The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Virtual Oral Tutoring APPs on Chinese Youth’s Anxiety in Oral English learning——Interview Research Based on Users of Artificial Intelligence Speaking Tutoring APPs

Abstract

Foreign language learning anxiety is a long-standing topic that people use to guide foreign language teaching and the setting of foreign language education scenarios by studying the anxiety emotions that exist in foreign language learning. However, in today’s era of artificial intelligence (AI), with the release of ChatGPT, large language model AI technology is widely used. In such a new context, various AI virtual foreign language oral coaches have emerged. Due to the short development time of the large language model technology, the foreign language training model built on this technology is still in the initial stage of development, and the research on this field is very limited. The research on the improvement of foreign language learning emotions brought by GAI is even rarer. The foreign language learning method provided by the AI coach. What help does it have for foreign language learning? Does it alleviate foreign language learning anxiety? It has become a blank in foreign language learning emotion research.

This study used semi-structured interviews with 10 Chinese young people between the ages of 20 and 40. Using the method of thematic analysis, the data of this interview were recorded and analyzed, and the conclusions reached were explained from the control value theory, and it was found that AI robots can alleviate many aspects of anxiety in foreign language oral learning, such as: communicative anxiety, situational anxiety, oral anxiety, hearing anxiety, and cognitive anxiety. It is very friendly to socially phobic people, providing emotional companionship and cognitive support for students who are lonely and helpless in foreign language oral communication, although the effect of foreign language improvement is different for different students, but it has an obvious effect on alleviating anxiety when learning foreign languages, and it is unexpectedly found that the AI robot foreign language coach also has the role of emotional companionship for learners, in addition to helping to alleviate anxiety, it can also provide positive emotional value through care, companionship, communication, etc. The findings of this paper are helpful to understand the help of AI technology on foreign language learning emotions, and to provide support for subsequent research on AI accompanying foreign language learning.