The Master’s Degree in Languages and Technology at the Universitat Politècnica de València is organising four guest lectures during the 2026–2027 academic year, delivered by academics from Spanish and European universities.
These activities aim to complement students’ training through the participation of external specialists in fields directly related to corpus linguistics, language processing, technologies applied to language learning, and language assessment using artificial intelligence.
The sessions will be open to the UPV university community, in line with the objectives of the internationalisation and enhancement of Master’s programmes and with the UPV SIRVE Strategic Plan, which promotes relevant education connected with academic and professional contexts.
17 September 2026
Digital Genres: Creating Multimodal Corpora Using GRAPE-MARS
- Speaker: Edgar Bernad-Mechó
- Institution: Universitat Jaume I
- Subject: Corpus Linguistics
- Duration: 3 hours
- Venue: ETSII – Universitat Politècnica de València
Edgar Bernad-Mechó is a Senior Lecturer at Universitat Jaume I and specialises in the multimodal analysis of oral digital genres in academic contexts. He is also a member of the development team of GRAPE-MARS, a tool designed for multimodal annotation and analysis.
The session will address the multimodal nature of communication, oral digital genres, and the design and compilation of multimodal corpora. The practical component will focus on the use of GRAPE-MARS 2.0 for the transcription, annotation, and quantitative and qualitative analysis of audiovisual data.
22 September 2026
The Building Blocks of Rhetoric: Argumentation and Manipulation in Spanish Political Discourse
- Speaker: Giovanni Garofalo
- Institution: University of Bergamo
- Subject: Theoretical Foundations for Language Processing
- Duration: 4 hours
- Venue: ETSII – Universitat Politècnica de València
Giovanni Garofalo is Professor of Spanish Language and Translation at the University of Bergamo. His main research interests include argumentation, evaluative language, and corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis. He also chairs the Discourse panel of AELINCO and co-edits the journal RESLA.
The session will introduce tools from classical rhetoric and New Rhetoric for the analysis of contemporary political discourse. Using examples taken from social media, students will work with argumentative strategies, fallacies, conceptual redefinition, polarisation, and the discursive construction of models and anti-models.
17 November 2026
Digital Resources for the Acquisition of Spanish as an Additional Language
- Speaker: Virginia González García
- Institution: Universitat de València
- Subject: Language Learning and Technology
- Duration: 3 hours
- Venue: ETSII – Universitat Politècnica de València
Virginia González García is a lecturer at the Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication at the Universitat de València, Director of the Department of Spanish Philology, and a member of the Val.Es.Co. research group. In the field of Spanish as a Foreign Language, she directs the Master’s Degree in Teacher Training and Professional Development for Teachers of Spanish as a Foreign Language at the Universitat de València.
The session will present different possibilities for the pedagogical use of Web 2.0 tools and artificial intelligence in second language learning, with particular emphasis on Spanish as a foreign language. Students will explore resources that foster autonomous learning and will design digital activities from constructivist and communicative perspectives.
15 December 2026
Assessing L2 Oral Production through AI: A Comparison between AI Models and Human Raters
- Speaker: Bárbara Eizaga
- Institution: University of Cádiz
- Subject: Learning Assessment
- Duration: 4 hours
- Venue: ETSII – Universitat Politècnica de València
Bárbara Eizaga has extensive research experience in the assessment of spoken English and automated assessment. She has led projects related to the evaluation of oral competence in accordance with the CEFR and has participated in knowledge-transfer and technological innovation initiatives related to computer-assisted learning and assessment.
The session will examine the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence for assessing spoken English and will compare the results produced by different AI systems with those of human raters. Topics will include validity, reliability, automatic speech recognition, fluency, grammatical and lexical accuracy, and discourse competence, combining theoretical content with practical activities.
Activities Open to the UPV Community
The four activities form part of the internationalisation and enhancement initiatives of the Master’s Degree in Languages and Technology and will be open, subject to availability, to students and members of the Universitat Politècnica de València community.
These activities are aligned with the UPV SIRVE Strategic Plan, strengthening the connection between postgraduate education, research, innovation, and the expertise of external specialists.
Organised by: Master’s Degree in Languages and Technology – Universitat Politècnica de València.