Paul Leseman

About

Paul Leseman is a prominent educational researcher whose work sits at the intersection of language acquisition, early childhood learning, and human-robot interaction. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to the field of robot-assisted language learning (RALL), exploring how social robots can serve as effective tutors for young children acquiring second languages. Leseman's most influential work includes a landmark 2018 review of social robots in language learning (356 citations), which helped define and systematize the rapidly emerging RALL field, and a large-scale empirical study (2019, 137 citations) demonstrating that robots can effectively teach English vocabulary to young children across multiple sessions. His research has tackled nuanced questions about *why* robot tutoring works — examining children's anthropomorphic beliefs about robots, the role of individual learning differences, and the potential of robots to deliver personalized first-language support in linguistically diverse classrooms, such as providing Turkish translations for Dutch learners. Beyond effectiveness, Leseman's team has investigated child engagement, non-verbal cues, and gesture design in robot interactions, producing a rich, multidimensional body of work. His contributions have been instrumental in establishing evidence-based foundations for educational robotics, making him a defining voice in early childhood language technology research.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Social Robots for Language Learning: A Review

   356 citations · 2018
2. 2
   Second Language Tutoring Using Social Robots: A Large-Scale Study

   137 citations · 2019
3. 3
   L2TOR - Second Language Tutoring using Social Robots

   59 citations · 2015
4. 4
   A toy or a friend? Children's anthropomorphic beliefs about robots and how these relate to second‐language word learning

   51 citations · 2020
5. 5
   Engagement in longitudinal child-robot language learning interactions: Disentangling robot and task engagement

   31 citations · 2022
6. 6
   Teaching <scp>Turkish‐Dutch</scp> kindergartners Dutch vocabulary with a social robot: Does the robot's use of Turkish translations benefit children's Dutch vocabulary learning?

   26 citations · 2020
7. 7
   Individual Differences in Children’s (Language) Learning Skills Moderate Effects of Robot-Assisted Second Language Learning

   14 citations · 2021
8. 8
   Investigating the Effects of a Robot Peer on L2 Word Learning

   14 citations · 2018
9. 9
   Children’s reliance on the non-verbal cues of a robot versus a human

   8 citations · 2019
10. 10
    Designing and Evaluating Iconic Gestures for Child-Robot Second Language Learning

    7 citations · 2021

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links