A Friend or a Machine? A Study on the Child–Robot Relationship in a Foreign Language Class of Young Learners

Abstract

This paper seeks to bring a new social perspective to the concept of robot literacy in a second language (L2) learning context. We studied the kind of representations that learners created of a robot after it was introduced as a new peer learner and integrated into teaching and learning practices. We focused on the development of long-term relationships to shed light on how representations of the robot changed during a school term. In addition, we analysed how learners acquired interaction skills with the robot, contributing to the social aspect of HRI. The robot, both as a means of learning and an object of learning, thus contributes a new perspective to robot literacy. The semester-long pedagogical experiment resulted in a new learning circle. Therefore, we advocate a new interpretation of sociality in the classroom based on this new digital dimension.