Dr. Jason Lieblang presents in the Faculty Research Colloquium on “UBC Chatsim: Investigating Virtual Reality Chatbots in Language Education.”
Chatsim investigates whether the immersive qualities of virtual reality combined with chatbots developed to provide foreign language practice can enhance the efficacy of learning an additional language. Since May 2019, an Emerging Media Lab student/staff/faculty team has been building and testing proof-of-concept virtual target language environments (German kiosk and Canadian convenience store) containing avatars that provide students with limitless opportunities to review and practice a shopping-based set of language interactions, free from the anxiety of potential communication failure, where they receive constructive feedback on pronunciation, formulaic phrases and lexical choice that requires critical thinking to complete the task.
This project consolidates and develops the proof of concept by scaffolding acquired language to a second environment – buying transport tickets – and introducing unexpected opportunities for practicing social interactions, mimicking the unpredictable nature of language use. Crucially, it also develops a middleware that solves the challenge of speech recognition software’s inability to recognize and process learner error.
