Adaptive Robot Discourse for Language Acquisition in Adulthood

Abstract

Acquiring a second language in adulthood differs considerably from the approach taken at younger ages. Learning rates tend to decrease during adolescence, and socio-emotional characteristics, like motivation and expectations, take a different perspective for adults. In particular, acquiring communicative competence is a stronger objective for older learners, as an appropriate use of language in social contexts ensures a better community immersion and well-being. This skill is best attained through interactions with proficient speakers, but if this option is not available, social robots present a good alternative for this purpose. However, to obtain optimal results, a robot companion should adapt to the learner's proficiency level and motivation continuously to encourage speech production and increase fluency. Our work attempts to achieve this goal by developing an adaptive robot that modifies its spoken dialogue strategy, and visual feedback, to reflect a student's knowledge, proficiency and engagement levels in situated interactions for long-term learning.

Social robots in a translanguaging pedagogy: A review to identify opportunities for robot-assisted (language) learning

“…Sixteen of the 83 studies (partly) targeted a migrant population (Kim et al, 2014;Gordon et al, 2016;Rosenthalvon der Pütten et al, 2016;Kory Westlund et al, 2017;Lopes et al, 2017;Hemminki and Erkinheimo-Kyllönen, 2017;Goossens et al, 2019;Park et al, 2019;Engwall and Lopes, 2020;Kouri et al, 2020;Schulz et al, 2020;Engwall et al, 2021;Halbach et al, 2021;Leeuwestein et al, 2021;Cumbal, 2022; A robot mostly speaking L2, but also translating target words to L1 Konijn et al, 2022). A striking result is that only one of these studies used students' L1 to support learning of the L2 (Leeuwestein et al, 2021).…”

Social/dialogical roles of social robots in supporting children’s learning of language and literacy—A review and analysis of innovative roles

“…1). First approaches to a tutoring robot that can scaffold the learner’s behavior are being developed ( Schodde et al, 2019 ; Cumbal, 2022 ). They require highly nested abilities from a robot, and their depiction goes beyond the categories proposed in Table 1 .…”

“…For this, tutors need to fine-tune to the learner's skills in a way that is "temporarily assisting learners to achieve new skills or levels of understanding they would not reach on their own" (Schodde et al, 2019, p. 1). First approaches to a tutoring robot that can scaffold the learner's behavior are being developed (Schodde et al, 2019;Cumbal, 2022). They require highly nested abilities from a robot, and their depiction goes beyond the categories proposed in Table 1.…”