The context of this study lies in the fact that in Australia, compared to learners of Japanese language in Japan, learners tend to have fewer opportunities to use Japanese. For many learners in Australia, especially beginners, it is difficult to find a variety of opportunities and maintain motivation to seek out and participate in such opportunities to use Japanese. In the present study, the researcher exploits sociocultural approaches (SCT) in a beginning-level Japanese language program in an institutional setting in order to enable language learners to become language users in Australia. Based on Lave and Wenger (1999), the study considers that learning a foreign/second language brings about not only the acquisition of linguistic structures but also leads to changes in participation in communities. Adopting SCT, the researcher created Japanese language revision courses at an Australian university and designed participant roles, rules, and artefacts in the revision courses as well as devising activities that aimed to develop the classroom into a community and to enhance the use of Japanese as a means of self-expression for learners. The results of the study show that the learners developed a sense of community in the classroom through a variety of activities in the revision course. One of the new roles introduced for this study, the role of the nicchoku, had a significant effect on making classroom interaction learner-centred and authentic. Under the leadership of the nicchoku, other learners engaged in learning activities, while the teacher stepped aside to take a support role. The nicchoku altered the typical teacher-fronted classroom sequence of Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) and helped redistribute classroom turns more evenly among classroom members. The study suggests that interactions are important not only to learn language but also to build human relationships. Thus, if the course aims to build both language proficiency and a learning community, it is necessary to create a variety of interaction opportunities in the classroom so that learners can acquire interactional competence/social skills to build a good relationship in a target language in/outside of the classroom. The results of the SPOT show a significant improvement in the Japanese proficiency of all the learners in the revision course. In addition, the study described an acquisition process of the verb ??ogoru?? as an example. The learners encountered the expression, learned its linguistic structure, applied it to a variety of contexts to learn its usage, and used it as a means of self-expression. The process showed that using the linguistic structure as a means of self-expression occurred through, first, acquisition of the linguistic structure, second, exposure to appropriate applications including sociolinguistic aspects in a given context and, third, experiences of a variety of interactions though activities. Thus, all stages of classroom activities are necessary to help learners enhance their ability to use Japanese as a means of self-expression. These findings suggest the classroom can provide learners with opportunities to use Japanese as a means of self-expression if the roles and activities in the classroom are carefully designed to bring learners into learner-centred interaction sequences, which are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the typical teacher-fronted IRF sequences. In addition, the study indicates that learning a foreign language and becoming a language user is a complex and dynamic process of learners participating in communities that are created, maintained, and changed by their members, the acquisition of linguistic structures and appropriate application to context, and individual learners?? personal attributes and experience.

The context of this study lies in the fact that in Australia, compared to learners of Japanese language in Japan, learners tend to have fewer opportunities to use Japanese. For many learners in Australia, especially beginners, it is difficult to find a variety of opportunities and maintain motivation to seek out and participate in such opportunities to use Japanese. In the present study, the researcher exploits sociocultural approaches (SCT) in a beginning-level Japanese language program in an institutional setting in order to enable language learners to become language users in Australia. Based on Lave and Wenger (1999), the study considers that learning a foreign/second language brings about not only the acquisition of linguistic structures but also leads to changes in participation in communities. Adopting SCT, the researcher created Japanese language revision courses at an Australian university and designed participant roles, rules, and artefacts in the revision courses as well as devising activities that aimed to develop the classroom into a community and to enhance the use of Japanese as a means of self-expression for learners. The results of the study show that the learners developed a sense of community in the classroom through a variety of activities in the revision course. One of the new roles introduced for this study, the role of the nicchoku, had a significant effect on making classroom interaction learner-centred and authentic. Under the leadership of the nicchoku, other learners engaged in learning activities, while the teacher stepped aside to take a support role. The nicchoku altered the typical teacher-fronted classroom sequence of Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) and helped redistribute classroom turns more evenly among classroom members. The study suggests that interactions are important not only to learn language but also to build human relationships. Thus, if the course aims to build both language proficiency and a learning community, it is necessary to create a variety of interaction opportunities in the classroom so that learners can acquire interactional competence/social skills to build a good relationship in a target language in/outside of the classroom. The results of the SPOT show a significant improvement in the Japanese proficiency of all the learners in the revision course. In addition, the study described an acquisition process of the verb ??ogoru?? as an example. The learners encountered the expression, learned its linguistic structure, applied it to a variety of contexts to learn its usage, and used it as a means of self-expression. The process showed that using the linguistic structure as a means of self-expression occurred through, first, acquisition of the linguistic structure, second, exposure to appropriate applications including sociolinguistic aspects in a given context and, third, experiences of a variety of interactions though activities. Thus, all stages of classroom activities are necessary to help learners enhance their ability to use Japanese as a means of self-expression. These findings suggest the classroom can provide learners with opportunities to use Japanese as a means of self-expression if the roles and activities in the classroom are carefully designed to bring learners into learner-centred interaction sequences, which are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the typical teacher-fronted IRF sequences. In addition, the study indicates that learning a foreign language and becoming a language user is a complex and dynamic process of learners participating in communities that are created, maintained, and changed by their members, the acquisition of linguistic structures and appropriate application to context, and individual learners?? personal attributes and experience.

