A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Anxiety <s> We are developing a storytelling robot which learns by children's teaching. The robot is used on learning of the second language. It can reduce the negative emotion due to the anxiety of speaking foreign language, which thus motivates learning and enhances the speaking and listening abilities. Presently, our system is still at the initial stage of research. Therefore, we only interviewed and experimented on some of the children now. These results will be used to improve our system. <s> BIB001 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Anxiety <s> This study introduces the speech and language technologies used in the educational assistant robots that we developed for language learning and exploring the affective effects of robot-assisted language learning (RALL). To achieve this purpose, a course was designed in which students have meaningful interaction with intelligent robots in an immersive environment. A total of 24 elementary students, ranging in age over 9–13, were enrolled in English lessons. Descriptive statistics and pre-test/post-test design were used to investigate the affective effects of RALL approach. The result showed that RALL is promoting and improving students' satisfaction, interest, confidence, and motivation at the significance level of 0.01. <s> BIB002 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Anxiety <s> In this study, the researchers attempted to extend the concept of learning companions from the virtual world to the real physical environment and made a breakthrough in technique development of tangible learning robots. The aim of this study was to explore an innovative way by combining the speech recognition technology with educational robots in the hope that the state-of-the-art technology could provide learners with more opportunities of bi-directional language learning in the English class settings. The quasi-experimental design was adopted in this study and a total of 63 Taiwanese students in the fifth grade participated in the experiment. The results reveal that using the tangible learning companions in learning had positive effects on learners' learning motivation, confidence and engagement especially for the lower-achievement learners. Two learning methods were identified in the study, co-discovery and peer tutoring method. The co-discovery method enhanced the lower-achievement learners' learning involvement and their English speaking ability. Students perceived the tangible learning robots as friendly learning toys or ever like a patient instructor for practicing English conversation. Both English instructor and students agreed that uses of the tangible learning companions effectively improved the class atmosphere, and raised their and positive attitude toward learning English. <s> BIB003 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Anxiety <s> This study aimed to examine the effect of robot assisted language learning (RALL) on the anxiety level and attitude in English vocabulary acquisition amongst Iranian EFL junior high school students. Forty-six female students, who were beginners at the age of 12, participated in this study and were randomly assigned into two groups of RALL (30 students) and non-RALL (16 students). The textbook, the materials, as well as the teacher were the same in the two groups. However in the RALL group, the treatment was given by a teacher accompanied by a humanoid robot assistant. Two questionnaires of anxiety and attitude were utilized to measure the students’ anxiety and attitude (Horwitz et al. 1986; Alemi and Alipour 2012). The results of descriptive and t tests indicated that there was lower anxiety and a more positive attitude towards English vocabulary acquisition in the RALL group compared with those in the non-RALL group. The study showed that the students in the RALL group had great fun in the learning process; they also believed they were learning more effectively, which helped them boost their motivation in the long run. The present study provides new insights into the use of technology in the language classroom, suggesting that teachers and material developers should integrate technology into the language learning process. <s> BIB004 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Anxiety <s> In this paper we aimed to explore young Iranian EFL learners’ attitude towards Robot Assisted Language Learning (RALL) in an English language classroom. To this end, 19 preschool children ranging from 3 to 6 years old were randomly assigned to a RALL group which had a robot as an assistant to the teacher. Their attitude towards the robot was video recorded for one month, during ten sessions of their English classroom course. Their overall attitude was examined focusing on the three factors of anxiety, motivation and interaction based on human-robot interaction (HRI) theory. The result of this study showed that children’s motivation increased as a result of interacting with the robot and their anxiety reduced because of the friendly atmosphere the robot created. The results provided some important insights for using robots in classroom settings for young EFL (English as Foreign Language) students which may be also helpful for the future investigators. <s> BIB005
Anxiety reduction is often cited as a primary reason to use robots in language learning, since learning anxiety is very common BIB001 . and BIB005 confirm anxiety reduction due to RALL implementation while learning, even over 10 sessions of use BIB004 BIB005 . BIB005 the robot was programmed to make mistakes, so children would learn that it was okay for them to make them BIB005 . Future consideration should be given to whether this reduced anxious state will transfer when students need to communicate with real people BIB002 BIB001 . Though Wang et al. found that learners reported being anxious to use their acquired skills with others at the same levels, the robot plus teacher group reported being more willing to do so, compared to the teacher-only group BIB003 .