Thomas François

Associate Professor at the Université catholique de Louvain

Applied linguistics, Natural language processing

  

Welcome to my homepage !

I am Thomas François, an Associate Professor at UCLouvain since September 1st, 2018. My work focuses on the issue of efficient communication in various contexts (mostly professional).

Previously, I carried out research in the fields of readability, text simplification, automatic complex word identification, all topics that are concerned with the assessment of language difficulty for various kinds of audiences (learners of a foreign language, readers with some language issue, readers of speciality texts, etc.) and with different aims.

Brief description of my academic path

I first completed a Ph.D. Thesis at the Centre for Natural Language Processing (CENTAL, UCLouvain) that investigated the use of NLP technologies to enhance the assessment of text readability for French as a foreign language (FFL). The full text can be found here.

After the Ph.D., I spent a one-year research stay at IRCS (University of Pennsylvania) as a B.A.E.F. and Fulbright Fellow.

As a follow up, I benefited from several post-doctoral research scholarships at CENTAL:

  • SPORTIC (2010-2013): Generation of automatic audiovisual sport summaries
  • iMediate (2014-2015): Automatic annotation and classification of medical texts
  • FNRS post-doc researcher (2015-2018): developing the DMesure project, which aims to provide tools to automatically analyse the readability of texts intended for L2 French in a more detailled manner.

In the meantime, I was also appointed as an Invited Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics at UCLouvain (2013-2015).

In September 2018, I was hired as an Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics at UCLouvain (2018-2022).

In September 2022, I got tenure and became Associate Professor at UCLouvain where I teach efficient oral and written communication in business contexts as well as introductory statistics for linguistic.

To discover some of my research, have a look at this video.

Achievements and projects

Here will be listed some external links to resources or tools developped during the different research projects I managed.

- CEFRLex, an international project aiming at developing graded lexicons for various European languages as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale). It includes:

  • FLELex, a graded lexicon for French as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale).
  • SVALex, a graded lexicon for Swedish as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale).
  • SweLLex, a second language learners' productive graded vocabulary (based on the CEFR scale).
  • EFLLex, a graded lexicon for English as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale).
  • NT2Lex, a graded lexicon for Dutch as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale).
  • ELELex, a graded lexicon for Spanish as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale).
  • DAFLex, a graded lexicon for German as a foreign language (based on the CEFR scale).

- AMesure, an on-line readability formula for French administrative texts.

- DMesure, an on-line deep learning-operated readability formula for French as a foreign language.

- ReSyf, a lexical resource for French with graded and disambiguated synonyms.

- FABRA, an web API to compute a large set of readability features for French.

- Dicaupro, a plateform to provide access to a dictionnary of proverbs.

- a bibliography about the readability studies, selected from my PhD. thesis bibliography.


Here is a list of grants that I got as the main investigator:

  • Horizon-CL2-2022-Transformations-01 (2023-2025): on the topic : "Intelligent Reading Improvement System for Fundamental and Transversal Skills Development"
  • PDR FNRS (2023-2026): FNRS research project on the topic : "CMesure: reliable and adaptive modeling of text readability in French as a foreign language"
  • FSR (2022-2024): scholarship for a Ph.D. on the topic : "Traduction automatique du français vers les pictogrammes pour améliorer la communication entre médecins et patients avec une déficience intellectuelle en milieu hospitalier."
  • PINT-BILAT-M FNRS project with Seinan University (Japan)(2022-2024) on the topic : "Acquisition of verbal structures by learners of French as a foreign language."
  • FTAP project (French government) with France-Education International (2021-2024): on the topic : "Automated system to predict the proficiency level of written production by FLE learners according to the CEFR scale."
  • FSR Postdoc (2021-2023): on the topic : "A Systematic Study of Automatic Text Simplification Resources and Evaluation Metrics : Towards an Enhanced Framework." (candidate : Rémi Cardon)
  • MIS FNRS (2021-2022): on the topic : "CEFR-FR Rator: an automated system to predict the proficiency level of written production by FLE learners according to the CEFR scale."
  • CAI PhD. scholarship (2021-2024): Funding from the Conseil de l'action internationale (CAI) on the topic : "Étude comparative des différences culturelles manifestées dans les discours touristiques de sites web belges et vietnamiens" (candidate : Trang Pham)
  • AMesure (2020): FWB funding on the topic : "Automatic evaluation of administrative texts"
  • CDR FNRS (Crédit de recherche) (2019-2021) on the following topic: "CEFRLex - Ressources lexicales graduées en fonction de Cadre Européen commun de références (CECR) pour l'apprentissage, l'enseignement et la recherche en langues étrangéres."
  • FSR Seed Funding (2018-2022): Ph.D. scholarship on the following topic: "Simplification des textes de spécialité : d'une analyse des pratiques de rédaction à une plateforme d'aide à la rédaction claire."
  • IL&C Fund (2019-2020): Funding on the following topic: "Les composantes linguistiques et communicationnelles de l'immersion en jeu : vers une approche intégrée ."


Here is a list of grants that I got as a co-investigator:

  • AIDALEX (2021-2023): WIN2WAL project on "Artificial Intelligence Decision Aid support tool for Legal Experts".
  • ALECTOR (2016-2020): Aide à la LECTure pour améliORer l'accès aux documents pour enfants dyslexiques (ANR project)
  • E-DMesure (2015-2018): Explicit knowledge-based models to predict the readability of L2 texts (Post-doc FNRS)
  • AMesure (2012, 2016, 2018, 2020): FWB funding on the topic : "Automatic evaluation of administrative texts"
  • ALLuSIF (2013-2014): readability analysis and text simplification for French


Projects done as a consultant:

  • Lisible (2021-2022): Chief scientific consultant on the Lisible project (Avec des Mots)".

Research interests

  • Automated Text readability assessment (ARA) in L1 and L2, automated complex word identification, Listenability
  • Automatic text simplification (ATS)
  • Automated Essay Scoring in French as a foreign language
  • Business communication: efficient oral and written communication in professional contexts, genre analysis
  • Psycholinguistics: reading in a first and second language, reading comprehension testing
  • Data Mining: classification techniques (linear and logistic regression, KNN, decision trees, boosting, bagging, random forests, SVM...), clustering, deep learning, ...
  • Computational Linguistics: language modeling, finite-state automata, tagging and syntactic parsing
  • Statistics: descriptive and inferential statistics
  • French as a foreign language (FFL): teaching and didactics
  • iCALL: dialogue systems
  • Programming languages: Python, R, Java, Perl, HTML, PHP, Javascript, SQL

Education

  • [2007 - 2011]

  • PhD, Computational Linguistics
    UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  • [2005 - 2007]

  • M.A. (Master, 1st year), Computational Linguistics (Summa cum laude)
    UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  • [2005 - 2006]

  • M.Res. (DES), French as a Second Language (Magna cum laude)
    UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  • [2002 - 2005]

  • M.A. (Master), Romance Philology (Magna cum laude),
    UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  • [2002 - 2004]

  • B.A. (DEC), English Philology (Cum laude)
    UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  • [2000 - 2002]

  • B.A. (Bach), Romance Philology (Cum laude)
    UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Publications

    Books and Monographs

  • [2016]

  • Brunato, D. and Dell'Orletta, F. and Venturi, G. and François, T. and Blache, P. (eds.) Proceedings of the CL4LC workshop 2016 , Association for Computational Linguistics.

  • [2014]

  • François, T. et Bernhard, D. (eds.) Recent Advances in Automatic Readability Assessment and Text Simplification. In International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Special issue), 165:2, John Benjamins.

    Book chapters

  • [2022]

  • Müller, A. and François, T. Les avancées en rédactologie influencent-elles les guides de rédaction claire en Belgique francophone ? In Clerc, I. (Eds). Communication écrite état-citoyens : Défis numériques, perspectives rédactologiques (p. 177-192), Presses de l'Université Laval, Canada.

  • [2021]

  • Bibauw, S., François, T. and , P. Desmet Dialogue systems for language learning: chatbots and beyond. In Ziegler, N. and González-Lloret, M. (Eds). The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Technology (p.121-134). Routledge.

  • [2021]

  • Vandeghinste, V., Müller, A., François, T. and De Clerq, O. Easy Language in Belgium. In Lindholm, C. and Vanhatalo, U. (Eds). Bd. 8: Camilla Lindholm and Ulla Vanhatalo (eds.): Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe . Frank and Timme.

