Bots for language learning now: Current and future directions

Abstract

Bots are destined to dominate how humans interact with the internet of things that continues to grow around them. Despite their still budding intellectual capacity, major companies (e.g., Apple, Google and Amazon) have already placed (chat)bots at the centre of their flagship devices. (Chat)Bots currently fill the internet acting as guides, merchants and assistants. Chatbots, designed as communicators, however, have yet to make a meaningful contribution to perhaps their most natural vocation: foreign language learning partners. This review engages in three questions that surround this issue: 1. Why are chatbots not already at the centre of foreign language learning? 2. What are two key developers of chatbots working towards that might push chatbots into the language learning spotlight? 3. What might researchers, educators, and developers together do to support chatbots as foreign language learning partners right now?