Viktor Fersht
Artificial intelligence for teaching Chinese students
in native language at European universities
Viktor Fersht, PhD,
professor of European Center of United Nations University for Peace
Li Haibao, PhD,
professor of Academy of UN Scientific and Educational Programs "UNSEPA"
The program of using AI to teach Chinese students in their native language at European universities is unique and is only offered for use as a partnership project so far.
The program consists of the following parts:
1. Recruitment of Chinese students to study online at European universities using social media chatbots in China.
2. Creating a personal online contact of a Chinese student with a European educational institution through an automatic AI translator.
3. Translation of all materials of the educational course into Chinese through AI linguistic resources (audio to text and text to audio).
4. The use of AI direct communication between the student and the teacher with participation through the AI automatic voice translator.
5. Assigning of a personal mentor to the student - a native speaker of Chinese, who helps in learning and working with AI.
6. Automatic testing programs based on learning outcomes based on AI.
7. AI assistance in obtaining international grants for education.
8. Assistance in obtaining invitations for internships at the UN and other international organizations.
Features of the psychology of teaching Chinese students
Teaching Chinese students in any foreign universities faces many difficulties. The main ones are the poor knowledge of the European language in which education is conducted, and the huge difference between the European and Chinese mentality.
Chinese researcher Yu Xiaolin described these problems as follows:
“The problems are related to the difference between European and Chinese mentalities, educational and behavioral traditions.
Educational and pedagogical communication in the Chinese cultural tradition is based on the following principles:
- "saving face" of the student.
- emotional restraint.
- hierarchy of communication (authoritarianism of teachers in relation to students).
- student autonomy.
In China, "ethics of the face" is "the dominant style of communication." This feature regulates the norms of students' behavior in all situations of communication. These norms are described in the teachings of Confucius, they have had and continue to influence the formation of the individual and her behavior not only within the native culture, but also in situations of intercultural interaction.
The above norms and hierarchy of communication, typical of Chinese culture, do not allow students to defend their point of view, enter into a dialogue with the teacher, since the teacher is higher than the students in the hierarchy of communication. They, following the ethics of "face", must demonstrate modesty, restraint in speech behavior, do not object to the teacher and show respect for the personality of the teacher, regardless of the situation.
As a result, Chinese students are not ready for active communicative activity in the classes offered at a European university.
Another feature of Chinese students is a weakly expressed desire for self-expression. In the process of studying at a European university, acting according to the traditional model of behavior, they prefer passive behavior to self-expression and tacit agreement with the opinion of the group or teacher.
This feature is in conflict with the student-centered learning technology used in European universities and provides for the activation and intensification of students' activities, an active dialogue form of communication in the "student-teacher" interaction.
An important feature of the national mentality of Chinese students is the hierarchy of communication that characterizes social and interpersonal relations.
When considering its manifestation in the educational process, it is important to emphasize the key role of the hierarchical structure of society in China. It is the position of a person in this hierarchy that strictly determines his role, status and behavior within the framework of his native culture. The system of norms for right or wrong behavior is as follows: it doesn’t matter how you evaluate yourself, it matters what others think.
In the hierarchical structure of communication, the following types of relations are distinguished: junior - senior, senior - junior, communication of equal people in all respects. Each type of relationship has its own norms, rules and etiquette, the observance of which by each person is brought to automatism and manifests itself both in everyday life and in the educational process.
In Chinese culture, the teacher plays the role of "senior" in communicative interaction and is the undisputed leader. As a result, the interaction "teacher-student" is implemented in an authoritarian style of pedagogical communication. This interaction is one-sided monologic character. Students are required to strictly comply with the requirements and recommendations of the teacher, the rules of interaction do not allow a negative attitude towards the work of the teacher.
In accordance with the concept of "teacher-student" communicative interaction, students from China in a European university expect to see the behavior of a teacher that corresponds to the hierarchy of communication and the style of pedagogical communication that is characteristic of their native country. If the expected and actual behavior of the teacher does not match, the students experience a “communicative failure”, because students do not have ready-made models of behavior for communicative interaction that is not provided for by the norms of the culture of their native country.
In the educational process, students, according to the hierarchy of communication, act as "junior" communicators. As a result, in the process of studying at a European university, when entering into a “teacher-student” communicative interaction, Chinese students must show deference and respect. In addition, it is unacceptable to be critical of the teacher's opinion, to express doubts about the correctness of his point of view and to defend one's own.
