The field of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) focuses on equipping non-native speakers with the skills to communicate effectively in English. One critical aspect of this education is developing students’ oral presentation abilities. These skills are important for academic & professional success, enabling students to convey their ideas clearly & confidently. Effective oral presentation practice helps EFL learners enhance their communication skills, preparing them for real-world scenarios.
EFL students often face significant challenges in delivering oral presentations. Issues such as speech anxiety, limited vocabulary, and inadequate feedback from traditional teaching methods impede their ability to present effectively. These obstacles highlight the need for innovative tools that provide more interactive and personalized assistance, helping students overcome these barriers and improve their presentation skills.
Existing methods to support EFL students include workshops and digital tools that offer increased practice opportunities and feedback. Digital video recordings and video-based blogs have been used to enhance students’ presentation skills. However, these approaches often need more personalized, real-time feedback to meet the dynamic needs of EFL learners, leading to a gap in effective support mechanisms.
Researchers from KAIST in South Korea introduced a novel tool called CHOP (ChatGPT-based interactive platform for oral presentation practice). This platform leverages ChatGPT to provide EFL students personalized feedback on their oral presentations. By integrating advanced AI technologies, CHOP aims to enhance students’ practice sessions and help them improve their presentation skills in a structured and interactive manner.
CHOP utilizes technologies like ChatGPT and Whisper for real-time feedback generation. The platform evaluates presentations based on grammar, vocabulary, content, organization, and delivery criteria. Students receive detailed feedback on their rehearsals, enabling them to identify and correct specific errors. This method enhances their presentation skills comprehensively, addressing individual areas of improvement with precision.
The effectiveness of CHOP was tested with 13 EFL students over two weeks. During this period, the platform collected interaction data, including rehearsal audio, feedback generated by ChatGPT, user ratings, chat logs, and platform logs. Expert evaluations of the feedback quality revealed that CHOP excelled in accuracy and relevance, with scores of 5.66/7 and 5.8/7, respectively. The platform was particularly effective in improving vocabulary, receiving the highest accuracy score of 6.17/7 from experts and a helpfulness score of 6.02/7 from students.
Despite its strengths, CHOP showed limitations in feedback on delivery, scoring lower in detail and helpfulness (4.81/7). Both experts and students noted ambiguities in the input, particularly in understanding the rationale behind differing delivery scores. This limitation stems from the interpretability issues of the SuperSpeech API used for assessing delivery, indicating a need for more transparent and detailed feedback mechanisms in this area.
Learners’ perceptions of CHOP were positive overall. The platform significantly boosted students’ confidence and reduced nervousness, with an average rating of 5.26/7. Students also reported improved self-assessment skills and greater awareness of their strengths and weaknesses, with ratings of 5.27/7. These insights highlight CHOP’s potential to enhance learners’ confidence and self-evaluation capabilities, addressing key challenges EFL students face in oral presentations.
Usage patterns revealed that students preferred using partial rehearsals for detailed segment-by-segment refinement, followed by full rehearsals for a comprehensive review. This approach allowed them to hone minor details while gaining broader insights into their presentation skills. However, challenges emerged in interpreting feedback for long rehearsals, necessitating feedback context and relevance improvements.
In conclusion, the CHOP platform offers a promising solution to the challenges faced by EFL students in delivering oral presentations. By providing personalized, real-time feedback, CHOP helps students overcome speech anxiety and improve their presentation skills comprehensively. The platform’s integration of advanced AI technologies marks a significant advancement in EFL education, offering students a more interactive and effective learning experience.
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Aswin AK is a consulting intern at MarkTechPost. He is pursuing his Dual Degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is passionate about data science and machine learning, bringing a strong academic background and hands-on experience in solving real-life cross-domain challenges.
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