초등영어 학습자를 위한 협상 챗봇 개발

Development of negotiation chatbots for primary English learners

This paper reports the designs of four negotiation chatbots developed by the Dialogflow CX Console and users’ responses to the chatbots. The chatbots were designed for Korean learners of primary English to engage in two types of negotiation, namely negotiation of meaning or negotiation of form. The former refers to interlocutors’ two-way exchange to repair comprehension problems, while the latter involves collaborative processes to repair illegitimate L2 forms (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). Following the grade-band division in the national curriculum for English, two chatbots were developed for 3-4th graders to negotiate for basic meanings or forms, and the other two for 5-6th graders to negotiate for more complex meanings or forms. Twelve users had online text-based conversations with two chatbots and reported meaningful L2 experiences such as modified input and awareness raising. Presenting the development process and user responses, this paper addresses important issues in second language learning such as strategic competence, interlingual errors, processing scope, and negative evidence and explores the very potential of chatbots for primary English education.