The process of teaching Chinese students in European languages is also complicated by the presence of language barriers (stylistic, semantic, phonetic).
European and Chinese languages are of different types. Chinese is a tonal language, that is, it has certain pitch changes in each syllable. In Chinese, there are no intonation rises and falls, since there is no stress in the form of sound separation. The semantic function is performed by tones. European languages are accented, and in it pitch characteristics are not used at the level of syllabic and verbal prosody, but belong to the sphere of phrasal intonation.
Significant differences between European and Chinese languages are the main reasons for the difficulties in the formation of receptive and productive speech skills among Chinese students.
In addition, in the Chinese educational system, students traditionally act as an object that acquires knowledge.
The Chinese audience appreciates the ability to assimilate knowledge, that is, to memorize, not to express one's feelings and experiences.
The principles of collaborative pedagogy applied in European universities are very difficult for Chinese students to understand, because active interaction "teacher-student" in the course of training sessions in universities in China is practically excluded.
As a result, during the period of study at a European university, Chinese students experience difficulties in such types of speech activity as listening (listening) and speaking, as well as in the reproductive reproduction of the text. (1).
All these difficulties are easily overcome by the use of AI in the online teaching of Chinese students in European universities.
AI Education
«AI isn’t new—the term was coined in 1956. For decades, science fiction has been predicting unimaginable changes, both amazing and catastrophic, said to arise with the materialization and widespread of artificial intelligence. While AI hasn’t made quite the impact that sci-fi has predicted, it has quietly become pervasive in numerous aspects of our daily lives.
AI and ML are key drivers of growth and innovation across all industries, and the education sector is no different. According to eLearning Industry, upwards of 47% of learning management tools will be enabled with AI capabilities in the next three years.
Artificial Intelligence is now a part of our normal lives. We are surrounded by this technology from automatic parking systems, smart sensors for taking spectacular photos, and personal assistance. Similarly, AI in education is being felt, and the traditional methods are changing drastically.
The academic world is becoming more convenient and personalized thanks to the numerous applications of AI in education.
This has changed the way people learn since educational materials are becoming accessible to all through smart devices and computers. AI is growing rapidly with the potential to change the face of the education sector massively.
The education industry has been TALKING ABOUT technology integration and advancements for more than a decade. However, talk is about all that has really been happening in this arena for a while. There’s no question the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges to everyday life. But it has also spurred rapid growth in technologies that aim to make everyday life simpler, much of which uses AI and/or ML. In 2020 and 2021, educators pioneered EdTech tools for their classrooms at an overwhelming pace. One of the EdTech trends that gained a lot of ground during this pioneering time was AI.
AI-powered technology solutions have been in the EdTech space for some time, however, the industry has been slow to adopt them, just as it has with other EdTech. The pandemic drastically shifted the landscape, forcing educators to rely on technology for virtual learning. Now, 86% of educators say technology should be a core part of education. The use of artificial intelligence is growing rapidly in school districts, showing up in programs and software models that support everything from storytime to security. (4)
The international press is full of such information:
«A neural network instead of a teacher, a game instead of cramming: how artificial intelligence will change education. Individual learning: the future that has already arrived.
One-to-one coaching is one of the most effective teaching methods. In the conditions of the traditional educational system, it is impossible to provide all students with personal tutors or tutors. First, there are simply not enough trained teachers. Secondly, such classes are usually quite expensive, and not every family can afford them.
But thanks to the development of artificial intelligence, individual tutors in the future may appear in absolutely everyone.
So-called intelligent tutoring systems are already being created. The Brazilian smart system Geekie has video lessons prepared by teachers from top Brazilian schools, assignments and tests. The system covers the entire school curriculum and helps students prepare for final exams. If the student does not understand something, he can re-listen to the material or redo the failed test.
Before the start of training, the student sets a goal, in accordance with which the system varies the content of his individual program.
If a student wants to enter the Faculty of Economics, Geekie will focus on economics and mathematics, and will give future doctors more complex tasks in biology and chemistry.
The system instantly comments on how the student has done the task, explains how and why is correct, and also indicates what the student should pay special attention to in the future. Teachers only moderate the process.
