Technological Intervention Through the Virtual Assistant Alexa in the Development of Linguistic Skills of a New Language

Abstract

Nowadays, technological advances have made possible the constant innovation of education, adding resources, tools, and technological devices that are rapidly updated, and improved, is in this scenario where it is proposed to take advantage of the benefits that technology offers, plus the set of informatic abilities that current students have developed from early stages, in benefit of education, since these abilities make easier for teachers to introduce tools, and technological devices into the teaching-learning process. The present research consisted on a technological intervention using the virtual assistant Alexa, with the aim of working on linguistic abilities to learn a new language. The study was conducted with a sample of 32 children aged between 9 and 12 years old. The procedure consisted in the application of an initial assessment (pre-test), then, along 6 weeks an intervention based on the application of Alexa virtual assistant was made, and, at the end of the intervention, a post-test was applied. The intervention focused on four abilities: vocabulary, comprehension of English language, communication skills, and skills of meaning. As results, in vocabulary, there were found statistically significant differences between the pre (M = 4.06), and post-test (M = 7.19); in the comprehension of English language, pre (M = 2.38), and post-test (M = 3.47); regarding communication skills, pre (M = 2.28), and post-test (M = 3.09); and, in skills of meaning, the mean obtained in the pre-test was (M = 3.31), and post-test (M = 4.66); these results contribute with empirical evidence about the improvement in learning a new language. From this research, it is proposed to continue using, and discovering the benefits of different innovations in educative context.