A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> Robots increasingly have the potential to interact with people in daily life. It is believed that, based on this ability, they will play an essential role in human society in the not-so-distant future. This article examined the proposition that robots could form relationships with children and that children might learn from robots as they learn from other children. In this article, this idea is studied in an 18-day field trial held at a Japanese elementary school. Two English-speaking "Robovie" robots interacted with first- and sixth-grade pupils at the perimeter of their respective classrooms. Using wireless identification tags and sensors, these robots identified and interacted with children who came near them. The robots gestured and spoke English with the children, using a vocabulary of about 300 sentences for speaking and 50 words for recognition. The children were given a brief picture-word matching English test at the start of the trial, after 1 week and after 2 weeks. Interactions were counted using the tags, and video and audio were recorded. In the majority of cases, a child's friends were present during the interactions. Interaction with the robot was frequent in the 1st week, and then it fell off sharply by the 2nd week. Nonetheless, some children continued to interact with the robot. Interaction time during the 2nd week predicted improvements in English skill at the posttest, controlling for pretest scores. Further analyses indicate that the robots may have been more successful in establishing common ground and influence when the children already had some initial proficiency or interest in English. These results suggest that interactive robots should be designed to have something in common with their users, providing a social as well as technical challenge. <s> BIB001 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <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> BIB002 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> voice recognition technology with a tangible learning companion/robot which our research team developed to enhance English learning conversation for beginners. In this study, we collected the users’ needs analysis of using tangible learning companion first then did a pilot test to analyze its usability. The results show that the learners improved their pronunciation to achieve right voice recognition through practicing with the learning companion and the tangible learning companion can promote the less proficient learners’confidence. Moreover, we also noticed that learning with the tangible learning companion could increase the pleasure of learning speaking English and tactile interactions between learners. <s> BIB003 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> This paper introduced a telepresence robot system for English tutoring. The system consists of the user system, the server system and the robot system. The robot is controlled by the collision prevention system, direct interface, server interface with assistant teacher and remote interface with native teacher. A remote native teacher had given lessons in English using this system for a month and several issues of telepresence robot system for remote lecture are found from the lecture. <s> BIB004 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> As robot technologies develop, many researchers have tried to use robots to support education. Studies have shown that robots can help students develop problem-solving abilities and learn computer programming, mathematics, and science. However, few studies discuss the use of robots to facilitate the teaching of second languages. We discuss whether language teaching needs robot support, whether robots present an appropriate medium for language instruction, and what challenges must be overcome. In order to explore the possibility of using robots as an instructional tool for teaching a second language, this paper reviews prior studies concerning educational robots and analyzes the characteristics of robots and instructional media. Furthermore, we report on the design and testing of five instruction scenarios for teaching second language. Based on our empirical experience, we provide suggestions for future research directions in the realm of robots for language education. Keyword <s> BIB005 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> The current paper presents a case study conducted to evaluate the robot rabbit Nabaztag functioning as a vocabulary trainer for beginners of English. Hedonic aspects and motivating function, as well as the general usability and overall impression evoked by rabbit, were tested. A group of 18 5th grade students of an English class at a German junior high school were instructed to practice 20 pairs of vocabulary. Ten students were assisted by the speaking robot rabbit, while eight learned by applying an ordinary paper-and-pencil method. Results show that after one week, students who had learned with the Nabaztag had, on average, a higher recall than the control group. Moreover, the evaluation of the hedonic and pragmatic quality of interacting with the rabbit was high, as was the evaluation of both ease of use and perceived usefulness. Students learning with the rabbit were in a better mood afterwards than those who learned by means of the traditional method. <s> BIB006 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> Various studies on robot assisted learning have proven them to be effective tools for language education because robots are remarkably successful in eliminating the affective filter. This study demonstrates ROBOSEM with class content for sustaining long-term interaction with students in English classes of elementary schools as a teaching assistant, not a teacher. We close with some practical considerations for the continuous process of improving technology and its diffusion throughout society, such as in elementary schools, through interviews with developers and observations from field trials. <s> BIB007 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> This study introduces the educational assistant robots that we developed for foreign language learning and explores the effectiveness of robot-assisted language learning (RALL) which is in its early stages. To achieve this purpose, a course was designed in which students have meaningful interactions with intelligent robots in an immersive environment. A total of 24 elementary students, ranging in age from ten