The American platform Knewton operates on similar principles and is trying to introduce intelligent learning systems into university education. Knewton developers create courses whose content can be adapted by both students and teachers to suit their goals. Dreambox has made an intelligent system that teaches math to schoolchildren. And Australian startup Smart Sparrow has developed an open platform that allows educators to create interactive courses themselves and use the system's intelligence to tailor curriculum to each student. More than a dozen courses have already been developed on the platform, mostly at the university level.
What will it change
“Students will have the opportunity to choose. It will be possible to build and constantly change a completely individual learning path from school to university, and, if desired, never stop learning, having lifetime access to your individual “teacher” via a smartphone or computer.
Students will constantly be able to choose all new courses, and a smart system that is familiar with your knowledge and interests will adapt them personally for you every time.
— Such systems increase the effectiveness of training. At the University of Alabama, 20% more students passed the exam after implementing Knewton platform courses than in previous years. And at Northeastern Illinois, students who used Knewton scored an average of 12.5 points (on a scale of 100) on exams than their classmates who didn't try the system.
“Teachers will be able to learn from AI. When the system changes the curriculum in some way, people can learn what factors—for example, the student's knowledge, needs, or emotional state—influenced her decision, and advise ordinary teachers to repeat the actions of the computer in similar situations.
Group work - harmony without shirking.
An approach that improves the effectiveness of training has long been practiced - this is work in groups.
The problem here is that the success of group work is not equal to the sum of the knowledge of the participants: their ability to communicate, the right selection of group members and the organization of joint work matter.
The latter is especially important in online learning, where team members are physically far from each other.
What can AI do here
- Equally divide students into groups according to their level of knowledge and interests - then the strong will not have to do all the work for the weak and unmotivated.
- Make sure that the skills of the members of one training group complement each other - conditionally, this will be a crew close to the real model with a captain, navigator, technician and doctor, and not a doctor and three captains.
- Tell the participants which side to take on the task. For example, AI has data that with one type of task, conf-call with discussion and division of the project into stages works better, and in the other, breaking into thematic bricks, when each member of the group prepares a report on his area.
- To restore justice.
There will be no more situations when activists take the rap for the whole group, and even those who sat in silence for the entire seminar receive good grades.
Now, if several groups in the class immediately participate in discussions, one teacher cannot keep track of all - multitasking AI will not have such a problem.
- Return distracted students to study: through speech recognition and textual information analysis, smart systems will be able to find out when a scientific dispute has become personal or when a group, misunderstanding the task, sends formal replies to the teacher and begins to discuss the quality of the educational course in a general chat.
Smart virtual reality: a game instead of cramming
Learning is more effective when students can put their knowledge into practice. Under traditional conditions, it is impossible to constantly immerse students in situations relevant to the topic of the lesson: you cannot go to the Sahara when the children go through the features of desert territories, or go to Ancient Greece after a history lesson. The evolving virtual reality will change that.
Soon it will be possible not only to tell students how to survive in the rainforest or what Russia looked like under Peter the Great, but also to immerse them in suitable conditions using virtual reality. It is for the learning process that VR technologies supplemented by artificial intelligence will be more effective. Then students can not only wander around the virtual space, but also interact with it.
Artificial intelligence in this case will be able to act on the same principle as in online games: change the “reactions” of the virtual space depending on the actions of users.
For example, if children learn to put out a fire in virtual reality and do everything right, the fire will go out, and if they make a mistake, it will flare up more. Also, smart systems will be able to give students hints, acting as a teacher in a particular situation.
Similar technologies are already being created. The Immersive VR Education project allows students to immerse themselves in the situations of the first flight to the moon or the sinking Titanic, and medical students can practice performing operations in virtual reality.
Virtual systems can help not only with the development of new skills, but also with the solution of psychological problems. The FearNot virtual environment was created to help students who are experiencing bullying at school. In VR, a situation is being played out when peers begin to bully a virtual student.
A real student who needs help acts as an invisible friend to the victim of bullying. He can give advice or just support the virtual student.
So the child looks at the problem situation from the outside and can understand how he can better resolve the conflict in real life. In the role of a friend of an offended virtual companion, those who in reality poison others can also act. In this way, they will be able to understand the feelings of their victims, learn to empathize with them and, possibly, subsequently change their own behavior.
Evaluation is a forecast, not a sentence
Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize student assessment. Today, algorithms that analyze data about participants in online courses can predict which students will fail the next test or refuse to take the course at all, based on their behavior during training. These algorithms will eventually become more accurate and learn to predict more details.
