Tactical Language and Culture Training Systems: Using AI to Teach Foreign Languages and Cultures

The Tactical Language and Culture Training System (TLCTS) helps people quickly acquire communicative skills in foreign languages and cultures. More than 40,000 learners worldwide have used TLCTS courses. TLCTS utilizes artificial intelligence technologies during the authoring process and at run time to process learner speech, engage in dialogue, and evaluate and assess learner performance. This paper describes the architecture of TLCTS and the artificial intelligence technologies that it employs and presents results from multiple evaluation studies that demonstrate the benefits of learning foreign language and culture using this approach.