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Designing a Playful Robot Application for Second Language Learning

  • Gijs Verhoeven
  • Alejandro CatalaEmail author
  • Mariët Theune
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering book series (LNICST, volume 265)

Abstract

Both storytelling and learning by teaching approaches have shown to be beneficial separately when integrating robots into learning settings. This paper discusses how to combine them, based on principles found in the literature, and presents the design and implementation of a playful robot application for second language (L2) learning targeted at primary school children. Our first tests showed that the robot kept the children engaged throughout the learning activity. It appears to be a promising approach as some vocabulary gain is observed in children, but there can be several factors involved that were not controlled in the trials and that will require further work.

Keywords

Interaction design Robot Second language learning Playful 
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Notes

Acknowledgement

Research partially funded by H2020 MSCA-IF grant No. 701991 coBOTnity, European Regional Development Fund and Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (acc. 2016-2019, ED431G/08).

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Copyright information

© ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  • Gijs Verhoeven
    • 1
  • Alejandro Catala
    • 2
    Email author
  • Mariët Theune
    • 1
  1. 1.Human Media InteractionUniversity of TwenteEnschedeThe Netherlands
  2. 2.Centro Singular de Investigación En Tecnoloxías da Información (CiTIUS)University of Santiago de CompostelaSantiago de CompostelaSpain

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