What will it give
- Possibility of prompt correction. It will be possible to know in advance that the student is dangerously close to failure and try to prevent a catastrophe by paying more attention to him and choosing other tasks and methods (which ones, the computer will also be able to tell). Similar functions are being implemented in the Smart Sparrow system, where you can track the progress of each student.
Already today, a teacher can use a smart machine to analyze the performance of students, send simple explanatory materials to those who are lagging behind, and exempt those who do better than others from completing the basic elements of the course.
In the future, the system itself will be able to help students to a greater extent, without interference from the teacher.
- It will be possible to vary the course in accordance with the motivation and emotional readiness of the students. These parameters are especially important when studying, for example, foreign languages.
xia.
71% of the Dutch schoolchildren surveyed who learned English through the Knewton system said they began to enjoy their lessons more.
- It will be possible to understand exactly how students learn the material. Based on big data, the system will determine how a particular student arrived at the answer. Already, the DreamBox smart learning system collects 48,000 data items per hour about each student. While this array of information is used so that the algorithm can choose what next task to offer the student. Later, when such systems are allowed to track, for example, a student's heart rate or body temperature, and maybe monitor what is happening in his brain during study, this data will help scientists better understand the learning process from a neurobiological point of view». (2)
Many innovative companies are creating AI tools to achieve these results. Let’s look at the 10 best AI tools for education:
1. Gradescope
The Gradescope AI tool enables students to assess each other while providing feedback, which are often time-consuming tasks without AI technology. Gradescope relies on a combination of machine learning (ML) and AI to make it easier to grade, which saves time and energy.
By outsourcing these tasks, teachers can focus on the more important ones. Gradescope can be used by the teacher to grade paper-based exams and online homework, as well as to prepare projects all in one place.
Here some of the main features of Gradescope:
AI-assisted and manual question grouping
Student-specific time extensions
AI-assisted grading
Increased efficiency and fairness
2. Nuance’s Dragon Speech Recognition
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, Nuance provides speech recognition software that can be used by both students and faculty. The company’s Dragon Speech Recognition product can transcribe up to 160 words per minute, helping students who find it difficult to write or type. The tool also supports verbal commands to navigate documents, which is essential for students with accessibility requirements.
Dragon offers many more features, including an ability to dictate lesson plans, syllabi, worksheets, reading lists, and more at a pace three times faster than typing. It does this while achieving 99% accuracy.
Here are some of the main features of Nuance’s Dragon:
Accessibility features supporting verbal commands
Voice to assess student work
Dictate class work with 99% accuracy
Improving the lives of students with Nuance Dragon speech recognition software
3. Ivy Chatbot
Ivy is a set of chatbot AI tools that were specifically designed for universities and colleges. They assist in many parts of the university process, such as application forms, enrollment, tuition costs, deadlines, and more. Another unique feature of Ivy is its ability to plan recruitment campaigns through gathered data.
The AI tool can provide much-needed information to students, such as important details on loans, scholarships, grants, tuition payments, and more. It can be applied across departments thanks to its ability to develop specialized chatbots for each one.
Here are some of the main features of Ivy:
Live chat and SMS nudging
Integrations for Facebook, ERP, CRM, and SIS
4. Altitude Learning
An online platform for professional learning, Altitude Learning is focused on learner-centered education. Its main goal is to help students teach themselves through a self-learning educational path.
The AI tool achieves this by enabling instructors to assign work in various ways, such as individually or by group. It also empowers teachers to create student-centered experiences that are based on modern research on how children learn best. The tool’s unique interface and assessment framework increase each learner’s ability to engage in self-directed learning.
Here are some of the main features of Altitude Learning:
“Learner-centered” model that enables self-learning
Student-centered experiences
Single destination where students and families access curricula, communicate, track student progress, etc.
5. Cognii
Cognii is another Boston-based company that develops AI-based products for K-12 and higher education institutions. It is also deployed in corporate training environments.
One of Cognii’s main AI tools is its virtual learning assistant, which relies on conversational technology to help students form open-format responses and improve critical thinking skills. Besides this, the virtual assistant also provides one-on-one tutoring and real-time feedback customized to each student.
Helps students form open responses
Provides one-on-one tutoring
Adaptive personalization for each student.
Cognii - EdTech Innovation - AI for Education
6. Knowji
Another one of the top AI education tools on the market is Knowji, which is an audio-visual vocabulary application that leverages current education
al research. Knowji is designed for language learners, and it uses various methods and concepts to help students learn faster.
