Perceived usefulness of robotics in the Primary Education curriculum for students with Specific Educational Support Needs

El uso de las herramientas tecnológicas está teniendo un crecimiento significativo en los diversos campos de conocimiento. En el ámbito educativo, ha emergido la robótica, que tiene una gran versatilidad para dar respuesta a las diversas necesidades del alumnado presente en las aulas. El objetivo de la investigación ha sido implementar una acción formativa en el Grado en Maestro en Educación Primaria y analizar la utilidad percibida de la robótica para el alumnado con NEAE. Se adoptó un enfoque cuantitativo con diseño no experimental comparativo-casual. Los participantes fueron 170 estudiantes del Grado de Maestro en Educación Primaria de la asignatura “Atención a las Necesidades Educativas Específicas”. Se diseñó ad hoc un cuestionario formado por 28 ítems, considerándose como dimensiones los objetivos, las competencias y las áreas del currículum de Educación Primaria. Los resultados pusieron de manifiesto que el 64.1% del alumnado percibe la robótica como totalmente útil para desarrollar los hábitos cotidianos de movilidad activa, autónoma y saludable. Asimismo, se hallaron diferencias significativas en las percepciones en función del conocimiento previo de algún robot, el género y la edad. Cabe concluir que la innovación implementada en la formación inicial docente fue satisfactoria.The use of technological tools is having a significant growth in various fields of knowledge. In the educational field, robotics has emerged, which has a great versatility to respond to the diverse needs of the students present in the classrooms. The objective of the research was to implement a training action in the Degree in Primary Education and to analyze the perceived usefulness of robotics for students with SEN. A quantitative approach was adopted with a non-experimental comparative-casual design. The participants were 170 students of the Degree of Teacher in Primary Education of the subject "Attention to Specific Educational Needs". A questionnaire consisting of 28 items was designed ad hoc, considering as dimensions the objectives, competencies and areas of the Primary Education curriculum. The results showed that 64.1% of the students perceive robotics as totally useful for developing daily habits of active, autonomous and healthy mobility. Significant differences were also found in perceptions according to previous knowledge of a robot, gender and age. It can be concluded that the innovation implemented in initial teacher training was satisfactory.El presente trabajo ha contado con una ayuda del Programa de Redes de investigación en docencia universitaria del Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Alicante (convocatoria 2022). Ref.: [5790]

Anxiety Reduction and RALL Implementation in English Grammar Acquisition among EFL Learners

The study is a part of a larger study on the impact of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) on English grammar acquisition and retention of adolescent English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. More specifically, the primary aim of the paper at hand was to examine the impact of RALL on adolescent EFL learners’ anxiety levels. In this regard, three intact classes (N=45) in a private language institute in Tehran were evenly divided into two experimental groups of RALL and Game-based Language Learning (GBLL) and one control group. The participants were adolescent male EFL learners between 11 to 15 years old with a mean age of 13. While the teacher, the textbook, and the teaching materials were identical in all groups, a kid-sized humanoid social robot was exclusively used in the RALL group. The data were collected through questionnaires in the final session for each group, and the results of descriptive statistics and ANOVA indicated that lower anxiety rates were observed in the RALL group. Our findings could clearly be proof of the efficiency of socially assistive robots in the instruction of language skills in a more favorable teaching context

Elias Robot’s Effects on Students’ Willingness to Communicate in a Second Language from the Teacher Perspective : A Qualitative Study

Elias robot is a language learning application by Utelias Technologies Ltd that combines artificial intelligence, robotics, and speech recognition. Although called a robot, Elias robot is an application, not a robot. The application can be used through a social robot, Nao V5, Nao6, or Pepper robot, or from an electronic device, such as a phone or tablet. This study examines the possible effects of Elias robot on language learners' willingness to communicate from their teachers’ perspective, as well as the assumed reasons behind the possible effects. In addition, this study aims to assess the potential of Elias robot to increase students' L2 willingness in English from the teachers’ point of view. The data for the study were collected from five teachers with a semi-structured interview. The teachers have different educational backgrounds, they teach or different levels in Finland using different languages and have used Elias robot in their teaching. In the analysis of the qualitative data, a data-driven content analysis was utilized. Based on the analysis of the interviews, the teachers felt confident that Elias robot had had a positive impact on their students’ L2 willingness to communicate. Three themes were found as the assumed reasons behind the positive effect. The themes are increased motivation, emotional safety, and approachability. Regarding the third research question, the teachers thought Elias robot would succeed or has succeeded in raising students’ L2 willingness to communicate in English from their perspective. The study fills a gap by combining robot-assisted language learning and willingness to communicate. In the future, the same topic could be further studied from the learners’ point of view

Syntaktická komplexnost anglického jazyka nerodilých mluvčích a její operacionalizace

The thesis analyses syntactic complexity of monologic tasks of 10 B2 and 10 C1 speakers of English with Czech as their L1. The data derives from LINDSEI_CZ (Gráf 2017). The transcripts of the recordings were segmented into AS-units (Foster et al. 2000) and adapted for the purposes of the analysis. Syntactic complexity was calculated using following measures: mean length of AS-unit, mean length of clause, clauses / AS-unit. These were complemented by fine-grained indices of structural complexity, comprised of ratios of subordinate clause types and coordinate verb phrases per total number of clauses (Vercellotti & Packer 2016) and a weighted complexity scale designed by Vercellotti (2018). The results of the quantitative analysis showed no significant effect of proficiency on syntactic complexity of the speakers. In fact, all speakers irrespective of language proficiency level produced very similar complex structures as opposed to lower-proficiency structures. This indicates that more fine-grained indices should be incorporated into spoken complexity research. At the same time, scores of each measure varied considerably within groups, pointing at the importance of inter-speaker variability in this research. The thesis thus produced outcomes that are largely methodological, in that it has identified...Práce analyzuje produktivní a strukturní syntaktickou komplexnost monologů vyprodukovaných dvaceti nerodilými mluvčími angličtiny na úrovních B2 a C1. Data pocházejí z LINDSEI_CZ (Gráf 2017). Přepisy nahrávek byly rozděleny do AS-units a upraveny pro analýzu syntaktické komplexnosti podle instrukce Foster et al. (2000). Zhodnoceny jsou zároveň problematické případy v analýze mluvených dat, které Foster et al. (2000) neuvádějí. Produktivní syntaktická komplexnost byla změřena pomocí následujících metrik: průměrná délka AS-unit, průměrná délka klauze, počet klauzí / AS-unit. Metriky produktivní komplexnosti byly doplněny specifickými indikátory strukturní komplexnosti, kterými byly poměry výskytů několika druhů vedlejších vět a souřadných slovesných frází k celkovém počtu klauzí (Vercellotti & Packer 2016) a vážená škála strukturní komplexnosti navržená Vercellotti (2018). Výsledky kvantitativní analýzy neprokázaly signifikantní vliv jazykové úrovně na syntaktickou komplexnost měřených monologů. Tato práce tedy doporučuje začlenění specifičtějších strukturních indikátorů do výzkumu mluvené komplexnosti. Variace ve skórech mezi řečníky, která byla v práci zjištěna, naznačuje, že důležitou roli ve výzkumu hraje idiosynkrasie. Výstup této diplomové práce je zároveň metodický, jelikož jsou identifikovány...Ústav anglického jazyka a didaktikyDepartment of the English Language and ELT MethodologyFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult