Is a Wizard-of-Oz Required for Robot-Led Conversation Practice in a Second Language?

The large majority of previous work on human-robot conversations in a second language has been performed with a human wizard-of-Oz. The reasons are that automatic speech recognition of non-native conversational speech is considered to be unreliable and that the dialogue management task of selecting robot utterances that are adequate at a given turn is complex in social conversations. This study therefore investigates if robot-led conversation practice in a second language with pairs of adult learners could potentially be managed by an autonomous robot. We first investigate how correct and understandable transcriptions of second language learner utterances are when made by a state-of-the-art speech recogniser. We find both a relatively high word error rate (41%) and that a substantial share (42%) of the utterances are judged to be incomprehensible or only partially understandable by a human reader. We then evaluate how adequate the robot utterance selection is, when performed manually based on the speech recognition transcriptions or autonomously using (a) predefined sequences of robot utterances, (b) a general state-of-the-art language model that selects utterances based on learner input or the preceding robot utterance, or (c) a custom-made statistical method that is trained on observations of the wizard’s choices in previous conversations. It is shown that adequate or at least acceptable robot utterances are selected by the human wizard in most cases (96%), even though the ASR transcriptions have a high word error rate. Further, the custom-made statistical method performs as well as manual selection of robot utterances based on ASR transcriptions. It was also found that the interaction strategy that the robot employed, which differed regarding how much the robot maintained the initiative in the conversation and if the focus of the conversation was on the robot or the learners, had marginal effects on the word error rate and understandability of the transcriptions but larger effects on the adequateness of the utterance selection. Autonomous robot-led conversations may hence work better with some robot interaction strategies.

Self-assessment and Language Learner Autonomy: An Exploratory Study in a Vietnamese University

This paper aims to explore the role of self-assessment in developing language learner autonomy in the Vietnamese higher education context. Specifically, it focuses on how the assessment for English language learning is currently conducted and how this relates to learner autonomy. Despite the Vietnamese government’s official requirement for learner autonomy, Vietnamese higher education’s language academic context provides presently little space for autonomous learning. The idea of self-assessment is relatively unfamiliar and has, therefore, been little investigated. Based on qualitative data from observations and interviews with 38 university students, this paper presents the understanding of learner autonomy in Vietnamese higher education. In particular, the findings suggest that self-assessment may be a useful operational approach for fostering language learner autonomy in Vietnam and other similar settings. Also, they highlight the demand of promoting self-assessment literacy and the importance of self-assessment principles within the local context.

A Case Study on the Sri Lankan English Language Learner in the field of Creative Arts

This article reports the findings of a study that investigated the attitudes of creative arts undergraduates and the attitudes and perception of English as a second language (ESL) teachers from different faculties in three Sri Lankan universities about the motivation and proficiency of their students. Employing a qualitative approach in which a 20-item 6- point Likert scale questionnaire and eight (8) item online questionnaire served as the instuments respectively for randomly selected 25 students and the 10 ESL teachers. The results of the study revealed that the undergraduates were aware of the role played by the English language in terms of the potential utility,importance of learning and the potential impact on their future employment.According to the data analysis,the undergraduates in the faculties of medicine and science are motivated than their counterparts in the faculty of creative arts.Differenciations were observerd in terms of independent thinking, enthusiasm for classroom tasks and critical thinking between the same.

WHAT MAKES SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION COMMUNICATIVE POWER: NATURE? NURTURE? INTERACTION? OR ALL TOGETHER? PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO TESOL IN COMPARATIVE MULTILINGUAL PRACTICES

The article discusses theories of second language acquisition within the framework of nature, nurturing, and interactionist views to language learning and reveals the results of their application to non-native multilingual people’s language acquisition experiences in communicative and meaningfully absorbing environments. The research proposes the necessary space for the discussion of practicality and authenticity of nature, nurture and interactionist theories in language learning, which can be conducted as an integral examination of second language learner efficacy. KEY WORDS: second language, acquisition, nature, nurture, interactionist, technique, authentic, skill and knowledge, experiences, environments, learn, acquire, comprehensible input and output, meaningful language acquisition, autonomous learning

Am I an Autonomous Language Learner? Self-Perceived Autonomy in Trinidad and Tobago: Sociocultural Perspectives

This book explores sociocultural elements and conditions that enable individuals to see themselves as autonomous learners in formal educational settings. This engaging and original book is set at a university context in Trinidad and Tobago. Using an in-depth Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the author brings to life the stories of students majoring in Spanish at university. In order to understand the learners’ autonomy and agency, the author focuses on social dimensions of language learner autonomy. The book aims to understand the contextual and sociocultural teaching and learning practices which are conducive to students constructing the identity of autonomous language learners.