    Journal papers

  • [2022]

  • François, T. Le traitement automatique du langage pour l'évaluation automatique de la difficulté lexicale en FLE In Revue japonaise de didactique du français, 17(1-2): 129-144.

  • [2022]

  • François, T. and Lefer, M.-A. Revisiting simplification in corpus-based translation studies: Insights from readability research In Meta: Translators' Journal, 67(1): 50-70.

  • [2022]

  • Müller, A. and François, T. Pratiques de rédaction claire de rédacteurs fonctionnels en Belgique francophone. In Discourse and Writing/Rédactology, 32, 59-72.

  • [2022]

  • Bibauw, S., Van den Noortgate, W., François, T., Desmet, P. Dialogue systems for language learning: a multilevel meta-analysis. In Language Learning and Technology Volume 26, Number 1, pp.1-24.

  • [2022]

  • Javourey-Drevet, L., Dufau, S., François, T., Gala, N., Ginestià, J. et Ziegler. Simplification of Literary and Scientific Texts to Improve Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Beginning Readers of French. In Applied Psycholinguistics, Volume 43, Issue 2, pp.485-512.

  • [2021]

  • Yancey, K., and Pintard, A. François, T. Investigating readability of French as a foreign language with deep learning and cognitive and pedagogical features. In Lingue e Linguaggio, 2/2021, pp. 229-258.

  • [2021]

  • Zakhia Doueihi, J. and François, T. Concept-based Instruction for Applied L2 Acquisition: Literature Overview. In Pedagogical Linguistics (Online pre-print).

  • [2021]

  • Müller, A., Clerc, I. and François, T. Plain language practices of professional writers in Quebec. In Discourse and Writing/Rédactology, 31, 49-74.

  • [2020]

  • Sauvan, L. and Stolowy, N. and Aguilar, C. and François, T. and Gala, N. and Matonti, F. and Castet, E. and Calabrese, A. The inhibitory effect of word neighborhood size when reading with central field loss is modulated by word predictability and reading proficiency In Scientific Reports, 10: article n°21792.

  • [2019]

  • Bibauw, S., François, T., Desmet, P. Discussing with a computer to practice a foreign language: research synthesis and conceptual framework of dialogue-based CALL. In Computer Assisted Language Learning 155, 1-51.

  • [2019]

  • Stolowy, N., Calabrèse, A., Sauvan, L., Aguilar, C., François, T., Gala, N., Matonti, F., Castet, E. The influence of word frequency on word reading speed when individuals with macular diseases read text. In Vision Research 155, 1-10.

  • [2018]

  • François, T., Fairon, C. Des technologies du langage au service du citoyen. In Synergies Pays germanophones 11, 107-119.

  • [2018]

  • François, T., Müller, A., Degryse, B., Fairon, C. AMesure : une plateforme web d'assistance à la rédaction simple de textes administratifs. In Repères DoRiF 16, DoRiF Università, Roma novembre 2018.

  • [2018]

  • Gala, N., François, T., Javourey-Drevet, D., Ziegler, J.C. La simplification de textes, une aide à l'apprentissage de la lecture. In Langue française 199 (3), pp. 123-131, Armand Colin.

  • [2017]

  • Todirascu, A., François, T., Bernhard, D., Gala, N., Ligozat, A.-L., Khobzi, R. Chaînes de référence et lisibilité des textes : Le projet ALLuSIF In Langue française 195 (3), pp. 35-52, Armand Colin.

  • [2015]

  • François, T. When readability meets computational linguistics: a new paradigm in readability. In Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée, 20(2), 79-97.

  • [2014]

  • François, T. et Bernhard, D. When text readability meets automatic text simplification. In François, T. et Bernhard, D. (eds.). Recent Advances in Automatic Readability Assessment and Text Simplification John Benjamins, pp. 89-96.

  • [2013]

  • François, T. et Fairon, C. Les apports du TAL à la lisibilité du français langue étrangère. In Traitement Automatique des Langues (TAL), vol. 54(1): 171-202.

  • [2011]

  • François T., La lisibilité computationnelle : un renouveau pour la lisibilité du français langue première et seconde ? In International Journal of Applied Linguistics (ITL), vol. 160, 75-99.

  • [2011]

  • Cougnon L.-A. et François T., étudier l'écrit SMS. Un objectif du projet sms4science In Stähli, A. and Dûrscheid, C. and Béguelin, M.-J. (eds.). La communication par SMS en Suisse. Usages et variétés linguistiques (Linguistik Online) .

  • [2006]

  • Thonet A., Romain F., Rivera, J.-D. et François T., Des possibilités de l'enseignement du FLE en Syrie, août 2005 : compte rendu didactique, In Français 2000, 201-202 : 177-181.

    Proceedings in International Conference Peer-reviewed

  • [2022]

  • Cardon, R. and Bibal, A. and Wilkens, R. and Alfter, D. and Norré, M. and Müller, A. and Watrin, P. and François, T. Linguistic Corpus Annotation for Automatic Text Simplification Evaluation. In Proceedings of EMNLP2022 (accepted).

  • [2022]

  • Wilkens, R., Alfter, D., Cardon, R., Gribomont, I., Bibal, A., Watrin, P., de Marneffe, M.-C. and François, T. CENTAL at TSAR-2022 Shared Task: How Does Context Impact BERT-Generated Substitutions for Lexical Simplification? In Proceedings of TSAR-2022 Shared Task (accepted).

  • [2022]

  • Bibal, A. and Cardon, R. and Alfter, D. and Wilkens, R. and Wang, X. and François, T. and Watrin, P. L'Attention est-elle de l'Explication ? Une Introduction au Débat In Actes de la 29e Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN2022), pages 447-449. June 27 - July 1.

  • [2022]

  • Pirali, C. and Gala, N. and François, T. PADDLe: a Platform to Identify Complex Words for Learners of French as a Foreign Language (FFL). In Proceedings of the 2nd READI 2022 Workshop, pages 46-53, June 2022.

  • [2022]

  • Wilkens, R. and Seibert, D. and Wang, X. and François, T. MWE for Essay Scoring English as a Foreign Language. In Proceedings of the 2nd READI 2022 Workshop, pages 62-69, June 2022.

  • [2022]

  • Alfter, D. and Cardon, R. and François, T. A Dictionary-Based Study of Word Sense Difficulty. In Proceedings of the 2nd READI 2022 Workshop, pages 17-24, June 2022.

  • [2022]

  • Wilkens, R. and Alfter, D. and Wang, X. and Pintard, A. and Tack, A. and Yancey, K. and François, T. FABRA: French Aggregator-Based Readability Assessment toolkit In Proceedings of LREC 2022, pages 1217-1233, June 2022.

  • [2022]

  • Todirascu, A. and Wilkens, R. and Rolin, E. and François, T. and Bernhard, D. and Gala, N. HECTOR: A Hybrid TExt SimplifiCation TOol for Raw Texts in French In Proceedings of LREC 2022, pages 4620-4630, June 2022.

  • [2022]

  • Norré, M. and Vandeghinste, V. and François, T. and Bouillon, P. Investigating the Medical Coverage of a Translation System into Pictographs for Patients with an Intellectual Disability In Proceedings of the 9th Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies. pages 44-49. May 27.

  • [2022]

  • Bibal, A. and Cardon, R. and Alfter, D. and Wilkens, R. and Wang, X. and François, T. and Watrin, P. Is Attention Explanation? An Introduction to the Debate In Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pages 3889-3900. May 22-27.

  • [2021]

  • Rolin, E. and Langlois, Q. and Watrin, P. and François, T. FrenLyS: a tool for the automatic simplification of French general language texts In Proceedings of RANLP 2021: Poster, pages 1196-1205. September, 1-3.

  • [2021]

  • Norré, M. and Vandeghinste, V. and Bouillon, P. and François, T. Extending a Text-to-Pictograph system to French and to Arasaac In Proceedings of RANLP 2021: Short Papers, pages 1050-1059. September, 1-3.

  • [2020]

  • François, T. and Müller, A., and Rolin, E. and Norré, M. AMesure: a web platform to assist the clear writing of administrative texts In Proceedings of AACL-IJCNLP 2020 : System Demonstrations, pages 1-7. December, 4-7, 2020

  • [2020]

  • Cierro, A. and Philippette, T. and François, T. and Watrin, P and Nahon, S. Eye-tracking for Sense of Immersion and Linguistic Complexity in the Skyrim Game: Issues and Perspectives In Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA '20 Short Papers), June 2-5, 2020, Stuttgart, Germany. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5 pages.

