CORALL - Collaborative Robot-Assisted Language Learning
The societal purpose of CORALL is to contribute to more effective education of Swedish for Immigrants by combining pedagogy of collaborative language learning with social robotics.
The scientific aims of the CORALL project are to firstly introduce robot conversational partners in spoken communication training, and secondly to explore collaborative learning between with two adult learners and a robot.
The project focuses on exploring robot-led social conversations, in which the robot and the two learners talk about topics typically encountered in language cafés, i.e., comparisons of languages and societies, life in Sweden, the news or personal information, such as background, occupation, family, hobbies etc.
In such conversations, the robot can have different strategies, and either actively lead the interaction with the learners, or, on the contrary, aim to encourage and facilitate the interaction between the learners. Robot strategies that are being explored include
- Interviewer, aiming for an interaction with one learner at the time, using a protocol where the robot asks questions and the learner answers, before switching attention to the other learner.
- Narrator, aiming for an interaction in which the robot predominantly tells the two learners about itself, its interests, Swedish facts etc.
- Facilitator, aiming for a learner-learner interaction in which the robot provides suggestions for topics and encouragement, but is otherwise taking a more passive role in the conversation.
- Interlocutor, aiming for a three-party interaction in which the robot interact with both learners at the same time.
User studies are made to investigate which of these strategies, or combinations thereof, are the most successful, given different properties of the learners, such as proficiency, gender, age, cultural background.
Researchers
José David Lopes, Heriot-Watt University
Anna Åhlund, Stockholm University
Funding
Swedish Research Council (grant 2016-03698 ''Collaborative Robot Assisted Language Learning (CORALL)''
Duration
2017-01-01 → 2020-12-31