ArticuLab
School of Communication slash School of Engineering at Northwestern University

Other Projects: JR Summit | NUMACK | Collaborative Storytelling | Virtual Peers and Autism | Literacy Skills for African American Children

Promoting Literacy Skills for African American Children

Alex playing with childLiteracy remains a critical unsolved issue in our educational system, especially for children who do not share upper-middle class Standard American English literacy practices. In our work, by examining the linguistic practice of particular communities , we come to understand how individuals participate in literacy activities and how language is used in the cultural activities of a community. On the basis of this examination, we build virtual peers who engage with children in emergent literacy practices. Our research therefore allows us to combine the sociocultural norms of language practices with innovative technology that provides effective learning environments for diverse student populations. Click here for publications.

Our current research goal is to design culturally authentic agents that bridge the gap between language skills practiced outside the classroom setting and those language skills required in the classroom for diverse student populations. As designers of effective learning environments, we propose that pedagogical agents should be designed to reflect authentic portrayals of ethnic groups. We argue that ethnicity includes more than physical appearance but encompasses verbal and nonverbal behaviors as well. To reach this goal, we observe verbal and nonverbal discourse behaviors of African American preschool children as they participate in the learning activity of storytelling. We extend an existing Story Listening System to feature an embodied conversational agent named Alex that models verbal and nonverbal behaviors of African American children who speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

Alex is a virtual peer who engages children in the fun activity of telling stories. While the physical appearance of Alex is designed to be race-ambiguous, the verbal and nonverbal discourse behaviors are based upon human models of African American children between the ages of 5 - 8 years old. It is our intent that African American children perceive Alex as sharing the same ethnicity based upon the content and manner of Alex's speech. Alex is unique from other pedagogical agents in that Alex tells stories that include the linguistic patterns both of Standard English (SE) and AAVE. We suggest that as Alex demonstrates code-switching abilities between SE and AAVE, African American children who are fluent speakers of AAVE will increase in their use of SE language skills.