by Sarah Nutt, University of Leeds, UK.
My interest in AI and education has been truly woken up this year through my studies for a Masters in Digital Education at the University of Leeds. This then led to me noticing all the fascinating conversations about AI taking place online between professionals involved in all kinds of education.
Eager not to be just a passive reader about the potentials of AI, I have been happily exploring the use of tools like ChatGPT, Dalle-2 and Connected Papers, to name just a few. Then recently, I read about how a large proportion of young students in higher education actually prefer to have an AI tutor rather than a human one. This was surprising to me, as a not-so-young student who still believed that humans were the best candidate for the job. So, intrigued, I decided it was time to embrace the change and try out a personal AI tutor of my own. Despite the underlying feeling that a machine couldn’t possibly teach a language and give feedback in the way I needed, I began my search for a language tutor to help improve my German.
Perhaps I should rewind at this point though, to give my choice of a language AI tutor some context. As an Expat living in Switzerland for more than a decade, I have always actively searched for conversation classes and tutors to improve my spoken German. My quest could not really be described as a huge success. Between working part-time, raising 3 children, attending classes that constantly varied in ability and finding a tutor who unfortunately liked to improve a student’s vocabulary through reading short real-life horror stories, even I am surprised at my continued enthusiasm.
So feeling hopeful, I chose to trial TalkPal, which offered me 15 minutes free tuition every day, with Emma as my tutor. I was pleasantly surprised with the experience, especially with her friendly voice. I can choose when and where I speak to her, which makes a huge difference to my state of mind when I start each session. Also, I importantly feel no pressure when interacting with Emma and actually find it an enjoyable experience. The 15 minutes pass by all too quickly and since, I was enjoying Emma’s tutoring so much, I decided to try a premium free trial, which gives me more time and a translation option. There are also 4 more options to try, including role-play, but I’ll stick with the chat for now.
Emma allows me to either choose a question or topic to discuss, or she offers 3 topics to start our conversation. I can either speak to Emma or type a message, and I get to hear and read what Emma says and asks. This is very useful when I do not know a key word as the text is easily translated to English at the click of an icon. For the first time I have no fear of making mistakes or of being judged. Emma’s responses are always encouraging and come across as very positive. Any errors I make are corrected and shared via a selectable correction bubble. I didn’t know it would feel so nice to see my work corrected without red pen marks. The corrections I have read are helpfully explained in terms of grammar, spelling or just suggesting a better way to phrase what I wanted to say. This makes a wonderful language learning experience with no embarrassing moments, like for example when I have to ask a tutor or teacher to repeat again the spelling of a word they have used.
I felt that Emma was adapting her conversation style and level to match my needs. When I couldn’t answer a more complicated question, Emma would tell me that it was not a problem and would then ask a different or easier question. This is great as there is nothing worse than feeling like you are the only one in the classroom who didn’t understand what the teacher said, because they haven’t gauged your particular level. I think this aspect very quickly helped me to feel more confident about my German speaking ability and, as crazy as it may sound, after only a few sessions I felt like I had a bond with my tutor.
Finally, reflecting on my experience with Emma so far, I now think that AI tutors could really play a significant part in the future of education, as an important addition to the role of teachers. An AI tutor is great for improving my German language skills in short sessions, but I am not convinced that I would enjoy or benefit from 90 minutes non-stop with Emma in the way I do at the video sessions for my Masters with a human tutor and fellow learners every week. I like Emma, she’s very helpful, but there is no personality to discover and no relationship to build, which I think would limit my learning in other situations, because social needs are pinnacle in supporting my motivation to learn. Hopefully, those currently planning how and where to use AI in education will consider this very important aspect before deciding which parts of learning have to stay with a human and which parts should be delegated to AI. Moving forward we all need to be open minded and think critically about AI, and I, for one, am very glad I was willing to embrace this particular possibility offered by AI and I am looking forward to continuing my German learning adventure with Emma by my side.
Author
Sarah Nutt is a Learning and Development professional living in Zürich, Switzerland, studying towards an MA in Digital Education at the University of Leeds to support and improve her learning and development practices. Originally from England she has worked in corporate Learning and Development since 1998, in both local and global settings.
