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Short paper
Wtih the advancement of medical science in Taiwan, the life expectancy of Taiwanese
citizens has already reached 73 and 78, respectively, for men and women. Given that the
population of senior citizens (people over 65) is growing rapidlly and their consequent
demand for life-long learning is increasing, the purpose of this study was to provide a
solution for active and effective English vocabulary learning for this age group via the use
of an intelligent robot as a teaching assistant in the context of scenario-based vocabulary
learning. The idea of r-learning (Robotic Learning) has been seen as a valuable new
classroom resource for language instruction (Hur& Han, 2009) and has been shown by
researchers to be more effective and produce better learning outcomes when compared
with a similar computer-based activity (Mitink, Recabarren, Nussbaum & Soto, 2009;
Wei, Hung, Lee & Chen, 2011).As a result, the researchers strived to engage senior
adults in vocabulary acquisition and learning contents embedded in diverse scenarios
through the company of, and interaction with, the robot, thus leading to subsequent
enhancement of their English learning motivation and interest as well as improvement in
their English proficiency.
The creation of the robot served both educational and entertainment purposes for the
senior adults. The cute, friendly, and humanoid looks of the robot was intended
tocomfort the loneliness of these senior adults in one way. In another way, studying
English vocabulary with the robot was intended tonot only stimulate their learning, but
also activate their social ability and memory. To achieve the goal, a series of daily-life-
based active learning materials was designed and embedded into the database of the
robots in accordance with language teaching approaches and activities. In real teaching
practice, the robots served as a teaching assistant in class while serving as a peer tutor
after class. This project, adopting two teaching approaches
—
Grammar Translation and
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
—
also tested the impact of vocabulary r-
leaning on concentration, interest, and learning outcomes of senior adults.
In order to examine the effectiveness of this r-learning, a two-month experiment was
conducted with 54 senior participants who were enrolled in a language program offered
by a community college in central Taiwan. These 54 participants were divided into two
distinct groups via random assignment, with the experimental group adopting the CLT
approach and the control group adopting the Grammar-Translation approach,
respectively. The statistical findings revealed that the CLT group yielded better results in
terms of the above three components compared to the Grammar-Translation one.
A focus group interview was also conducted with the experimental group in order to
explore the perspectives and view points of the participants in depth. The most important
feature of this learning with the robot was that the robot could display varied facial
expressions, gestures, and body movements, hence providing the senior adults with a 3D
visual effect. It is this capability that distinguishes robotics learning from other forms
ofcomputer assisted language learning. By the end of implementation of this project, the
researchers proposed a brand new learning approach aligned with a professional teaching
assistant/peer tutor robot and proved that r-learning could not only lower the teaching
load for instructors but also improve the effectiveness and efficiency of English learning
outcomes for senior citizens. Thus, this r-learning project concluded that with the senior
adults’
confidence being boosted and their interest in studying English as a global
language being rekindled, their subsequent better English ability and higher proficiency
level also enabled them to take part in the global society by communicating more
efficiently with people around the world and connecting most closely to the rest of the
world. In addition, the completion of this project also provided a new direction and
insights for technologythe robotics industry Taiwan is currently developing, such as the
value and feasibility of producing commercialized robots on a large scale.
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2014 CALL Conference
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