Artificial agents, such as voice-controlled conversational agents (VCAs) built into smart devices, are becoming more prevalent in daily and educational contexts, enhancing the possibility of using them as language partners. However, research has primarily focused on the cognitive or affective outcomes of using these agents, overlooking questions…

English speaking is considered the most difficult and anxiety-provoking language skill for EFL learners due to lack of access to authentic language use, fear of making mistakes, and peers' negative comments. With automatic speech recognition and natural language processing, intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have potential in foreign language…

Data mining is increasing its popularity in the research of Technology-Enhanced Language Learning and Applied Linguistics in general. It enables a better understanding of progress, performance and possible pitfalls, which would be useful for language learners, teachers and researchers. Until recently it was an unexplored field, but it is expected…