The Chatbot as a tool/peer for learners of French

Lawrence Williams & Rémi A. van Compernolle

I. Introduction

A. Aim and scope of the article: Research questions (2 pages)

1. In what way(s) does the discourse of French-language chatbots represent authentic informal/spoken or formal/written French discourse (e.g., lexically, syntactically, sociolinguistically)?
2. In what way(s), if at all, does the discourse of French-language chatbots vary (e.g., lexically, syntactically, sociolinguistically) depending on the level of the (human) interlocutor?
3. In what way(s), if any, do the human participants express their motive(s) for engaging in (goal-directed) communicative actions (Lantolf, 2000, pp. 11-13), given the unstable nature of activities (i.e., due to shifts in motives, which may or may not be observable)? In other words, do participants consistently treat the chatbot as a non-human or as if it were human?

B. Expansion of CALL research for/in SLA (2 pages)

1. Chapelle, 2003, p. 18: importance of focusing on the various communicative contexts, strategic competencies, and registers involved in the use of CMC as they are informed by current notions of communicative competence
2. Kern, 2006, p. 200: participation in different contexts, importance of 'the personal' in intercultural projects
3. Kramsch, A'Ness, and Lam, 2000: authenticity and authorship

II. Overview of chatbots (Mosquera, 2001; Wilks, 2005; Fryer & Carpenter, 2006; Hamill, 2006)

A. Definition (1 page)
B. Uses (1 page)
C. Chatbot as an interactive Web 2.0 application (1 page)
D. Aghate and references for finding other French-language chatbots (1 page)

III. Case study

A. Learner (of French)-Chatbot interaction

1. Beginner (2 pages)
2. Intermediate (2 pages)
3. Advanced (2 pages)
4. Graduate non-native speaker (2 pages)
5. Graduate native speaker (2 pages)

B. Author-Chatbot interaction: "Strategic conversations" (4 pages)

1. Greetings
2. Second-person pronouns (TU and VOUS)
3. Spelling and punctuation
4. Interrogatives
5. Negation
6. Personal information
7. Clarification requests
8. Closings

IV. Pedagogical implications and applications

A. The use of new technologies as an integrated part of a lesson/module with pre- and post-technology tasks (Salaberry, 2001, p. 51) (2 pages)

B. The use of transcribed human-chatbot discourse for language learning tasks based on the pedagogical theory of multiliteracies proposed by the New London Group (1996; see also Hall, 2001) (4 pages)

V. Conclusion

A. Summary of findings (1 page)
B. Recommendations for further research (1 page)

KEYWORDS
chatbots, French, human-machine interaction, discourse analysis, sociolinguistic variation, French pronoun paradigm

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