Bots as language learning tools

Foreign Language Learning (FLL) students commonly have few opportunities to use their target language.Teachers in FLL situations do their best to create opportunities during classes through pair or group work, but a variety of factors ranging from a lack of time to shyness or limited opportunity for quality feedback hamper this.This paper discusses online chatbots' potential role in fulfilling this need.Chatbots could provide a means of language practice for students anytime and virtually anywhere.211 students used two well-known bots in class and their feedback was recorded with a brief written survey.Most students enjoyed using the chatbots.They also generally felt more comfortable conversing with the bots than a student partner or teacher.This is a budding technology that has up to now been designed primarily for native speakers of English.In their present state chatbots are generally only useful for advanced and/or very keen language students.However, means exist now for language teachers to get involved and bring this technology into the FLL classroom as a permanent tool for language practice. CHATBOTS TODAYLearning a language is not easy.Even under the best conditions students face cultural differences, pronunciation problems, ebbing motivation, a lack of effective feedback, the need to learn specialized language, and many other obstacles during their studies.Students in foreign language learning situations commonly face all of these general challenges while having little or no opportunity to use their language of study beyond the classroom.Students learning a language at the post-secondary level have a few means of practice, such as language lab work, where students classically listen to a recording then repeat and/or write in a workbook.More recently, students might interact with some language software during laboratory periods.During class, students may or may not practice with other students and only in the smallest classes do students get a chance to practice one-on-one with their teacher.The practice students might obtain in class is often not very interactive and potentially plagued by lack of confidence, shyness, and unchecked mistakes in grammar and pronunciation (students in pairs or group practice).Technology is opening up many new possibilities for language learning, and the internet has enormous potential.As Benson (2001) describes it, "the internet is also so strongly supportive of two basic situational conditions for self-directed learning: learners can study whenever they want using a potentially unlimited range of authentic materials" (p.139).One area the internet has opened up is the use of chatterbots for language practice."A chatterbot is a computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation with one or more human users via auditory or textual methods."(Wikipedia, Chatterbot, 2006).A bot is "a software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom or IRC discussions" (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2000, para.1).It is important here to point out that the above reference to "conversation" does not mean speech.