Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Though utilizing information from the internet is common in language learning, it is often a spontaneous behaviorand is not supported by computer programs that are specialized for language learners. In this project, we create a collaborativelearning environment for Mandarin Chinese that implements the idea of learning by teaching. The students will learn andpractice their language skills by collaboratively designing interactive presentations, such as introducing a place or a type offood with a computer agent, and the scenarios can be used later on by their peers for practicing. During the design process,storytelling techniques such as making an analogy, foreshadowing and flashback will be automatically suggested by the agentfor making the presentation more interesting and clear.