  • [2020]

  • Calabrese, A. and Sauvan, L. and Stolowy, N. and Aguilar, C. and François, T. and Gala, N. and Matonti, F. and Castet, E. Text Simplification to Help Individuals with Low Vision Read More Fluently In Proceedings of the 1st READI Workshop, May 11, Marseille, France.

  • [2020]

  • Pintard, A. and François, T. Combining Expert Knowledge with Frequency Information to Infer CEFR Levels for Words In Proceedings of the 1st READI Workshop, May 11, Marseille, France.

  • [2020]

  • Gala, N. and Tack, A. and Javourey-Drevet, L. and François, T. and Ziegler, J.C. Alector: A Parallel Corpus of Simplified French Texts with Alignments of Misreadings by Poor and Dyslexic Readers In Proceedings of LREC2020, May 13-15, Marseille, France.

  • [2019]

  • Todirascu, A. and Cargill, M. and François, T. PolylexFLE : une base de données d'expressions polylexicales pour le FLE In Actes de TALN 2019, July 3-5, Toulouse, France.

  • [2018]

  • Hmida, F. and Billami, M. and François, T. and Gala, N. Assisted Lexical Simplification for French Native Children with Reading Difficulties In Proceedings of the 1st workshop on Automatic Text Adaptation (ATA), November, 8, Tilburg, The Netherlands.

  • [2018]

  • Billami, M. and François, T. and Gala, N. ReSyf: a French lexicon with ranked synonyms In Proceedings of COLING 2018, August, 20-26, Santa Fe, USA, pp.2570-2581.

  • [2018]

  • Tack, A. and François, T. and Desmet, P. and Fairon, C. NT2Lex: A CEFR-Graded Lexical Resource for Dutch as a Foreign Language Linked to Open Dutch WordNet In Proceedings of the 13th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (NAACL 2018).

  • [2018]

  • Dürlich, L. and François, T. EFLLex: A Graded Lexical Resource for Learners of English as a Foreign Language In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018). Miyazaki, Japan, 7-12 May.

  • [2017]

  • Volodina, E., Borin, L., Pilán, I., François, T. et Tack, A. En andraspräksordlista med CEFR-niväer. In Svenskans beskrivning 35. Eds: Sköldberg, E., Andréasson, M., Adamsson Eryd, H., Lindahl, F., Lindström, S., Prentice, J. and Sandberg, M. Gothenburg. pp. 369-382.

  • [2017]

  • Tack, A. and François, T. and Roekhaut, S. and Fairon, C. Human and Automated CEFR-based Grading of Short Answers In Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (EMNLP 2017).

  • [2016]

  • Volodina, E. and Pilán, I. and Llozhi, L. and Degryse, B. and François, T. SweLLex: second language learners' productive vocabulary In Proceedings of the joint 5th NLP4CALL and 1st NLP4LA workshops (SLTC 2016), November 16, Umea, Sweden.

  • [2016]

  • Todirascu, A. and François, T. and Bernhard, D. and Gala, N. and Ligozat, A.-L. Are Cohesive Features Relevant for Text Readability Evaluation? In Proceedings of COLING 2016, December 13-16, Osaka, Japan.

  • [2016]

  • Lemaire, N., and François, T. and Debongnie, J.-C. and De Meyere, D. and Fauquert, B. and Klein, T. and Fairon, T. and Van Campenhoudt, M. L'enrichissement terminologique d'usage du projet iMediate : une collaboration tripartite terminologie/TAL/sciences de la santé In Actes du Second Congrès international du Réseau de Lexicographie (5-7 octobre 2015), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Ibéroamericana.

  • [2016]

  • Mûller, A. and François, T. and Roekhaut, S. and Fairon, C. Classification automatique de dictées selon leur niveau de difficulté de compréhension et orthographique In Actes de la 23e Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2016). Paris, France, 4-8 July.

  • [2016]

  • Tack, A. and François, T. and Ligozat, A.-L., and Fairon, C. Modèles adaptatifs pour prédire automatiquement la compétence lexicale d'un apprenant de français langue étrangère In Actes de la 23e Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2016). Paris, France, 4-8 July.
    Award: Best Paper TALN 2016

  • [2016]

  • François, T. and Billami, M.B., and Gala, N. and Bernhard, D. Bleu, contusion, ecchymose : tri automatique de synonymes en fonction de leur difficulté de lecture et compréhension In Actes de la 23e Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2016). Paris, France, 4-8 July.

  • [2016]

  • François, T. and Volodina, E. and Pilán, I. and Tack, A. SVALex: a CEFR-graded lexical resource for Swedish foreign and second language learners In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2016). Portoroz, Slovenia, 23-28 May, pp. 213-219.

  • [2016]

  • Brognaux, S. and François, T. and Saerens, M. Combining Manual and Automatic Prosodic Annotation for Expressive Speech Synthesis In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2016). Portoroz, Slovenia, 23-28 May, pp. 3872-3879.

  • [2016]

  • Tack, A. and François, T. and Ligozat, A.-L., and Fairon, C. Evaluating Lexical Simplification and Vocabulary Knowledge for Learners of French: Possibilities of Using the FLELex Resource In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2016). Portoroz, Slovenia, 23-28 May, pp. 230-236.

  • [2015]

  • De Meyere, D. and Klein, T. and François, T. and Debongnie, J.-C. and Radulescu, C. and Mbengo, N. and Ouro Kouro, M. and Coppieters't Wallant, Y. and Fairon, C. Automatic annotation of medical reports using SNOMED-CT: a flexible approach based on medical knowledge databases In Proceedings of the 7th Language Technology Conference (LTC2015).

  • [2015]

  • Bibauw, S. and François, T. and Desmet, P. Dialogue-based CALL: an overview of existing research In F. Helm, L. Bradley, M. Guarda, and S. Thouësny (Eds), Critical CALL ? Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference, Padova, Italy (pp. 1-8).

  • [2015]

  • Gala, N. and Billami, M. B. and François, T. and Bernhard, D. Graded lexicons: new resources for educational purposes and much more. In F. Helm, L. Bradley, M. Guarda, and S. Thouësny (Eds), Critical CALL ? Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference, Padova, Italy (pp. 1-6).

  • [2014]

  • François, T. An analysis of a French as a Foreign language corpus for readability assessment In Proceedings of the 3rd workshop on NLP for Computer-assisted Language Learning, NEALT Proceedings Series 22 / Linköping Electronic Conference Porceedings 107: 13-32.

  • [2014]

  • François, T. et Brouwers, L. et Naets, H. et Fairon, C. AMesure: une formule de lisibilité pour les textes administratifs In Actes de la 21e Conférence sur le Traitement automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2014), Marseille, 467-472.

  • [2014]

  • Gala, N. et François, T. et Bernhard, D. et Fairon, C. Un modèle pour prédire la complexité lexicale et graduer les mots In Actes de la 21e Conférence sur le Traitement automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2014), Marseille, 91-102.

  • [2014]

  • Brouwers, L. et Bernhard, D. et Ligozat, A.-L. et François, T. Syntactic Sentence Simplification for French In the 3rd International Workshop on Predicting and Improving Text Readability for Target Reader Populations (PITR 2014). Gothenburg, Sweden, 27 April.

  • [2014]

  • François, T., Gala, N., Watrin, P. et Fairon, C. FLELex: a graded lexical resource for French foreign learners In the 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2014). Reykjavik, Iceland, 26-31 May.

  • [2014]

  • Pho, V.-M., André, T., Ligozat, A.L., Grau, B., Illouz, G. et François, T. Multiple Choice Question Corpus Analysis for Distractor Characterization In the 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2014). Reykjavik, Iceland, 26-31 May.

  • [2013]

  • Gala, N., François, T. et Fairon, C. Towards a French lexicon with difficulty measures: NLP helping to bridge the gap between traditional dictionaries and specialized lexicons. In Proceedings of Electronic lexicography in the 21st century: thinking outside the paper (eLEX-2013). Tallinn, Estonia, octobre 2013.

  • [2013]

  • Todirascu, A. et François, T. et Gala, N. et Fairon, C. et Ligozat, A.-L. et Bernhard, D. Coherence and Cohesion for the Assessment of Text Readability In Proceedings of 10th International Workshop on Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Science (NLPCS 2013), 11-19.

  • [2013]

  • Boubel, N. et François, T. et Naets, H. Automatic extraction of contextual valence shifters In Proceedings of Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing (RANLP 2013).

  • [2012]

  • François, T. et Fairon, C. An ?AI readability? formula for French as a foreign language In Proceedings of the 2012 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2012), Jeju, 466-477.

