Aisla: An intelligent agent for second language English learning in real-life contexts

01/02/2021 to 31/01/2024

The project aims at building an intelligent assistant Aisla in the form of a mobile app for training spoken English within real-life contexts. It will make use of the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in Natural Language Processing (NLP), conversation systems, and Computer Vision (CV) to provide foreign language learners who lack the opportunities to practice spoken English in their daily life with a virtual intelligent language partner and teacher for learning English. Aisla is an interdisciplinary project that draws upon both AI-driven Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and second language acquisition research. It features (a) real-time meaningful interaction between the learner and the intelligent agent, and (b) adaptive feedback to spoken English production to enhance the learner’s language abilities, and (c) a cost-efficient solution to spoken English education. In this project, we will focus on the development of the intelligent assistant, the creation of learning contents to be used in the system, and the experiments on the effectiveness of the system on enhancing learning of English as a foreign language. It is believed that the project will contribute to Germany’s digital education and its transformation into a digital society. The project team plans to found a start-up to commercialize Aisla once the development is completed.