Pre-Service Primary English Teachers’ AI Chatbots

Sung, Min-Chang

doi:10.30961/lr.2020.56.1.97

Lang. Res. 56(1):97-115

pISSN: 0254-4474, eISSN: 2586-7113

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30961/lr.2020.56.1.97

Article

초등영어 예비교사들이 개발한 인공지능 챗봇

성민창 ¹ ^, ^†

Pre-Service Primary English Teachers’ AI Chatbots

Min-Chang Sung ¹ ^, ^†

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹경인교육대학교

¹Gyeongin National University of Education

^†Corresponding Author: 조교수 영어교육과 경인교육대학교 13910 경기도 안양시 만안구 삼막로 155 , E-mail: mcsung@ginue.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright 2020 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Feb 19, 2020 ; Revised: Mar 16, 2020 ; Accepted: Mar 23, 2020

Published Online: Apr 30, 2020

ABSTRACT

This study evaluates 17 AI English-language chatbots that were developed by nine groups of pre-service primary school teachers (N = 26). According to the achievement standards for the two grade bands in the curriculum (Grades 3-4 and 5-6: Ministry of Education, 2015), each group developed two chatbots, using Dialogflow API. The first and second chatbots were designed to talk the way a new friend would and in a specific situation, respectively. The chatbots have been found to provide opportunities for primary school students to engage in playful and interactive practice during which the students use a variety of communicative functions, and the chatbots are therefore expected to make solid contributions to the attainment of speaking and listening achievement standards. It was also noted that compositional techniques in chatbot development would generate facilitative factors for foreign language learning, such as topic consistency, flow variability, and grounding.

Keywords: AI chatbot; national curriculum; primary English education; English speaking; pre-service teacher training

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