From Chatbots to Intelligent Personal Assistants: Testing Siri and Google Assistant as Language Learning Resources

Identifier:  TFG:4360

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG4360

Authors:  Buendía Segovia, Alba

Abstract:
This project addresses the history of chatbots up to the present date, their application in education and foreign language learning, and the potential use of Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPA) as language learning resources. An experimental study was conducted with ten B2–level English learners with and without speech difficulties to investigate 1) whether Siri and Google Assistant can be used as conversational agents for language learning, based on their level of responsiveness, and 2) whether there is a difference in voice recognition accuracy between users with and without speech difficulties. The results suggest that Google Assistant’s communicative abilities exceed that of Siri, while both IPAs’ voice recognition accuracy decreases when recognizing pathological speech patterns.