  • [2012]

  • François, T. et Miltsakaki, E. Do NLP and machine learning improve traditional readability formulas? In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Predicting and improving text readability for target reader populations (PITR2012), Montréal, June 7, 49-57.

  • [2012]

  • Brouwers, L. et Bernhard, D. et Ligozat, A.-L. et François, T. Simplification syntaxique de phrases pour le français In Actes de la conférence conjointe JEP-TALN-RECITAL 2012, volume 2: TALN, pages 211?224, Montpellier.

  • [2011]

  • François T. et Watrin, P. On the Contribution of MWE-based Features to a Readability Formula for French as a Foreign Language In Proceedings of Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing (RANLP 2011), Hissar, September 14-16, 441-447.

  • [2011]

  • Watrin, P. et François T. An N-gram frequency database reference to handle MWE extraction in NLP applications In Proceedings of the 2011 Workshop on MultiWord Expressions: from Parsing and Generation to the Real World (ACL Workshop), Portland, Oregon, June 23, 2011, 83-91.

  • [2011]

  • François T. et Watrin, P., Quel apport des unités polylexicales dans une formule de lisibilité pour le français langue étrangère ? In Actes de la 18e Conférence sur le Traitement automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2011), Montpellier, vol. 2, 15-20.

  • [2010]

  • Goldman, J.-P. François T., Roekhaut, S. et Simon, A.C. étude statistique de la durée pausale dans différents styles de parole In Actes des 28èmes journées d'étude sur la parole (JEP), Mons, Belgique, 25-28 mai 2010, 161-164.

  • [2010]

  • Cougnon L.-A. et François T., Quelques contributions des statistiques à l'analyse sociolinguistique d'un corpus de SMS In Proceedings of 10th International Conference JADT, 9-11 juin 2010, Sapienza University of Rome, volume 1, 619-630.

  • [2009]

  • François T., Modèles statistiques pour l'estimation automatique de la difficulté de textes de FLE, In Rencontre des Etudiants Chercheurs en Informatique pour le Traitement Automatique des Langues (RECITAL 2009), Senlis, 24-26/06/2009.

  • [2009]

  • François T., Combining a Statistical Language Model with Logistic Regression to Predict the Lexical and Syntactic Difficulty of Texts for FFL, In Proceedings of the EACL 2009 Student Research Workshop, Athens, 2 April 2009, 19-27 (corrected version).
    Original version.

    Invited talk

  • [2022]

  • Courtrai, June 9, 2022, Invited talk at the Linguistic KUL Day
    Lecture: "How can Natural Language Processing help us do research in applied linguistics? An illustration through the automatic measure of language complexity"

  • [2022]

  • Paris, April 22, 2022, Invited talk at the 57th ALTE Conference
    Lecture: "Automated essay scoring: where do you stand and where are we going?"
    Recording available here

  • [2022]

  • Paris, April 21, 2022, Invited workshop at the 57th ALTE Conference
    Lecture: "Introducing CEFRLex and its perspectives for automated scoring"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, December 7, 2021, Invited presentation at the GR4L2 Workshop
    Lecture: "The CEFRLex project: multilingual CEFR-graded lexical resources for foreign language learning, teaching and research"

  • [2021]

  • Kyoto, October 23, 2021, Invited presentation at the SJDF Conference
    Lecture: "Le TAL pour l'évaluation automatique de la difficulté lexicale en FLE"

  • [2019]

  • Taipei, October 14-18, 2019, Invited Professor to the Fu-Jen University (Taipei, Taiwan)
    Lectures: Various topics (Introduction to CALL, the CEFRLex project, Introduction to Corpus Linguistics and Sketch Engine, Dialogue systems for L2 learning, Introduction to Python (total: 16h)

  • [2019]

  • Turku, September 30, 2019, Invited presentation at the 8th NLP4CALL workshop
    Lecture: "Assessing language complexity for L2 readers with NLP techniques and corpora"

  • [2019]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, August 24, 2019, Invited presentation at the Workshop Cognitive Linguistic Applications to Second Language Teaching: From Theory to Practice
    Lecture: "Conducting and interpreting inferential statistics for interventional studies"

  • [2019]

  • Paris, July 19, 2019, Invited presentation at the EALTA Open Colloquium 2019
    Lecture: "AI for automated text analysis in L2 using the CEFR scale"

  • [2019]

  • Paris, July 18, 2019, Invited presentation at the EALTA Summer School 2019
    Lecture: "The assessment of proficiency levels with automated text analysis tools"

  • [2019]

  • Paris, July 1, 2019, Invited presentation at the HackaTAL 2019 (TALN 2019), University of Toulouse 1 Capitole
    Lecture: "AMesure : une plateforme en ligne pour aider à la rédaction simple de textes administratifs"

  • [2018]

  • Taipei, November 23, 2018, Invited workshop in the International joint conference 2018 of the APFT on "Les nouvelles stratégies de l'enseignement du français : enjeux et innovations", Tamkang University
    Lecture: "Le traitement automatique du langage au service de l'apprentissage des langues étrangères"

  • [2018]

  • Tilburg, November 8, 2018, Invited lecture to 1st workshop on Automatic Text Adaptation (ATA), University of Tilburg
    Lecture: "The interface between readability and automatic text simplification: identifying difficulties to support simple writing"

  • [2016]

  • Aberdeen, August, 29, 2016, Invited lecture to One-Day NLP/NLG Workshop, University of Aberdeen
    Lecture: "Various NLP approaches to assess lexical difficulty for reading"

  • [2015]

  • Mainz, August, 27, 2015, Invited lecture to the DRV-Sommerschule 2015 (August 24-28, 2015), Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
    Lecture: "Informing linguistics with statistics: the case of the SMS corpora"

  • [2015]

  • Aberdeen, July 23, 2015, Invited lecture to the NLG Summer School 2015 (July 20-24, 2015), University of Aberdeen
    Lecture: "Readability: a one-hundred-year-old field still in his teens"

  • [2012]

  • Grenoble, June 04, 2012, Invited talk as recipient of the Thesis Award ATALA 2012, at Conference JEP-TALN-RECITAL 2012, Université Stendhal.
    Talk: "Les apports du traitement automatique du langage à la lisibilité du français langue étrangère?

    Oral communications (in conferences, seminars, workshops, etc.)

  • [2022]

  • Tokyo, October 27, 2022. Presentation at Aoyama Gakuin University Research Group Seminar
    Lecture: "L'évaluation de la difficulté des textes de FLE à l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle"

  • [2022]

  • Fukuoka, October 24, 2022. Presentation at Seinan Gakuin University Seminar
    Lecture: "Des méthodes automatisées pour évaluer la difficulté des textes de FLE"

  • [2022]

  • Lille, August 29 - Sept. 01, Presentation at the ESCOP Conference
    Authors: Ludivine Javourey-Drevet, Stéphane Dufau, Thomas François, Nuria Gala, Jacques Ginestié, Johannes Ziegler
    Lecture: "Improving fluency and reading comprehension for beginning readers of French?"

  • [2022]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, March 17, 2022, Presentation at the PLIN Seminar Series
    Authors: Thomas François and Marie-Aude Lefer
    Lecture: "Revisiting simplification in corpus-based translation studies: Insights from readability research"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, December 7, 2021, Presentation at the GR4L2 Workshop
    Authors: Thomas François and Patricia Kerrers and Damien De Meyere and Ferran Suñer Muñoz
    Lecture: "DAFLex: a CEFR-graded lexical resource for German as a foreign language"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, December 7, 2021, Presentation at the GR4L2 Workshop
    Authors: Amalia Todirascu, Thomas François and Marion Cargill
    Lecture: "Mapping Multi-word expressions to CEFR for French as a foreign language: PolylexFLE"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, November 9, 2021, Cental's Seminar Series
    Lecture: "Le TAL pour l'évaluation automatique de la difficulté de lecture en FLE"

  • [2021]

  • Zoom September 24, 2021, ELRC Technical Workshop : Simplify Language - Capture Audience
    Lecture: "Natural language processing can support clear writing: the example of the AMesure platform"

  • [2021]

  • Bertinoro (Italy), September 9-11, 2021, Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies
    Authors: Thomas François and Marie-Aude Lefer
    Lecture: "CBTS meets readability research: New methodological insights for the study of the simplification hypothesis"

  • [2021]

  • Groningen, August 18, 2021, AILA Conference 2021
    Authors: Serge Bibauw, Louis Escouflaire, Thomas François and Piet Desmet
    Lecture: "Automatizing L2 fluency measurement: validity and developmental sensitivity of temporal fluency metrics variations"

