Using a humanoid robot to develop a dialogue-based interactive learning environment for elementary foreign language classrooms

Elementary school is a critical stage during which the development of listening comprehension and oral abilities in language acquisition occur, especially with a foreign language. However, the current foreign language instructors often adopt one-way teaching, and the learning environment lacks any interactive instructional media with which to increase children's motivation to learn. The contribution of this article is to create an interactive language classroom using a robot that includes the hardware arrangement, the software design, and the interactive instruction process between the teacher, the students, and the robot. Additionally, we evaluated the usability of the robot for the instructional activity, and we analyzed the change in the students' behavior by using questionnaires and video recordings. Ninety-five percent of the students indicated that they enjoyed the English class more as a result of their teacher communicating through a robot. Also, the children's will to actively participate significantly increased through the guidance they received from the robot. This study might provide a practical framework for educational researchers to explore or design further instructional activities with robots.