I am an assistant professor of French language teaching at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. I am affiliated with the Institute for the Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies (IACCHOS), co-directing the Cripedis research center, and co-affiliated with Girsef. I collaborate intensely with researchers at CENTAL, CECL and TeAMM research groups. I am also an associated professor at ITEC, an imec research group at KU Leuven. I was previously a professor and a French and English teacher trainer at Universidad Central del Ecuador.
I study conversational AI for language learning, or dialogue-based CALL, more precisely task-oriented chatbots (or dialogue systems) for language learning, at the intersection of task-based language teaching (TBLT), computer-assisted language learning and natural language processing (NLP). My research focuses on the instructional design and the evaluation of the effectiveness of conversational AI for L2 proficiency development, particularly L2 vocabulary size, spoken and written L2 fluency, and longitudinal assessment of L2 proficiency in various instructed SLA contexts.
recent and upcoming talks
| 28 Nov 2025 | Keynote at Rencontre FLE Toulouse Business School Barcelona, Barcelona Fréquence, formules et fixation : quelques mots sur le vocabulaire en FLE Le vocabulaire est souvent oublié dans l’apprentissage du FLE, ou relégué à l’apprentissage de listes de mots de fin de manuel. Pourtant, il est essentiel à la communication et la recherche a apporté des éclairages précieux sur les meilleures manières de l’apprendre. Nous en explorerons trois : (1) Comment cibler les mots les plus fréquents et pertinents ? (2) Dépasser le mot pour viser les expressions polylexicales, notamment « formulaïques ». (3) Combiner apprentissage contextuel, notamment par l’exposition, et apprentissage ciblé, notamment par la répétition espacée. |
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| 6 Nov 2025 | Keynote at TSLL Conference 2025 Iowa State University, Ames New Conversations, New Evidence: Revisiting the Impact of Bots for Language Learning in the LLM Era Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) have opened new opportunities to practice conversation meaningfully in a foreign language with a bot. I will revisit 40 years of research on dialogue-based computer-assisted language learning (CALL), before and after ChatGPT, to identify both how much it changed and what still holds up. I will explore the effectiveness of these “artificial” conversations to determine what works, for whom, for what and to what extent. In particular, I will share preliminary findings from a new meta-analysis of chatbots for language learning, looking at both “technological eras”. In this systematic review, we observe that the field is moving beyond comparing the technology, to comparing pedagogical and instructional conditions in their effects on language learning. I will call for more attention to task design and characteristics, and to scaffolding in conversation, particularly productive support for less proficient L2 speakers. |
| 31 Oct 2025 | Keynote at Journée d'étude "Enjeux de l’intelligence artificielle pour la formation universitaire" Hanoi University (HANU), Hanoi 10 Hanu |
| 12 Aug 2025 | Keynote at Stage international d’été en didactique du FLE Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve Fréquence, formules et fixation : quelques mots sur le vocabulaire en FLE |
