Abstract
This article proposes a computer-based approach to effectively enhance second language learners' willingness to communicate in the target language. To do so, we implemented a conversational agent embedding a dialogue management model based on two conversational strategies (i.e., communication strategies and affective backchannels), serving as scaffolds for enhancing learners' willingness to communicate in the target language. Here, we report on differences observed among second language learners' preferences for both conversational strategies according to their initial level of willingness to communicate and on variations of their willingness with respect to such differences. Although we found that most students generally preferred a combination of both strategies, learners' preferences and the effects of the support provided by these strategies varied according to their level of willingness to communicate. Learners with lower willingness to communicate tended to prefer affective backchannels, whereas those with higher willingness to communicate seemed to favor communication strategies. These results were consistent with post-test results, which showed that learners' expected willingness to communicate tended to be higher after interacting with systems embedding their preferred strategies. In sum, these results are preliminary evidence of the meaningfulness of accounting for such learners' preferences in adaptively using and fading the strategies employed by conversational agents to motivate second language learners to communicate in the target language.
Highlights
S CAFFOLDING has been identified as one of the most effective instructional procedures [1], [2], especially when the learner needs assistance to perform a task [3]
All participants were labeled as either lower or higher willingness to communicate (WTC) according to the results of their first WTC questionnaire (Step 0): participants who had better than average scores on all of their initial WTC precursors were labeled as higher WTC, and the others were categorized as lower WTC
By referring to the results presented in this article, we could for example, stick to observed learners’ preference tendencies and progressively fade out affective backchannels (AB) and fade in communication strategies (CS) as learners’ WTC increases from lower to higher levels, and further progressively fade out CS, so as to entirely dismantle both scaffolds when learners display a sufficient level of WTC
Summary
S CAFFOLDING has been identified as one of the most effective instructional procedures [1], [2], especially when the learner needs assistance to perform a task [3]. In recent decades, scaffolding has gained widespread popularity in several education-related fields [4] and has been considered a key attribute of intelligent tutoring systems. Despite the potential of such systems, they have often been limited in their ability to produce skills that are transferable to the real world [5], [6]. Manuscript received May 20, 2019; revised November 6, 2019 and March 23, 2020; accepted April 12, 2020. Date of publication April 23, 2020; date of current version September 16, 2020.
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