The Development and Evaluation of English Dialogue Companion System

In this paper, we propose the English dialogue companion (EDC) system to help elementary school students learn second language, as English. Learners can practice conversation with the EDC system in English. In order to motivate the learners, we design the three learning activities to enhance the environment of English learning, which are the choice of learning companion phase, the conversation phase, and the teaching phase. We also conducted a pilot study to evaluate the EDC system. The results showed the subjects agreed that the system is positive and useful. For the most of learners, we found that the most favorite learning activity is to teach learning companion. In addition, the greater part of learners liked the same gender learning companion. And learners selected the learning companion depended on the learning companion is regards as a classmate or a teacher.