website
• LanCook on Facebook
• Article on the Digital Kitchen in the Päättymätön projekti (‘The Endless Project’) book.
• ”Helsingissä opetellaan suomea kokkaamalla” (‘Studying Finnish through cooking in Helsinki’), Sisuradio, Sveriges Radio April 15th, 2014.