2016 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Cross-institutional study on the effects of an intelligent embedded training system on language learning in a mobile environment.
| Project/Area Number |
15K02714
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| Research Institution | Kanazawa University |
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Principal Investigator |
Gary Ross 金沢大学, 薬学系, 准教授 (10708142)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | mobile / autonomy / speech / training |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The purpose of this project is to investigate the effects of an intelligent embedded training system on student autonomy for university learners of English. In FY2015, the initial plan was to set up a basic online learning system for students with an initial focus on the understanding of vocabulary. However, improvements to speech synthesis and speech recognition in modern browsers meant that the project was expanded in 2016 to include a speaking component.
This year the system extensively used and tested on 2 classes of 40 students (80 students in total). Over 500,000 online spoken utterances were made by the students. Each of these utterances were recorded and analyzed by the speech recognition system. Students gave qualitative data on the usability, usefulness, and technical issues in a feedback questionnaire as well as taking a standardized test to determine correlations between different data points.
The analysis of this data is still ongoing. Preliminary results were presented in INTED2016, and published in the conference proceedings. Results plus a technical overview was presented at the Electronic Village in TESOL 2017. Usability and technical presentations were also made at JALT 2016 and JALTCALL 2016.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
In 2016, the scope of the study was expanded to focus more on speaking and listening. The ability to autonomously practice speaking is a major goal for language learners, and this year the system was used extensively and successfully by students and 500,000 data points were collected for analysis of speech in use. Furthermore, the system was expanded to include a video component that is integrated with the speech elements.
As well as expanding the scope of the original study to include speech, a number of challenges regarding the use of mobile have been encountered. Specifically, mobile support in speech is not as robust as with simpler text input. This support is rapidly changing and this year will give more focus to the mobile element of the project, and to what extent it is possible and improving.
As in 2016, input of data and development of practice sentences was carried out by the lead researcher alone.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In 2017, the project will be expanded to be tested and analysis in 2 other universities to obtain more robust and varied data of actual use. Due to the issue of lack of mobile support in the speaking space, there will be a stronger focus on non-mobile use. However, where mobile use is possible this element will be further investigated with the different use-cases compared.
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