The AI education tool tracks each word’s progress and can predict when users are likely to forget. It achieves these abilities by using a spacing repetition algorithm, which enables students to learn better over time.
Here are some of the main features of Knowji:
Common Core Alignment
Multiple learning modes
Customizable and adaptable
Images and example sentences
7. Queirum
Querium offers an AI platform that helps students master critical STEM skills while preparing them for college and careers. The platform relies on personalized lessons and step-by-step tutoring assistance. The AI virtual tutor has been shown to improve the speed, quality, and analysis of student learning while improving student outcomes.
Queirum’s AI is also useful for teachers. It analyzes answers and the length of time it took to complete tutoring lessons, which helps instructors gain insight into students’ learning habits and areas of improvement.
Here are some of the main features of Queirum’s AI:
Personalized, bite-sized lessons
Step-by-step tutoring assistance
Increases student engagement
8. Century Tech
London-based company Century Tech offers an AI platform that utilizes cognitive neuroscience and data analytics to construct personalized learning plans for students. In turn, these personalized plans reduce work for instructors, freeing them up to focus on other areas.
The AI platform also tracks student progress while pointing out knowledge gaps in the learning. It then provides personal study recommendations and feedback for each user. As for teachers, Century helps them access new resources that reduce the time needed for monotonous tasks like planning and grading.
Here are some of the main features of Century:
Accelerates learning and improves student engagement
Reduces workload for teachers
Actionable data insights
9. Carnegie Learning’s Platforms
Carnegie Learning, an innovative education technology and curriculum solutions provider, relies on AI and machine learning in its learning platforms for high school and college-level students. These platforms offer many unique solutions for the areas of math, literacy, or world languages.
The provider has won multiple educational awards, including “Best Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning App” in the Tech Edvocate Awards. One of its products, the MATHia software, was created by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University. It also offers Fast ForWord, which is a reading and language software that helps students develop cognitive skills.
Here are some of the main features of Carnegie Learning’s Platforms:
Mimics human tutors
One-on-one personalized learning experience for each student
Actionable data to manage students
Carnegie Learning: Inside MATHia, the World’s Best Math Learning Platform
10. Knewton’s Alta
The last AI tool on our list of the10 Best AI Tools for Education is Knewton’s Alta. The AI tool is the company’s newest product for higher education. It is a complete courseware solution that combines adaptive learning technology with openly available content, which helps develop a personalized learning experience for each student.
Each Alta product provides all the instructional content needed for a course, including text, video, examples, and assessments. It is also available in multiple courses, including those within the fields of statistics, math, economics, and chemistry.
Here are some of the main features of Knewton’s Alta:
Adaptive learning technology
Personalized learning experiences
Provides all required content for a course
Multiple courses (3)
Other online learning platforms for Chinese students
Speech to text
“Phonexia Speech to Text (STT) technology automatically converts speech into plain text.
Technology Details
• Can be installed on premises or accessed instantly on the AWS Marketplace
• Trained with an emphasis on spontaneous telephone conversations
• Based on state-of-the-art techniques for acoustic modeling, including discriminative training and neural network-based features
• Applies channel compensation techniques compatible with the broadest range of audio sources possible: GSM/CDMA, 3G, VoIP, landlines, satellite phones, etc.
• Since the fifth generation, supports the addition of other words to the model via the Language Model Customization tool
• New languages can be trained on demand
Content Discovery
Uncover the full context hidden in speech recordings by transcribing spoken words into plain text automatically so that you can easily search through the speech’s content.
Trend Detection
Recognize the topics that are being discussed in the speech recordings and detect emerging trends so that you can respond to them in the most appropriate way.
Voice Enablement
Ensure that voice bots fully understand a given voice command by transcribing human speech into text that is easy to process and contains all the spoken words». (5)
The best voice translators
“Online services and applications for voice translation have become a popular tool in recent years to facilitate the user's work with foreign languages and dialects. They provide a range of opportunities to improve your speaking skills, which can come in handy when traveling abroad and communicating with locals.
An additional plus of voice translators is the absence of the need for manual typing. In most cases, a configured online connection and a microphone are required for speech recognition and automatic conversion to text. However, individual applications can work without access to the network.
The use of a real-time voice translator along with a microphone can be used by people with disabilities - hard of hearing or deaf. It allows you to increase the power of recognizable voice to improve perception.