  • [2021]

  • Ghent, July 9, 2021, CLIN Conference 2021
    Authors: Magali Norré, Vincent Vandeghinste, Pierrette Bouillon and Thomas François
    Lecture: "Experiments for the adaptation of Text2Picto to French"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, May 7, 2021, PLIN Linguistic Day 2021
    Authors: Pauline Parmentier, Aline Colau, and Thomas François
    Lecture: "Would being more natural help to make an oral presentation more efficient?"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, May 7, 2021, PLIN Linguistic Day 2021
    Authors: Adeline Müller, Isabelle Clerc and Thomas François
    Lecture: "How do professional writers use plain language in their everyday job? A survey of 55 professional writers in Quebec"

  • [2021]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, May 7, 2021, PLIN Linguistic Day 2021
    Authors: Tran Hanh Trang Pham and Thomas François
    Lecture: "Genre model of French-speaking tourist websites"

  • [2021]

  • Inspé, Marseille, March 30-31, 2021, Colloque International SFERE-Provence
    Authors: Ludivine Javourey-Drevet, Núria Gala, Thomas François, Stéphane Dufau, Jacques Ginestié, and Johannes Ziegler
    Lecture: "Text simplification of literary and scientific texts to improve reading fluency and comprehension in children learning to read in French"

  • [2019]

  • Cuenca, November 26, 2019, III Conferencia Internacional de Investigación Educativa ASEFIE 2019
    Authors: Serge Bibauw, Louis Escouflaire, Thomas François and Piet Desmet
    Lecture: "Desarrollo de la fluidez oral en lengua extranjera: experimento de medición semiautomática de los efectos de aprendizaje"

  • [2019]

  • Bruxelles, November 4, 2019, Université libre de Bruxelles, PhD AI Seminars At BeCentral
    Lecture: "AI readability formulas: how AI helped revived a one-hundred-year-old field"

  • [2019]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, August 29, 2019, EUROCALL 2019
    Authors: Anaïs Tack, Thomas François, Piet Desmet and Cédrick Fairon
    Communication: The prediction of lexical competence in foreign language reading: A systematic synthesis

  • [2019]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, August 29, 2019, EUROCALL 2019
    Authors: Núria Gala, Catherine David, Anaïs Tack and Thomas François
    Communication: Assessing vocabulary knowledge to learners of French as a foreign language: accounting for L1 variability to go beyond the CEFR scale

  • [2019]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, August 29, 2019, EUROCALL 2019
    Authors: Serge Bibauw, Thomas François and Piet Desmet
    Communication: Interactivity in dialogue-based CALL practice: effects on learners' perception and production

  • [2019]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, July 9 and July 11, 2019, Summer school on Text Mining with Python
    Trainers: Thomas François, Hubert Naets, and Patrick Watrin
    Modules: "L'annotation linguistique: tagging et entités nommées" (2h) and "Introduction à la classifciation de textes" (6h)

  • [2019]

  • Madrid, July 8, 2019, IAMCR 2019 (School of Communication, UCM)
    Authors: Andrea Catellani, Patrick Watrin, Thomas François, Julie Matagne and Pierre Fastrez
    Communication : "Analyzing theme penetration from specialized to non-specialized discourses with NLP: the case of the IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5°C"

  • [2019]

  • Leuven, July 2, 2019, Vocab@Leuven (KU Leuven, Leuven)
    Authors: Anaïs Tack, Thomas François, Piet Desmet and Cédrick Fairon
    Communication : "The role of cognate vocabulary in CEFR-based word-level readability assessment"

  • [2019]

  • Leuven, July 1, 2019, Vocab@Leuven (KU Leuven, Leuven)
    Authors: Serge Bibauw, Thomas François and Piet Desmet
    Communication : "Effects of interactivity of written practice on incidental vocabulary acquisition"

  • [2019]

  • Brussels, June 13, 2019, CBL Day (KU Leuven, Brussels Campus)
    Authors: Thomas François, Adeline Müller, Gaëtan Ansotte, Romain Pattyn, Cédrick Fairon
    Communication : "AMesure: une plateforme en ligne pour aider à la rédaction simple de textes administratifs" (to come)

  • [2019]

  • Brussels, May 8, 2019, SeSLa Seminar (Université Saint-Louis)
    Communication : "Usage des corpus au service de l'apprentissage des langues étrangères : le projet CEFRLex"

  • [2018]

  • Bruges, July, 6, 2018, Conference CALL 2018
    Authors: Thomas François, Núria Gala, Elena Volodina, AnaÏs Tack, Ildikó Pilán, Luise Dürlich, Patrick Watrin, Piet Desmet and Cédrick Fairon
    Communication : "The CEFRLex project: multilingual CEFRLex graded lexical resources for foreign language learning, teaching and research"

  • [2018]

  • Bruges, July, 5, 2018, Conference CALL 2018
    Authors: Serge Bibauw, Thomas François and Piet Desmet
    Communication : "Insights from a multilevel meta-analysis on the effectiveness of dialogue-based CALL"

  • [2018]

  • Bruges, July, 4, 2018, Conference CALL 2018
    Authors: AnaÏs Tack, Thomas François, Piet Desmet and Cédrick Fairon
    Communication : "Making Sense of L2 Lexical Complexity with NT2Lex, a CEFR-graded Lexicon Linked to Open Dutch WordNet"

  • [2018]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, May 29, 2018, Formation SMCS (Text Mining)
    Communication : "Pré-traitements des données : quelles informations extraire ?"

  • [2018]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, May 18, 2018, PLIN Day 2018
    Auteurs : Thomas François et Barbara De Cock
    Communication : "ELELex : a CEFR-graded lexical resource for Spanish as a foreign language"

  • [2018]

  • Fukuoka, May 16, 2018, Seinan Gakuin University
    Communication : "Le traitement automatique du langage au service de l'apprentissage des langues étrangères : 10 ans de recherches au Cental"

  • [2018]

  • Fukuoka, May 15, 2018, Fukuoka University
    Communication : "The CEFRLex project: multilingual CEFR-graded lexical resources"

  • [2018]

  • Besançon, April 27, 2018, (Seminar of the Lucien Tesnière team).
    Communication : "Introduction aux approches automatisées pour évaluer la difficulté du langage"

  • [2017]

  • Aix-en-Provence, December 15, 2017, LPL (Seminar of the LPL).
    Communication : "Approches automatiques pour l'évaluation de la difficulté du langage" (Podcast de la conférence)

  • [2017]

  • Paris, March 28, 2017, INALCO (Seminar of the ERTIM team).
    Communication : "Des formules de lisibilité à l'analyse de la difficulté"

  • [2017]

  • Leuven, February 10, 2017, Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands 27 (CLIN 2017).
    Auteurs : AnaÏs Tack, Thomas François, Piet Desmet and Cédrick Fairon
    Communication : "Introducing NT2Lex: A Machine-readable CEFR-graded Lexical Resource for Dutch as a Foreign Language"

  • [2016]

  • Darmstadt, September 15, 2016, Technische Universität Darmstadt (Seminar).
    Communication : "NLP methods for assessing lexical difficulty"

  • [2016]

  • Marseille, June 26, 2016, Aix Marseille University (Seminaire du LIF).
    Communication : "Méthodes TAL pour la prédiction automatisée de la difficulté lexicale"

  • [2016]

  • New-York, June 15-18, 2016, ICSB World Conference
    Auteurs : Benoit Gailly, Mahamadou Biga-Diambeidou, Christian Gnekpe, Thomas François, Patrick Watrin, and Françoise de Viron
    Communication : "Using Natural Language Processing in Entrepreneurship Research: Exploring the Perceived Benefits of Business Incubation"

  • [2016]

  • East Lansing, May 10-14, 2016, Presentation at the CALICO Conference 2016, Michigan State University,
    Auteurs : Serge Bibauw, Thomas François, Piet Desmet
    Communication : "Instructional design and natural language processing in dialogue-based CALL"

  • [2016]

  • Fukuoka, January 13, 2016, Fukuoka University
    Communication : "La prédiction automatisée de la difficulté lexicale en FLE"

  • [2015]

  • Lille, December 10, 2015, Lille 3 University (invited lecture)
    Communication : "Apports du TAL à l'ALAO: un exemple concret avec FLELex"

  • [2015]

  • Santiago de Compostela, October 5-7, 2015, 2nd International Congres RELEX (RELEX2015)
    Auteurs : Nathalie Lemaire, Thomas François, Jean-Claude Debongnie, Damien De Meyere, Benjamin Fauquert, Thierry Klein, Cédrick Fairon, Marc Van Campenhoudt
    Communication : "L'enrichissement terminologique d'usage du projet iMediate: une collaboration tripartite terminologie/TALN/sciences de la santé."

