Teaching L1 and L2 communication skills with a robotic head

Robot assisted language learning (RALL) includes various challenges as well as potentials for teaching communication skills both in L1 and L2. Previous research shows still a dearth of studies in this new area and the existing studies tend to focus on L2 vocabulary teaching and the use of the NAO robots. In this paper we outline the approaches, and describe a proof of concept, of how the social robotic head Furhat might be used in assisting human teachers in improving communication skills in second language acquisition as well as in the native language with people of various communication handicaps.