Most of these services provide identical functions, but there are also characteristic differences. For example, some sites and applications do not support certain language sets, but in most cases, this applies to less common or rarely used languages and dialects.
Speech logger
The Speech Logger online voice translator supports 40 languages, various varieties of Arabic, Spanish, English, etc. Using the service, you can automatically translate speech from a microphone, correct grammatical errors, or create subtitles for video files.
The result of the conversion can be uploaded to the Google Drive cloud service, exported to Google Translate, saved as a *.srt subtitle file, in text form on a PC hard drive. Speech Logger users can also print processed text directly - without saving to a computer.
The service will be useful for hearing impaired people, it allows you to translate voice with a simultaneous increase in volume when connecting a smartphone to a laptop or PC.
Voice translator Microsoft Translator can work with seventy languages when connected to the Internet and offline, process text from images.
The main advantage of the application is the parallel translation of the speech of a group of speakers up to 100 people. An additional plus is the ability to process text in a male voice, as opposed to other online services that produce results exclusively in a female robotic voice.
Microsoft Translator has built-in special practical guides and phrasebooks designed to memorize phrases in foreign languages. This option will be useful for those who are going on tourist trips or business trips abroad.
Additionally, users can listen to phrases to practice pronunciation, save frequently used translations in the favorites list. The function of displaying alternative meanings and translation options for individual words and phrases allows the listener to formulate thoughts more accurately.
Microsoft Translator supports integration into the context menu of a mobile device for fast speech processing from third-party software products” (6).
Transkriptor
“Productive: Transcribe automatically, turn audio to text within minutes
Automatically transcribe audio, turn your audio or video to text. Student can upload file and convert audio to text with Transkriptor. Transkriptor’s powerful artifical intelligence generates online transcriptions within few minutes. Transkriptor is used by many professionals or students. Transkriptor is the good assisstant for interview transcription, lecture transcription and video transcription. Transkriptor creates editable TXT, word or SRT files. Student can download his transcriptions within seconds or use Transkriptor’s online editor for easy and quick editing.
Accurate: Transcribe with 80-99% accuracy
Transkriptor is powered by state of the art artifical intelligence algorithm. Therefore, Its accuracy can reach 99% (depends on the language and audio quality). Transkriptor learns speech patterns and its accuracy improves everyday.
Even though Transkriptor is one of the most powerful artificial intelligence solutions, it is extremely easy to use. Transkriptor is an online speech-to-text converter and no installation required. Student simply can upload his file and start.
Transkriptor allows to avoid the time and pain of manually transforming audio or video to text. It creates a draft text automatically and provides an intuitive text editor, so that you can create 100% accurate transcription.
Easy Editing: Simple online transcription editor
Transkiptor connects audio to the text in its online text editor in which student can easily listen audio and edit transcriptions. Student can import audio or video files in many different formats and export your transcription with timestamps, in Text, SRT, or Word formats.
Supported Languages
Student can use just minutes to transcribe in multiple languages. Simple and Powerful - Transkriptor is super smart!” (7)
“If you live in China, you’ve no doubt already come across the joys and perils of English Chinese voice translators. It seems every Chinese person and their pet Pekingnese has one these days, but most work poorly at best. While Google Translate serves the majority of expat needs, especially now it’s available without a VPN, its voice translator is still pretty embarrassing.
Here are four voice translation apps that aren’t so much.
Microsoft Translator
After long playing second fiddle to Google Translate, Microsoft Translator has now come into its own thanks to its superior voice translator services. Its real-time conversation mode makes it easier to have more natural-sounding convos with people in Chinese (and other languages), and it’s accuracy and efficiency are second to none. You can even have a conversation with several people using different languages, all at the same time. The app also offers the usual text and text-to-voice translations as well as a phrasebook and pronunciation guide. Handy for if you’re traveling, you can also download languages to translate offline later.
iTranslate Voice
iTranslate offers great voice-to-voice real-time translations between Chinese and English for both i0s and Android devices. Not all of the 44 languages and dialects it offers have full capabilities, but luckily for us, Mandarin does. This also gives you text-to-speech translations, a personalized phrasebook and iPhone-iPhone translations. The latter means that if you’re talking to someone on another iPhone, you’ll hear what they say in Chinese and they’ll hear what you say in English. Pretty magic!