  • [2015]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, November 6, 2015, Université catholique de Louvain (Séminaire du CENTAL)
    Communication : "La prédiction automatisée de la difficulté lexicale par la combinaison de ressources et de méthodes d'apprentissage automatisé."

  • [2015]

  • Herstmonceux castle, UK, August 13, 2015, Presentation at the ENEL WG3 Meeting
    Auteurs : Elena Volodina, Ildikó Pilán, Thomas François
    Communication : "Introducing SVALex: a corpus-based lexical resource for second language learning"

  • [2015]

  • Boulder, May 25, 2015, Presentation at the CALICO Conference 2015, University of Colorado,
    Auteurs : Serge Bibauw, Thomas François, Piet Desmet
    Communication : "Conversational agents for language learning: state of the art and avenues for research on task-based agents"

  • [2015]

  • Gothenburg, February 5, 2015, University of Gothenburg
    Communication : "Dmesure and FLELex: two approaches of textual complexity for French as a foreign language"

  • [2015]

  • Fukuoka, January 7, 2015, Fukuoka University
    Communication : "Dmesure et FLELex: deux approches de la difficulté textuelle pour le français langue étrangère"

  • [2014]

  • Leuven, December, 17, 2014, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) (to come)
    Communication : "Assessing the lexical complexity in French: FLELex and ReSyF"

  • [2014]

  • Tûbingen, July, 11, 2014, Universität Tûbingen (Seminar at SFS).
    Communication : "Challenges for specializing readability formulas: a case study for administrative texts"

  • [2014]

  • Marseille, March 25, 2014, Aix Marseille University (Seminaire du LIF).
    Communication : "La lisibilité computationnelle : limites et défis"

  • [2014]

  • Paris, January 14, 2014, Maison de la Recherche, Université Paris-Sorbonne (journée d'étude).
    Communication (in collaboration with Boubel, N.) : "étude linguistique des phénomènes de modification de polarité dans le domaine de la fouille d'opinion."

  • [2013]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, November 15, 2013, Université catholique de Louvain (Séminaire du CORE).
    Communication : "La lisibilité computationnelle : les apports du TAL et de l'apprentissage automatisé à la lisibilité"

  • [2013]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, October 4, 2013, Université catholique de Louvain (Séminaire du CENTAL).
    Communication : "Le TAL pour l'assistance à la lecture : lisibilité et simplification automatique de textes"

  • [2013]

  • Lille, June 28, 2013, Université Lille 3 (Savoirs, Textes, Langage).
    Communication : "Le TAL et l'assistance à la lecture : lisibilité et simplification automatique de textes"

  • [2013]

  • Leuven, May 3, 2013, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL).
    Communication : "Computational readability: limitations and challenges"

  • [2012]

  • New York, September 21, 2012, City University of New York (CUNY).
    Communication : "Computational readability: need for a domain-oriented approach"

  • [2012]

  • Montréal, June 08, 2012, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).
    Communication : "Les apports du TAL à la lisibilité du FLE".

  • [2012]

  • Philadelphia, February 09, 2012, "CLUNCH", University of Pennsylvania.
    Communication : "A readability formula for French as a foreign language".

  • [2011]

  • Montpellier, September 29, 2011, "Séminaires sud4science, n°5", Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de Montpellier.
    Communication : "Une approche statistique des corpus de SMS : outils et défis".

  • [2011]

  • Namur, May 21, 2011, "Journée des doctorants de l'école doctorale en langues et lettres", Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix.
    Communication : "Dmesure : une plateforme internet pour la lisibilité du français langue étrangère".

  • [2011]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, May 13, 2011, "Séminaires du CENTAL", Université catholique de Louvain.
    Communication : "Une formule de lisibilité computationnelle pour le français langue étrangère ou seconde".

  • [2011]

  • Louvain-la-Neuve, February 28, 2011, "Séminaires de l'IL&C", Université catholique de Louvain.
    Communication : "Dmesure : une plateforme de lisibilité pour le français langue étrangère".

  • [2011]

  • Gand, February 11, 2011, "Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands" (CLIN21), University College Ghent.
    Communication (in collaboration with Naets, H.) : "Dmesure: a readability platform for French as a foreign language".

  • [2010]

  • Courtrai, November 20, 2010, "Séminaires de l'ITEC", Université KULeuven.
    Communication : "Dmesure: a readability formula for French as a foreign language".

  • [2009]

  • Grenoble, November 27, 2009, "Conférences Industries de la Langue", Université Stendhal.
    Communication : "Lisibilité du français langue étrangère et TAL : une manière de renouveau".

  • [2009]

  • Marne-la-Vallée, May 18, 2009, "Séminaire interne de linguistique de l'IGM", Université de Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée.
    Communication : "Modèles statistiques pour l'estimation automatique de la difficulté lexicale et syntaxique en FLE".

  • [2008]

  • Bruxelles, May 17, 2008, "Journée des doctorants de l'école doctorale en langues et lettres", Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB).
    Communication : "Prédire automatiquement la difficulté d'exercices à trous pour des apprenants FLE: une approche TAL".

    Communication to the general public

  • [2022]

  • François T. Atelier : Traitement automatique du langage en entreprise : études de cas , February, 8th, Forum "Innovation, technologies et plurilinguisme".

  • [2019]

  • François T. Clear writing for Europe , December, 5th, Commission's Directorate-General for Translation.

  • [2019]

  • François T. Les éclaireurs , February, 9th, Radio interview on La première.

    Ph.D. Thesis

  • [2011]

  • François T., Les apports du traitement automatique du langage à la lisibilité du français langue étrangère , Ph.D. Thesis, Université Catholique de Louvain. Thesis Supervisors : Cédrick Fairon and Anne Catherine Simon.

    Master Thesis

  • [2006]

  • François T., L'apprentissage des pronoms appellatifs qui régissent la rencontre francophone (France ou Belgique) à des Espagnols dans le cadre du cours de FLE, Master's Thesis, Université Catholique de Louvain. Thesis Supervisors : Luc Collès and Geneviève Fabry.

  • [2005]

  • François T., La symbolique des couleurs dans "Madame Bovary" et "la Regenta", Master's Thesis, Université Catholique de Louvain. Thesis Supervisor : Jean-Claude Polet.

    Professional experience

  • [09/2022 - ?]

  • Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters, UCLouvain, Belgium
    Chargé de cours (Associate Professor) at UCLouvain

  • [09/2018 - 08/2022]

  • Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters, UCLouvain, Belgium
    Chargé de cours (Assistant Professor) at UCLouvain

  • [10/2015 - 08/2018]

  • CENTAL, UCLouvain, Belgium
    Chargé de recherche FNRS (Postdoc researcher) at CENTAL

  • [10/2013 - 09/2018]

  • Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters, UCLouvain, Belgium
    Invited Associate Professor

  • [05/2013 - 09/2015]

  • CENTAL, UCLouvain, Belgium
    Computational linguist and computer scientist at CENTAL

  • [12/2012 - 09/2015]

  • CENTAL, UCLouvain, Belgium
    Post-doc researcher at CENTAL

  • [11/2011 - 11/2012]

  • Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, Philadelphia, United States
    B.A.E.F. and Fulbright Postdoc Fellow at University of Pennsylvania

  • [10/2007 - 09/2011]

  • Aspirant F.N.R.S.,Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
    Ph.D. Student at UCLouvain

  • [09/2006 - 06/2007]

  • Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, Japan
    French as a second language assistant

  • [01/2007 - 06/2007]

  • Institut Franco-japonais du Kyushu, Fukuoka, Japan
    French and Spanish as second languages teacher

  • [10/2005 - 02/2006]

  • Académie des Langues, Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium
    Spanish as a second language teacher

  • [11/2005]

  • Institut Saint-Laurent (High School), Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium
    French as a first language teacher

  • [08/2005 and 07/2006]

  • Bishopric of Hassake, Syria
    French as a second language teacher

  • [07/2005]

  • ASBL Roeland, Virton
    French as a second language teacher

    Scientific activities

    Scientific evaluation and conference organisation

    • [2022] : Member of the Programme Committee of the conferences EMNLP 2022, Coling 2022, ARR (ACL Rolling Review), AACL-IJCNLP 2022, LREC 2022, TALN 2022 (meta-reviewer), BEA Workshop 2022, CogALex 2022 workshop, READI 2022 workshop, NLP4CALL workshop.

