Complementary Teaching Support with Robot in English Communication

Abstract

Collaborative reading for learning English is instructive for second language learners to develop their communication skills since it brings about an interpersonal context. However, it is not easy for Japanese learners to read English sentences due to psychological resistance and low self-efficacy. In our previous work, we proposed a system for collaborative reading, in which a robot plays the role of a communication partner. As a result, it was suggested that the robot partner could reduce learners’ psychological resistance. In this work, we focus on improving learners’ self-efficacy in their ability to use English. To improve self-efficacy in English communication, it is important for learners to realize that they could properly use grammatical knowledge to communicate and to feel their growth which allows them to prosocially participate in communication. In addition, communication in English requires learners to take care of grammar to speak. However, learners tend to read English sentences in collaborative reading without caring about grammatical knowledge. In this work, we propose a learning system where a learner and a robot partner complement each other’s grammatical knowledge by teaching each other. We also describe future evaluation plan with this system.