to twelve, were enrolled in English lessons. A pre-test/post-test design was used to investigate the cognitive effects of the RALL approach on the students??? oral skills. No significant difference in the listening skill was found, but the speaking skills improved with a large effect size at the significance level of 0.01. Descriptive statistics and the pre-test/post-test design were used to investigate the affective effects of RALL approach. The result showed that RALL promoted and improved students??? satisfaction, interest, confidence, and motivation at the significance level of 0.01. <s> BIB008 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> Along with the rapid development of information and communication technologies, educators are trying to keep up with the dramatic changes in our electronic environment. These days mobile technology, with popular devices such as iPhones, Android phones, and iPads, is steering our learning environment towards increasingly focusing on mobile learning or m-Learning. Currently, most interfaces employ keyboards, mouse or touch technology, but some emerging input-interfaces use voiceor marker-based gesture recognition. In the future, one of the cutting-edge technologies likely to be used is robotics. Robots are already being used in some classrooms and are receiving an increasing level of attention. Robots today are developed for special purposes, quite similar to personal computers in their early days. However, in the future, when mass production lowers prices, robots will bring about big changes in our society. In this column, the author focuses on educational service robots. Educational service robots for language learning and robot-assisted language learning (RALL) will be introduced, and the hardware and software platforms for RALL will be explored, as well as implications for future research. <s> BIB009 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> In contrast to conventional teaching agents (including robots) that were designed to play the role of human teachers or caregivers, we propose the opposite scenario in which robots receive instruction or care from children. We hypothesize that by using this care-receiving robot, we may construct a new educational framework whose goal is to promote children's spontaneous learning by teaching through their teaching the robot. In this paper, we describe the introduction of a care-receiving robot into a classroom at an English language school for Japanese children (3--6 years of age) and then conduct an experiment to evaluate if the care-receiving robot can promote their learning using English verbs. The results suggest that the idea of a care-receiving robot is feasible and that the robot can help children learn new English verbs efficiently. In addition, we report on investigations into several forms of teaching performed by children, which were revealed through observations of the children, parent interviews, and other useful knowledge. These can be used to improve the design of care-receiving robots for educational purposes. <s> BIB010 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> Effective tutoring requires personalization of the interaction to each student. Continuous and efficient assessment of the student's skills are a prerequisite for such personalization. We developed a Bayesian active-learning algorithm that continuously and efficiently assesses a child's word-reading skills and implemented it in a social robot. We then developed an integrated experimental paradigm in which a child plays a novel story-creation tablet game with the robot. The robot is portrayed as a younger peer who wishes to learn to read, framing the assessment of the child's word-reading skills as well as empowering the child. We show that our algorithm results in an accurate representation of the child's word-reading skills for a large age range, 4-8 year old children, and large initial reading skill range. We also show that employing child-specific assessment-based tutoring results in an age- and initial reading skill-independent learning, compared to random tutoring. Finally, our integrated system enables us to show that implementing the same learning algorithm on the robot's reading skills results in knowledge that is comparable to what the child thinks the robot has learned. The child's perception of the robot's knowledge is age-dependent and may facilitate an indirect assessment of the development of theory-of-mind. <s> BIB011 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> With concern of robotics application in educational field, robot assisted language learning (RALL) has become of interest to second language learning researchers. This study aims to examine the effect of RALL compared to existing computer assisted language learning (CALL) on students' affective states and engagement towards English conversation class. For the field study, non-equivalent-groups quasi-experiment was employed with 66 Korean middle school students between CALL class and RALL class. The result revealed that there was marginally significant difference in the motivation; there was significant difference both in the participation and in the satisfaction between implementing robot and using computer in English conversation class. This result corresponds both with previous theoretical studies in SLA and with empirical studies in HRI. This study suggests that robot acts as a facilitator in language conversation class. <s> BIB012 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> This paper presents a design for a cutting-edge English program in which elementary school learners of English as a foreign language in Taiwan had lively interactions with a teaching assistant robot. Three dimensions involved in the design included (1) a pleasant and interactive classroom environment as the learning context, (2) a teaching assistant robot designed and built by the researchers as instructional technology (instructional tool/medium), and (3) the need for improved motivation and learning outcomes and positive learning experiences of the students as the core research problem. This Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) led to better pedagogical effects on learning and teaching by (1) employing a vivid, enjoyable teaching approach; (2) adopting practical, interesting learning materials; and (3) creating a natural, enjoyable learning context. Both quantitative and qualitative findings of this study indicate that the students' English learning