    • [2022] : Member of Organising Committee for the NLP4CALL 2022 workshop and for the READI2022 workshop.

    • [2022] : Guest reviewer for ACM Computing Surveys, the LRE journal and the journal "Slovenščina 2.0".

    • [2021] : Member of the Programme Committee of the conferences ACL2021 (Outstanding reviewer), ARR (ACL Rolling Review), AAAI 2021, EMNLP2021, RANLP2021, TALN2021, BEA Workshop 2021, NLP4CALL 2021, CMCL2021, CTTS-2021, NewSum-EMNLP2021, CBL Day, Colloque "La communication écrite entre l'État et le citoyen : défis numériques, perspectives rédactologiques"

    • [2021] : Guest reviewer for the Behavior Research Methods Journal and ACM Computing Surveys. Reviewer for the journal "Le Langage et l'Homme".

    • [2021] : Member of Organising Committee for the PLIN DAY 2021 and the GR4L2 Workshop 2021.

    • [2021] : Reviewer for the French ANR programme.

    • [2020] : Guest reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing.

    • [2020] : Member of the Programme Committee of the conferences ACL 2020, AACL-IJCNLP2020, EMNLP2020, Coling 2020, LREC 2020, TALN 2020, CBL Day, READI2020 Workshop, CMCL 2020, CogALex 2020, NLP4CALL 2020, BEA Workshop 2020.

    • [2020] : Member of Organising Committee for the PLIN DAY 2020.

    • [2020] : Reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

    • [2019] : Member of the Programme Committee of the conferences ACL 2019, RANLP 2019, TALN 2019, CORIA 2019, Recital 2019, CMCL 2019, SLPAT 2019, WG3 and WG5 meeting (enetCollect), NLP4CALL 2019, BEA Workshop 2019.

    • [2019] : Member of Organising Committee for the EUROCALL 2019 Conference.

    • [2019] : Guest reviewer for the Cahiers de praxématique, TAL journal, ELA (Études de linguistique appliquée) journal, Dialogue and Discourse journal, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education

    • [2018] : Member of the Programme Committee of the conferences ACL 2018, Coling 2018, NAACL-SRW 2018, TALN 2018, RJC 2018, BEA Workshop 2018 (NAACL 2018), ATA-2018, NLP4CALL 2018, CBL Day.

    • [2018] : Guest reviewer for the LRA journal (Language Resources and Evaluation), Computational Linguistics (CL), TAL journal, Languages, the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR).

    • [2017] : Reviewer for the French ANR programme and the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

    • [2017] : Member of the Programme Committee of the conferences TALN 2017, RECITAL 2017, AIST'2017, EACL Student Workshop 2017, BEA Workshop 2017 (EMNLP), (Dis)Fluency2017, the MUMTTT 2017 workshop.

    • [2017] : Guest reviewer for ACM - Transactions on Accessible Computing, International Journal of Applied Linguistics (ITL), DoRiF journal.

    • [2016] : Organisation of the Workshop CL4LC 2016 (COLING).

    • [2016] : Member of the Programme Committee of TALN 2016, RECITAL 2016, NAACL 2016 Student Research workshop, BEA Workshop 2016 (NAACL), CORIA 2016, AIST' 2016, CL4LC Workshop, Joint 5th NLP4CALL and 1st NLP4LA, and the CBL day.

    • [2016] : Guest reviewer for various journals or series: International Journal of Applied Linguistics (ITL), Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, and Morgan and Claypool (Synthesis Lectures on Human Technologies)

    • [2015] : Member of the Programme Committee of NAACL Student Workshop 2015, RECITAL 2015, NLP4CALL 2015, AIST'2015, the MUMTTT 2015 workshop, and the 10th BEA Workshop 2015 (NAACL 2015)

    • [2015] : Guest reviewer for various journals or series: TAL, TRANEL, NPSS, Morgan and Claypool (Synthesis Lectures on Human Technologies)

    • [2014] : Guest reviewer for the TAL journal in 2014

    • [2014] : Member of the Jury for the Prix de la thèse ATALA 2014 and the Jury for the Best paper Award at RECITAL 2014

    • [2014] : Member of the Programme Committee of the ACL Student Workshop 2014, NLP4CALL 2014, RECITAL 2014, the BEA Workshop 2014 (ACL), the SLPAT Workshop 2014 (ACL), AIST'2014, CEDIL 2014 (Colloque International des Etudiants Chercheurs), the ATS-MA Workshop 2014 (COLING), and PITR 2014 (Workshop EACL)

    • [2014] : Guest Editor of a special issue of the ITL journal on readability and text simplification

    • [2013] : Co-Director of the Prix de la thèse ATALA 2013

    • [2013] : Guest reviewer for the Discours journal and for a chapter of the Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research.

    • [2013] : Member of the Programme Committee for PITR 2013 (Workshop ACL)

    • [2012] : Member of the Programme Committee for one special issue of Linguisticae Investigationes

    Scientific Committees

    • [2019 - present] : Member of the "Commission mesure et évaluation" from the Français des affaires.

    • [2017- present] : Member of the Editorial Board of the journal "Le Langage et l'Homme".

    • [2019 - present] : MC substitute for Belgium in the COST action enetCollect.

    • [2017- present] : Member of the Editorial Board of ITL (International Journal of Applied Linguistics).

    • [2013-2014] : Invited expert in the special Readabiliy Commission in the Conseil de la langue française et de la politique linguistique (Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles)

    Member of a Ph. D. Thesis Jury

    • [2021] : President of the Jury of Mr. Nathan VANDEWEERD : "Phraseological complexity in L2 French: Investigating variation across modes".

    • [2021] : Member of the Jury of Mr. Louis MARTIN : "Automatic Sentence Simplification using Controllable and Unsupervised Methods".

    • [2020] : "Rapporteur" and Member of the Jury of Mr. Rémi CARDON : "Simplification automatique de textes techniques et spécialisés".

    • [2020] : Opponent for the defense of Mr. David ALFTER : "Exploring natural language processing for single-word and multi-word lexical complexity from a second language learner perspective".

    • [2020] : Member of the Jury of Mr. Frédéric TOMAS : "Nervousness in written deception : beliefs, cognitive load, and models of linguistic production".

    • [2019] : Member of the Jury of Mrs. Quynh Huong, DO : "Enseignement de l'exposé oral du guide touristique vietnamien francophone comme genre discursif et par les situations-problèmes

    Awards and Fellowships

    Teaching

    Teaching (UCLouvain)

    • LROM2691 : Exercices écrits spécialisés en français (2022-2023)

    • LROM 2670 : Les textes économiques et commerciaux en français : genres de discours et questions de terminologie (2018-2023)

    • LROM 2680 : Exercices oraux spécialisés en français (2018-2023)

    • LROM 2660 : Stratégies de communication orale dans l'entreprise : français (2017-2023)

    • LCLIG 2240 : Statistiques linguistiques (2014-2023)

    • LFIAL 2260 : Statistics for Linguistics (2016-2017)

    • LROM 1112 : Introduction aux études de langues et littératures françaises et romanes : courants, concepts et méthodes (2014-2015)

    • LFLTR 1530 : Introduction aux sciences du langage (2013-2014)

    • LCLIG 2250 : Méthodologie de l'analyse de corpus en linguistique (2013-2014)

    • LROM 1221 : Linguistique française I: analyses du français contemporain (2013-2014)

    Involvement in the following lectures (UCLouvain)

    • FLTR 2620 : Traitement automatique du langage naturel (2007-2011; 2012-2013)

    • CLIG 2140 : Séminaire de linguistique computationnelle (2010)

    • CLIG 2240 : Statistiques linguistiques (2008 and 2009)

    Direction of Ph.D. thesis

    • Yunqing CUI (2022-2026) in Applied Linguistics: "Influences des politiques linguistiques familiales sur le bilinguisme des enfants issus des familles immigrées chinoises en Belgique francophone : analysée selon le système d'évaluation automatique"

    • Magali NORRE (2020-2024) in NLP: "Traduction automatique du français vers les pictogrammes pour améliorer la communication entre médecins et patients avec une déficience intellectuelle en milieu hospitalier"

    • Nami YAMAGUCHI (2020-2024) in NLP and CALL: "Un système de classification automatique de la production écrite des apprenants du français langue étrangère basé sur le CECRL et son application aux apprenants japonais du FLE"

    • Trang PHAM Tran Hanh (2019-2023) in Applied linguistics and Communication: "Étude comparative des différences culturelles manifestées dans les discours touristiques de sites web belges et vietnamiens".

