The Influence of Robot Social Behaviors on Second Language Learning in Preschoolers

The use of social robots has flourished in the educational field. Using them in education appropriately entails considering whether robot social behaviors influence language learning outcomes and have additive influences on the outcomes of language learning. In this study, we used a social robot (i.e., Alpha Mini) to teach Chinese preschool children (N = 83, recruited from a preschool; aged 6–7 years) new English words; it had the pitch of a human boy, and the words’ referents were displayed on a tablet. During one learning session, the robot demonstrated one of several types of social behavior: verbal behavior (i.e., asking children to look at this robot), gestural behavior (i.e., pointing to the word’s referent), both verbal and gestural behaviors, and control (i.e., purely saying target words to the children). Children were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Their vocabulary learning outcomes were measured by pre- and posttests of the children’s vocabulary of the target words. Our results show that the learning outcome in each type of social behavior was greater than zero, suggesting that any type of robot social behavior benefits word learning. Importantly, when robot social behavior included verbal demonstrations, the preschoolers learned more vocabulary than when the robot displayed other social behaviors (i.e., control and gestural behavior); however, gestural behavior showed no greater learning outcomes than the control condition. Hence, the efficacy of robot tutoring in preschoolers’ second language learning depends upon a robot’s social behavior, and social verbal behavior is the most effective behavior in increasing learning gains. Therefore, to achieve better learning outcomes, social verbal behavior should be critically considered to enhance robots’ tutoring function.