NWO Open Competition XS grant (Kimberley Mulder): 

Beyond the real and artificial: Building a virtual environment for training and researching speaking proficiency

Speaking a foreign language in front of others in the language classroom can cause feelings of anxiety, especially when one is not yet proficient in the language. This may lead to reluctance in participating in language activities in class, negatively affect motivation and may hinder developing fluency in speaking. With this grant I aim to develop a virtual learning environment in which learners can interact safely with a virtual interlocutor in a classroom setting. This infrastructure can then be used to conduct more ecologically valid psycholinguistic experiments on speech production and emotion and serve as a foundation for didactic interventions and applications.

Responsible AI grant (Kimberley Mulder, Thom Westveer and Mylène Dobrijevic): 

Virtual paths to speaking fluency 

Students enrolling in the French program at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) not always have the proficiency level in French that is expected of them upon graduating from secondary education.  Students often lack fluency in spoken communication, which can make them reluctant to actively contribute to classes taught in French.  Many courses are conducted in the target language right from the start, and we find that students often struggle to keep up with communication in French. The initiative we are proposing aims to address this issue by offering students practice with AI as a conversational partner within our language courses. By implementing AI sources into our courses, we aim to reduce speaking anxiety and boost motivation and confidence in language learning, and help students reach the required level more quickly, while also offering additional support for students with a lower proficiency level.