The Plight in Foreign Language Learning in Tunisian Context: Classroom Language Assessment v.s Foreign Language Learning Anxiety

The assessment of language proficiency from a psycholinguistics perspective has been a subject of considerable interest. Many literatures are devoted for the explanation of certain psychological phenomena related to first language acquisition and foreign language learning like language disorders/impairments, critical/sensitive period and language anxiety. This paper sheds the light on foreign language anxiety, which is in my conviction the hardest problem that concerns the foreign language learner as well as the teacher. The origin of this conviction is that foreign language anxiety hampers learner performance on one hand, and on the other hand effects, negatively, the classroom language assessment which in turn sharpens learner’s anxiety more and more. There is a significant negative correlation between foreign language anxiety and classroom language assessment. Three issues are to be tackled in this paper: (i) The implication of ‘anxiety’ as a psychological issue in foreign language learning, (ii) classroom language assessment in Tunisian schools and (iii) the relation between foreign language anxiety and classroom language assessment.

Generic structure of descriptive text written English language learner and teachers

The objective of this research is to describe the appropriateness and inappropriateness of participants in formulating identification in descriptive text. The researcher applies the theory of Gerot and Wignel (1994) from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. To achieve the aim of this research, the researcher used a descriptive qualitative research design. The participants of this research come from three different groups (students at junior high school, English department students, and English teachers). It was chosen since the whole group is familiar with this kind of genre. Since the pandemic situation, the researcher used WhatsUp as a supporting instrument to collect the data. After analyzing the data (interactive data analysis) through the implementation of the systemic functional linguistics perspective, the researcher got the result. This research shows that 50% of junior high school students categorized appropriately in writing identification, 20% of English department students categorized appropriately, and 60% of English teachers categorized appropriately. Based on the results above, it can be concluded that the participants have a poor ability to write identification. It suggests that the English teachers' training program and English teachers have a better pedagogical plan and knowledge of the genre before teaching descriptive text.

William Colenso’s Māori-English Lexicon

<p>William Colenso, one of Victorian New Zealand’s most accomplished polymaths, is remembered best as a printer, a defrocked missionary, botanist, and politician. Up till now, his role as a lexicographer has been largely neglected. His major biographies touch only briefly on his attempt to compile a Māori-English dictionary while Colenso himself spent 30 years on this project. His Lexicon, published the year before his death, is only the incomplete letter A of Māori to English and a handful of pages of English to Māori. The neglect by Colenso’s biographers is a surprising omission given the length of time Colenso spent on his Lexicon, the amount of extant material that relates to it, and the richness of the Lexicon itself as a resource. This thesis asks what William Colenso’s Maori-English Lexicon contribute to our understanding of Colenso’s life, and about the history of language in New Zealand? In chapter one, a brief outline of Colenso’s roles as a missionary, a botanist, a school inspector and a politician establish important biographical context for considering his attempt to compile a Lexicon. The main resource drawn upon is the 30 years’ worth of correspondence between Colenso and the New Zealand government relating to the Lexicon, which affords an overview of the project. The Lexicon itself is a rich resource. In chapter two, I have drawn on a methodology suggested by Ogilvie and Coleman in their paper Forensic Lexicography in order to interrogate the Lexicon. Lastly, in chapter three, themes and discourses found in the archive are considered. Examining the Lexicon demonstrates how rich of a resource it is. The findings establish the wealth of information that the Lexicon can contribute to historical lexicography, and the history of linguistics in New Zealand. Colenso is revealed a ‘splitter’ in his lexicography, just as he was in his botany. He overwhelmingly drew on printed sources as citations when compiling his Lexicon, which raises questions about what ‘authority’ means when recording a language with an oral tradition. Te reo Māori was a means for Colenso to access many aspects of te ao Māori. The Lexicon also reveals Colenso as a life-long language learner. The archive reveals Colenso as man deeply anxious about his professional standing. His insistence on what he referred to as fair and reasonable remuneration is an insistence on the worth of his knowledge. This thesis argues that Colenso’s Lexicon is a product of language contact and cultural exchange. And it is a window into Colenso’s life as a man who learnt another language.</p>