WordTutor: A Vocabulary Instruction Tool for Non-Native Speakers
Jemmy Seth, Student (India)
Arpit Mathur, Student (India)
Charu Monga, Assistant Professor (India)
Meenakshi Monga, Research Fellow (United States)
Abstract
Given the ubiquity of the English language, it is a necessity for most individuals to learn and confidently converse in English in order to succeed. Many students who have a mother tongue other than English, are not confident conversing with other individuals. Non-native speakers have shown lower proficiency along with a lower receptive and expressive vocabulary. This divide leads to issues of under-confidence, low self esteem, and depression in individuals. The phenomenon is exemplified in the Indian education scenario, where students from rural or Hindi-medium backgrounds, pursue higher education in an English speaking environment. WordTutor is a Voice User Interface which assists students in experiencing a systematic vocabulary learning process. The tool is designed to provide tailor made instruction of English vocabulary through a conversational medium, for words that organically come into the usage of rural Indian students. A user study conducted revealed significant learnability between sighted, visually impaired and partially impaired users and it showed the impact of the platform and revealed insights and factors goes on the base ground learning. The paper aims at understanding the utility of such a tool for Indian students from a rural background in different groups by measuring their learnability and adoption of new words, in comparison to conventional visual solutions. The aim of the research is to assess the potential impact of self efficacy of this solution with broader audiences.
Keywords: Language, Vocabulary, Voice User Interface, Visually Impaired, Collaborative Learning
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