FreeTalky: Don’t Be Afraid! Conversations Made Easier by a Humanoid Robot using Persona-based Dialogue

Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2022), pages 1242–1248 Marseille, 20-25 June 2022 © European Language Resources Association (ELRA), licensed under CC-BY-NC-4.0 1242 FREETALKY: Don’t Be Afraid! Conversations Made Easier by a Humanoid Robot using Persona-based Dialogue Chanjun Park1,2∗, Yoonna Jang1∗, Seolhwa Lee3∗, Sungjin Park4∗, and Heuiseok Lim1† 1Korea University 2Upstage 3University of Copenhagen 4NAVER Corp. {bcj1210, morelychee, limhseok}@korea.ac.kr chanjun.park@upstage.ai sele@di.ku.dk sungjin.park@navercorp.com Abstract We propose a deep learning-based foreign language learning platform, named FREETALKY, for people who experience anxiety dealing with foreign languages, by employing a humanoid robot NAO and various deep learning models. A persona-based dialogue system that is embedded in NAO provides an interesting and consistent multi-turn dialogue for users. Also, an grammar error correction system promotes improvement in grammar skills of the users. Thus, our system enables personalized learning based on persona dialogue and facilitates grammar learning of a user using grammar error feedback. Furthermore, we verified whether FREETALKY provides practical help in alleviating xenoglossophobia by replacing the real human in the conversation with a NAO robot, through human evaluation. Keywords: FreeTalky, Grammar Error Feedback, Humanoid Robot NAO, Persona Dialogue 1. Introduction Following multiculturalism and hyper-connectivity, many societies value multilingual skills as a demon- stration of the ability to work effectively with cus- tomers, clients, and businesses of various countries and cultures (Damari et al., 2017). In this context, native- speaking classes and foreign language phone calls for foreign language learning are available in most coun- tries. However, the costs are very high and some learners ex- perience a mental block in learning foreign languages (i.e., foreign language anxiety, also known as xenoglos- sophobia). It can be described as a feeling of uneasi- ness, worry, nervousness, and apprehension that is ex- perienced while learning or using a second or foreign language (Horwitz et al., 1986; Donmus, 2010). To address these issues, we propose FREETALKY, a software platform that allows users to communicate comfortably as if they were conversing with a native speaker by conversing with a robot instead through realistic free talking. With FREETALKY, users ob- tain a learning effect beyond the traditional classroom learning methods, by experiencing direct conversations without the mental pressure, rather than by only seeing and hearing. The FREETALKY platform combines speech recogni- tion, a persona-based dialogue system, English gram- mar error correction, and a humanoid robot NAO, ∗These authors contributed equally. †This author is the corresponding author. for English learning that is user-friendly and practi- cally helpful, by reflecting user perspectives. Specifi- cally, the persona-based dialogue system provides cus- tomized multi-turn dialogue, while the English gram- mar error correction software provides customized grammar correction. These features allow users to have user-friendly conversations with the robot, learn for- eign languages effectively, and even gain assistance with their xenoglossophobia. The contributions of this study are as follows. • To the best of our knowledge, FREETALKY is the first deep learning-based conversation plat- form for alleviating xenoglossophobia. • The persona-based conversation system FREETALKY allows users to customize for-in eign language …

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