Strategic competence, the ability to use communication strategies (CS) to overcome challenges and enhance communication effectiveness, is crucial in language learning. However, the coverage of these strategies as well as target models to teach them remain scarce in current instructional materials. This paper represents the first attempt to examine…

University classrooms are increasingly populated by students with diverse nationalities and native languages (L1). The growing number of students in English-led classrooms who speak English as a second or lower language (L2) may face added difficulties in understanding the specific task objectives or directions, as explained by native-…

With the growth of chatbots, concerns about implementing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots in educational settings have consistently arisen, especially for the purpose of language learning. This study introduced a task-based voice chatbot called "Ellie", newly developed by the researchers, and examined the appropriateness of its task…

Despite growing interest in exploring the application of chatbots in language education, studies on the process of chatbot-assisted language learning are scant. This qualitative study uses activity theory to understand how English as a foreign language students engage with a chatbot, Argumate, when composing argumentative essays. Five Chinese…

This dissertation investigates how bilinguals use their two grammars to comprehend written intra-sentential codeswitches. I focus on adjective/noun constructions in Spanish and English where I manipulate the congruence of grammatical word order in the two languages across the codeswitch boundary. This allows me to test three codeswitching…

Given the novelty of human--machine communication (HMC) in task-based language learning (TBLL), we conducted a multimethodological pilot study to explore the use of Alexa in out-of-class task-based learning to mediate texts in English as a foreign language. Fourteen Polish intermediate learners participated in the quasi-experiment and programme…

This study investigated the effect of Chatbot-Assisted Dynamic Assessment (CA-DA) on vocabulary learning and provided insights into learner abilities drawn from its implementation. Through the use of mediating chatbots, this study implemented DA to multiple learners simultaneously and provided each learner with human-like interaction. The chatbots…

Many learners of English as a foreign language often feel that learning spoken English is frustrating and quite difficult, especially when they have to talk to English-speaking foreigners. In general, because they are unfamiliar with the spoken mode of English and are worried about making grammatical errors, they often feel very scared to speak…

Language learners are underserved if there are unlearned meanings of a word that they think they have already learned. For example, "circle" as a noun is well known, whereas its use as a verb is not. For artificial-intelligence-based support systems for learning vocabulary, assessing each learner's knowledge of such atypical but common…

In this investigation we propose new machine learning methods for automated scoring models that predict the vocabulary acquisition in science and social studies of second grade English language learners, based upon free-form spoken responses. We evaluate performance on an existing dataset and use transfer learning from a large pre-trained language…

In phonetics research, language alternation--including code switching (speaker-initiated) and cued switching (researcher-prompted)--can be used as a tool to investigate various aspects of speech production and perception in bilingual or multilingual speakers (Bullock & Toribio, 2009a). Studies on the production of voice onset time (VOT) during…

As a branch of artificial intelligence, automated speech recognition (ASR) technology is increasingly used to detect speech, process it to text, and derive the meaning of natural language for various learning and assessment purposes. ASR inaccuracy may pose serious threats to valid score interpretations and fair score use for all when it is…