    • Minami OZAWA (2019-2023) in NLP and CALL: "Une formule statistique pour évaluer automatiquement la facilité d'écoute des matériaux de FLE".

    • Adeline MÜLLER (2018-2022) in NLP and communication: "Vers une simplification automatique des textes de spécialité".

    • Julien ZHAKIA DOUEIHI (2018-2022) in FFL: "L'impact de la L1 sur l'apprentissage de la L2: une approche explicite pour l'apprentissage des verbes pronominaux français à l'université au Japon".

    • Serge BIBAUW (2014-2022 - Completed) in iCALL: "Effectiveness of dialog systems for language learning".

    • Anaïs TACK (2016-2021 - Completed) in NLP and CALL: "Personalized modeling of non-native speaker's lexical-semantic knowledge".

    Direction of master thesis (completed)

    • Alix KELLERS (2023). "Communication interpersonnelle et technologies de l'information et de la communication - En 2020 et 2021, quel impact le télétravail a-t-il eu sur la communication et la relation interpersonnelle dans les entreprises en Belgique ?"

    • Lola DESGAIN (2023). "Communication de crise des organisations non-gouvernementales de la santé belges en temps de Covid-19"

    • Camille PIRALI (2022). "Individual Differences and Lexical Difficulty: Towards Personalised Difficulty Predictions"

    • Romane WERNER (2022). "A Conditional Random Fields model for Drug Name Recognition in the cryptomarket forum of Silk Road 2"

    • Laura SCHEVENEELS (2022). "Analyse des grands discours de la mode sur les problèmes éthiques et écologiques"

    • Sara FILLEE (2022). "La communication de crise à l'ère des réseaux sociaux : l'influence des firestorms sur l'image de marque des entreprises. Les cas "El Café" et "Waff""

    • Anelise RENSON (2022). "Communication institutionnelle de l'UCLouvain envers la génération Z : Les caractéristiques de cette cohorte conduisent-elles à des difficultés de communication ? "

    • David LANNOO (2022). "EFLSemLex : une ressource lexicale graduée et désambiguïsée pour les apprenants de l'anglais en L2. Enrichir les ressources lexicales pour l'apprentissage des langues étrangères par la désambiguïsation lexicale"

    • Sascha NOGUEIRA TELES (2022). "Quelles sont les valeurs véhiculées par l'identité de marque de Nike et d'Apple ? Analyse du discours sur leurs comptes Instagram"

    • Iman HAKKI (2022). "Communicating with disabled individuals in organizations"

    • Dorian VENDERICK (2021). "Résumé automatique de texte par extraction. Améliorer la cohérence des résumés automatiques à l'aide d'un outil de coréférence"

    • Mathias ESPESO-CALVO (2021). ""L'industrie musicale et les stratégies de communication utilisées en son sein".

    • Cynthia GILLET (2021). "Comment optimiser la communication d'une entreprise avec un seul site local qui souhaite augmenter sa visibilité locale, nationale et internationale ? Le cas de Pairi Daiza".

    • Francisca PIÑA VOLANTE (2021). "L'utilisation des anglicismes dans les entreprises francophones : Analyse des pratiques dans la communication interne et externe de Snowleader".

    • Shiwen LI (2021). "L'analyse de la compétence communicative interculturelle des étudiants chinois en Europe francophone".

    • Mathilde HAUBRECHTS (2021). "Influence des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) sur la collaboration en entreprise : dans le contexte du télétravail obligatoire entrainé par le COVID-19 en Belgique".

    • Laura GUERRERA (2021). "Communication de marque : analyse des discours des grandes enseignes de la distribution alimentaire en lien avec les préoccupations éthiques, écologiques et sanitaires".

    • Jennifer LEFEMINE (2021). "Un moteur de recherche spécialisé en lisibilité: Une nouvelle approche pour l'apprentissage du français L1". (co-promoteur)

    • Yu-Chieh CHIEN (2021). "Effet des dimensions culturelles sur la perception du droit à la déconnexion parmi les travailleurs taïwanais et belges francophones".

    • Laura DE MESMAEKER (2021). "L'image de marque de l'enseigne Carrefour dans le Brabant Wallon : La place de l'écoresponsabilité et sa perception par les consommateurs".

    • Lauranne DELENS (2021). "Dans quelle mesure le modèle de cosmétique coréen influence-t-il la communication des marques du modèle français ?".

    • Amenallah AYARI (2020). "La position du français comme langue médicale dans un pays bilingue (arabo-francophone): Le cas de la Tunisie".

    • Pierre de WERGIFOSSE (2020). "Les chatbots d'assistance à la clientèle : Evaluation des performances par l'élaboration d'une grille d'analyse comparative".

    • Pauline PARMENTIER (2020). "La spontanéité dans une présentation orale : analyse des caractéristiques prosodiques d'une présentation spontanée et de leurs effets sur l'efficacité communicationnelle".

    • Sinem SARI (2020). "Quelles sont les stratégies de communication employées par les médecins avec les patients enfants francophones et allophones ? Étude de cas en Belgique francophone".

    • Dorica Tshitwenu (2020). "La communication des marques de luxe sur les réseaux sociaux : Étude de cas.".

    • Astrid BONFANTI (2020). "L'existence d'obstacles à une bonne communication entre les infirmières et les patients : quelles causes de ces difficultés de communication pour les patients et les infirmières en milieu hospitalier ?".

    • Alissa DELHEZ (2020). "Quelle est la perception des jeunes de 13 à 25 ans vis-à-vis des pratiques marketing liées aux stratégies communicationnelles utilisées sur les réseaux sociaux par les entreprises dans le contexte de la culture occidentale".

    • Élodie FERON (2020). "Business chatbots for customer service: analysing their impact on companies and their reception by users".

    • Romain LANDES (2020). "Keyword extraction: State-of-the-art Review and Application to terminology Extraction".

    • Eva ROLIN (2020). "FreMLy: un outil de simplification pour les textes médicaux et de langue générale".

    • Daria ALEXANDER (2020). "Measurement of writing fluency of students who are learning a language via chatbots".

    • Jean CHERAMY (2019). La génération de paraphrases de données d'entrainement pour une meilleure classification des intents d'un chatbot créé avec Rasa.

    • Amy MCINTYRE (2019). La communication claire dans les textes administratifs faciles et difficiles.

    • Roxanne LESIRE (2019). Une culture d'entreprise forte a-t-elle plus d'impact sur des équipes internationales que l'utilisation des stratégies de communication interculturelle et de management interculturel ?

    • Dominika KOLISEVOVA (2019). La communication non verbale en entreprise: Spécificités interculturelles des espaces Belgique/France et Chine/Taïwan et présence des formations interculturelles dans les espaces respectifs.

    • Lin QIDAN (2019). Les stratégies pour la négociation commerciale interculturelle: Le cas de la relation Belgique et Chine.

    • Charline LAHAYE (2019). La communication de crise dans l'industrie agroalimentaire : Etude de la couverture médiatique de l'Affaire Lactalis.

    • Mathilde DELHAYE (2019). Quelles stratégies de communication sont utilisées par les médecins généralistes pour vulgariser l'information lorsqu'ils expliquent des concepts médicaux à leurs patients ? Le cas des consultations médicales.

    • Jérémy CHELALA (2018). La compression de phrases pour le résumé.

    • Emile BEGUIN (2017). Exploration des segments en périphérie droite en français oral informel.

    • Adeline MÜLLER (2016). Classification automatique de dictées selon leur niveau de difficulté de compréhension et orthographique.

    • Anaïs TACK (2015). Models adaptatifs pour évaluer automatiquement la connaissance lexicale d'un apprenant de FLE.

    • Tanguy CHARLIER (2014). L'apprentissage semi-supervisé : une solution au problème du manque de données en lisibilité du français langue étrangère.

    • Thibault ANDRÉ (2014). Génération automatique de distracteurs dans le cadre de questionnaires à choix multiples.

    • Laetitia BROUWERS (2012). Simplification syntaxique de phrases pour le français langue étrangère.

    Contact information

    Thomas François
    Researcher at Cental

    Room D344
    Tel.: +32 (010) 47 37 36
    Fax.: +32 (010) 47 26 06
    thomas d0t francois At uclouvain d0t be

    Center for Natural Language Processing
    University of Louvain
    Place Montesquieu, 3, bte L2.06.04
    1348 Louvain-la-Neuve