Alexa as a CALL platform for children: Where do we start?
This addresses the problem of developing effective language learning tools for children using voice assistants, but it is incremental as it highlights existing platform limitations rather than proposing a solution.
The paper investigated using Amazon Alexa as a platform for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) games for children, finding that while Alexa has positive features, fundamental platform issues make it difficult to build compelling games, based on an informal experiment with child testers and parent feedback.
Amazon's Alexa is now widely available and shows interesting potential as a platform for hosting CALL games aimed at children. In this paper, we describe an initial informal experiment where we created some simple CALL games and made them available to a few child testers. We report the children's and parents' reactions. Our overall conclusion is that, although Alexa has many positive features, there are still fundamental platform issues in the current version that make it very difficult to build compelling CALL games for children. The games used will soon be freely available for download on the Alexa store.