Perspectives of EFL Learners on ELSA Speak: Speaking Skills, Personalised Learning and Self-Regulation
Keywords:
artificial intelligence; personalised learning; self-regulation; speaking skillAbstract
The advancement of technology, especially artificial intelligence, has great potential to support EFL teaching and learning. This study explores the perspectives of EFL learners on using ELSA Speak as a speaking partner to develop speaking skills and foster personalised learning and self-regulation in and out of the classroom. It involved 20 Indonesian learners learning English as a foreign language (EFL). This study employed a qualitative approach. Open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to investigate the perspectives, experiences, and interactions of EFL learners with ELSA Speak. A phenomenological approach was adopted to understand the benefits and challenges of experiencing ELSA Speak as a speaking partner and co-teacher. The findings of the research reveal several benefits gained from using ELSA Speak for learning speaking skills, especially casual speaking and fostering learning, personalisation, and self-regulation. Among others, these are an abundance of topics and scenarios, especially for the premium version, native-like exposure, natural interactions, real-time tailored feedback for self-correction and improvement, confidence, speaking skill, and creativity improvement, and flexibility in terms of time and place. This study concluded that ELSA Speak-based instruction possesses strong potential to foster EFL learning through interactive, self-regulated, and personalised learning. However, the free version is limited in terms of the topics and available role-plays provided. Learners should have strong internet connections; otherwise, speech recognition is not always accurate, or ELSA Speak takes a longer time to think and respond. The results of this study contribute essential implications for EFL education, especially in the Indonesian context, where native speakers of English are rarely available to facilitate direct English-speaking practice.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.25.5.36
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