experiences were enhanced, as were their motivation and learn... <s> BIB013 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> Introduction Anthropomorphized robots are found beneficial when they are implemented in education due to their advantages of executing verbal and nonverbal communication with teachers or students in classrooms (Johnson, 2003). For example, some research studies have used autonomous humanoid robots in English classrooms to play the role of native speakers that are able to carry on conversations with pupils in natural language (Lee et al., 2011; Hyun et al., 2008; Movellan et al., 2009; Park et al., 2011). Research studies have confirmed that this type of interaction between robots and humans not only improves teaching effectiveness but also learning motivation because students are less anxious and more cheerful (Papert, 1993). Therefore, more and more applications of robotic technology are now trying to develop activities that can be helpful for teaching and learning English as a foreign language (EFL). This current trend of using robotics to assist language instruction is now known as Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) (Han, 2012). Despite the great benefits of using robots in language teaching and learning, the current application may be limited because of the two major reasons. First, autonomous robots have complex artificial intelligence and are so expensive that normally schools cannot afford them. Moreover, the interaction scenarios between pupils and robots must be pre-programmed by robotics developers, so educators who are not robotics professionals may find it difficult to design or alter the interaction scenarios. Therefore, an alternative to solving the above problems is to buy robots with simple autonomous functions and remote controlled body movements from the supermarkets, or toyshops. These robots are mostly developed in a small size and at a low-cost. Meanwhile, they could be simply controlled by instructors to perform pedagogical missions and teaching materials in the classroom activities. This type of robots is often used as an instructional tool for facilitating learners' engagement and oral interaction. Research has found that interacting with a tangible robot increased more engagement than with a video (Xie, Antle, & Motamedi, 2008). For instance, ROBOSAPIEN, a low-cost remote controlled robot that can be purchased from a toyshop, has been used to be an instructional tool for EFL class at an elementary school (Chang et al., 2010a; Chang et al., 2010b; You et al., 2006). Although there was a breakthrough in terms of reducing the cost of using robots in language teaching and learning, those commercial robots were still not well developed into education because normally instructors had to take much time and effort to interlink robots with instructional materials and classroom activities. In order to expand robot-assisted language teaching, Han (2012) suggested that the system frameworks of RALL combine robot hardware, robot applications and visual instructional contents and help instructors easily design their robot-assisted instruction. Furthermore, the design of the system frameworks should take the language learning goals into account. In our previous research studies, a RALL system framework has been implemented. The developed framework provides an authoring tool for instructors to script teaching materials that can easily add external multimedia resources as well as to script presentations of anthropomorphized robots. Moreover, a material display system can also be found in the framework. Therefore, the present study is, first, to provide a practical study of creating an EFL course using the framework to design robot-assisted instructional materials. Then, it shows the empirical evidence of the designed instructional materials based on students' learning outcomes. Finally, it presents the impact of students' learning motivation because motivation is a critical element to sustain students' attention and engagement in the learning process. In our current study, two groups of the fifth-grade elementary students were targeted to make the comparison. … <s> BIB014 </s> A Survey of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) <s> Function <s> The CoWriter activity involves a child in a rich and complex interaction where he has to teach handwriting to a robot. The robot must convince the child it needs his help and it actually learns from his lessons. To keep the child engaged, the robot must learn at the right rate, not too fast otherwise the kid will have no opportunity for improving his skills and not too slow otherwise he may loose trust in his ability to improve the robot' skills. We tested this approach in real pedagogic/therapeutic contexts with children in difficulty over repeated long sessions (40-60 min). Through 3 different case studies, we explored and refined experimental designs and algorithms in order for the robot to adapt to the troubles of each child and to promote their motivation and self confidence. We report positive observations, suggesting commitment of children to help the robot, and their comprehension that they were good enough to be teachers, overcoming their initial low confidence with handwriting. <s> BIB015
Robots can be autonomous or teleoperated (e.g., telepresent), or capable of transitioning between both levels of operation BIB009 . Teleoperated robots are controlled remotely, whereas autonomous robots have programmed behaviors. Some robots (e.g., Robosem) can function either autonomously or by telepresence, depending on the mode. According to Park, Han, Kang, and Shin, this type may be a better choice than robots with only telepresence capabilities if connection to the network is unstable BIB007 . Both autonomous and teleoperated robots are used often in RALL, and robots with autonomous capabilities are often teleoperated for the purposes of experiments (Wizard of Oz). Robots of all types can serve several purposes in language learning. They may be used to engage students as their conversational partner (e.g., References BIB004 BIB008 ), trigger vocabulary or grammar learning (e.g., References BIB005 BIB006 BIB008 BIB010 ), help with pronunciation BIB008 BIB003 , reading comprehension BIB014 or writing clarity BIB015 , improve listening skills BIB014 BIB001 BIB008 , assess language ability BIB011  , increase positive affect or decrease anxiety BIB012 BIB013 , or serve as a conversational proxy or avatar for the student BIB002 .