Report (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. M.S. 1993. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 81). Also available via the Internet.

This thesis explores the design and evaluation of human-robot communication for service robots that use natural language to interact with people.  The research is centred around three themes: design of human-robot communication; evaluation of miscommunication in human-robot communication; and the analysis of spatial influence as empiric phenomenon and design element.  The method has been to put users in situations of future use through means of Hi-fi simulation. Several scenarios were enacted using the Wizard-of-Oz technique: a robot intended for fetch- and carry services in an office environment; and a robot acting in what can be characterised as a home tour, where the user teaches objects and locations to the robot. Using these scenarios a corpus of human-robot communication was developed and analysed.  The analysis of the communicative behaviours led to the following observations: the users communicate with the robot in order to solve a main task goal. In order to fulfil this goal they overtake service actions that the robot is incapable of. Once users have understood that the robot is capable of performing actions, they explore its capabilities.  During the interactions the users continuously monitor the behaviour of the robot, attempting to elicit feedback or to draw its perceptual attention to the users’ communicative behaviour. Information related to the communicative status of the robot seems to have a fundamental impact on the quality of interaction. Large portions of the miscommunication that occurs in the analysed scenarios can be attributed to ill-timed, lacking or irrelevant feedback from the robot.  The analysis of the corpus data also showed that the users’ spatial behaviour seemed to be influenced by the robot’s communicative behaviour, embodiment and positioning. This means that we in robot design can consider the use strategies for spatial prompting to influence the users’ spatial behaviour.  The understanding of the importance of continuously providing information of the communicative status of the robot to it’s users leaves us with an intriguing design challenge for the future: When designing communication for a service robot we need to design communication for the robot work tasks; and simultaneously, provide information based on the systems communicative status to continuously make users aware of the robots communicative capability. / QC 20100714

Today voice recognition is becoming mainstream and nowadays it is also possible to include in individual smartphone apps. However, it has not previously been investigated for which tasks it is preferable from a usability perspective to use voice recognition rather than touch. In order to investigate this, a voice user interface was created for a smartphone radio application, which already had a touch interface. The voice user interface was also tested with users in order to improve its usability. After that, a test was conducted where the participants were asked to perform the same tasks using both the touch and voice interface. The time they took to complete the tasks was measured and the participants rated the experience of completing the task on a scale. Finally, they were asked which interaction method they preferred. For most of the tasks tested, the voice interaction was both faster and got a higher rating. However, it should be noted that in a case where users don’t have specific tasks to perform it might be harder for them to know what a voice controlled app can and cannot do than when they are using touch. Many users also expressed that they were reluctant to use voice commands in public spaces out of fear of appearing strange. These results can be applied to other radio/podcast apps and, to a lesser extent, app for watching TV series and playing music. / Röststyrningen blir vanligare och numera är den också möjligt att använda i individuella appar för smartphones. Det har dock inte tidigare undersökts för vilka uppgifter det ur ett användbarhetsperspektiv är att föredra framför pekskärmsinteraktion. För att undersöka det skapades ett röstinterface för en radiooch podcast applikation som redan hade ett pekskärmsinterface. Röstinterfacet testades också med användare för att förbättra dess användbarhet. Efter det gjordes ett test där deltagarna blev ombedda att utföra samma uppgift med både pekskärm- och röstinterface. Den tid de tog på sig uppmättes och deltagarna betygsatte upplevelsen av att utföra uppgiften på en skala. Slutligen blev de tillfrågade omvilken interaktionsmetod de föredrog. För de flesta av de testade uppgifterna var röstinteraktion snabbare och fick högre betyg. Det ska dock noteras att i fall då användaren inte har specifika uppgifter att utföra kan det vara svårare för dem att veta vad en röststyrd app kan och inte kan göra än när de använder pekskärm. Många användare uttryckte också att de var motvilliga till att använda röstkommandon i allmänna utrymmen av rädsla föratt verka underliga. Dessa resultat kan tillämpas på radio/podcast appar och, i mindre utsträckning, appar för att titta på TV-serier och spela musik.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Waikato, 2007. / Title from PDF cover (viewed April 1, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. [339]-343)