"Who is who": the roles in an intelligent system for foreign language terminology learning

ITELS is an intelligent system for foreign language terminology learning. It is aimed not only at assisting language learning focused on specific terminology but also at enhancing learner’s conceptual knowledge in the subject area. The system could be tuned to aid learning in different terminological areas and supports three styles of tutoring: System-Initiated, Collaborative, and LearnerInitiated. Three agents take part in the instructional process supported by ITELS: the human teacher, the system, and the learner. Each of them is an active agent characterized by a set of specific roles with respect to the system functioning. In this paper we describe ITELS with emphasis on the roles of these agents. Introduction Learning subject area terminology is part of English instruction at Bulgarian universities. Experience shows that in the course of this instruction the students face difficulties not only with the foreign language but also with the concepts of the subject area. Since the English teachers who teach these courses are not usually specialists in the subject area (Computer Science, Economics, Chemistry, etc.) learning the required terminology is often not very successful. ITELS is an intelligent tutoring system that supports learning English focused on specific terminology as well as improving learner’s conceptual knowledge in the subject area. The system could be tuned to support learning in different terminological areas. Computer Science terminology was chosen as a testbed. ITELS is aimed at enhancing learners’ skills in reading and comprehending English terminological texts as well as in understanding and using correctly subject area’s terminology. Therefore, the system applies reading comprehension (Nuttal, 1982) and vocabulary learning (Carter and McCarthy, 1988) approaches to language instruction. Differently from most vocabulary learning systems which are built as learning environments (e.g. Ingraham et al., 1996; Swartz, 1992), ITELS supports three styles of tutoring: • System-Initiated: The system is in complete control of the teaching process. It decides which teaching activity is most appropriate in the current situation. • Collaborative: The system and the learner work in collaboration. A mixed-initiative approach is adopted where the system shares the instructional control with the learner. This allows the learner to insist on a preferred teaching activity or content. The system Reference: British Journal of Educational Technology BJET, Vol. 29, No.