SayHi
SayHi (and the one below it) is only available for iPhones, so stop reading now if you use any other device. The app boasts a refreshingly simple interface and claims 95% accuracy for voice recognition. You can also set the speed and pick between male and female voices for your desired translation. If you’re a gruff British guy but fancy being a slow-talking sultry Chinese woman, therefore, that dream can totally come true. This app isn’t ideal for traveling abroad, however, because an internet connection is required.
Speak & Translate
As the name suggests, Speak & Translate is specifically focused on speech-to-speech translations. What’s great about this little baby is that its fully iCloud integrated, so you can save all your translation history on Apple devices and also switch devices mid-conversation, if you felt the need to. It’s only available on Apple devices though, naturally, and needs a data connection to work.
Platform with live interpretation - KUDO
KUDO has simplified finding and incorporating remote simultaneous interpretation into global events and meetings of any size, virtual or hybrid.
KUDO is an all-encompassing solution that bridges language barriers, improving business communication.
Simultaneous interpretation into 200+ spoken and sign languages.
Access to KUDO’s network of 12,000+ on-demand professional interpreters for streamlined logistics.
Multilingual meeting and events on any platform. KUDO integrates with Microsoft Teams, On24, Hopin, Bizzabo, Zoom, and more!
Moreover, KUDO matches the perfect interpreters to meetings, webinars, and events without the additional flight and accommodation costs for the interpreters themselves.
Online Chinese tutors & interpreters for assistance for Chinese students
“Looking for an online Chinese tutor? Preply is the leading online language learning platform worldwide. You can choose from 2555 Chinese teachers with an average rating of 4.91 out of 5 stars given by 8955 customers.
Book a lesson with a private Chinese teacher today and start learning. Not entirely happy with your tutor? No worries, Preply offers free tutor replacement till you're 100% satisfied. Looking for a different way to learn a language?
Explore Chinese classes or find other resources to learn Chinese online.
Preply’s sell is that it can connect students to the tutors that are best for their specific learning needs, weighing over 400 parameters before connecting two within a marketplace. For example, Bigai said that Preply can connect a student in San Francisco who likes studying in evenings with a tutor in a conducive time zone. It can also help students find tutors who have similar backgrounds as them, such as a bi-lingual base to help go in between languages for learning.
Preply’s largest difference from competitors is in its philosophy of how learning should be done. Preply believes that learning should be live and with a native speaker, while a company like Duolingo thinks it can be gamified and Customers think that our way of learning a foreign language is much more effective than language learning apps,” Bigai said. Preply supports 50 different languages, including Spanish, English, French, as well as niche languages such as Icelandic, Tibetan and Catalan.
Other language learning apps have similarly been able to grow amid the pandemic even despite historical disinterest in the edtech subsector and existing players. Fluent Forever raised $4.9 million for its language learning system, and Fluent City, which is a different company, launched a subscription service.
Bigai sees a big opportunity for Preply in the enterprise. The company began in 2019 selling to globally distributed businesses as a solution to help employees learn the languages of their colleagues and clients. This year, Preply should have “hundreds and hundreds” of enterprise customers, Bigai said.
The company makes money by revenue-share agreements with its tutors. It takes 20% of each lesson fee, which ranges from $15 to $20 per hour, as well as the entire cost of the first lesson, as a lieu of a lead generation. With the enterprise offering, Preply has the same business model but the hours per employee are capped with the employer taking the cost.
Preply wouldn’t share teacher retention metrics, which would indicate how long teachers stay on the platform (which is key for student comprehension and continuity in learning experiences). Bigai did say that 30% of its top teachers stay on for numerous years.
The company refused to share revenue, but said that it could be profitable if it wanted to be. For now, it’s prioritizing growth in its B2B offering and business development. (10)
Individualized Learning/Tutoring
From kindergarten to graduate school, one of the key ways AI will impact education is through the application of greater levels of individualized learning.
This is already happening through growing numbers of adaptive learning programs, games, and software.
Adjusting learning based on an individual student’s particular needs has been a priority for educators for years, but AI will allow a level of differentiation that’s currently impossible for teachers managing 30 students per class. This arena of AI is probably the one that most educators are most familiar with.
With the COVID pandemic forced remote learning, this was one of the fastest-growing areas last year. Unable to be there in person to observe students, teachers were relying more and more on technology and AI to do this job for them. I want to be clear here, machines will never be able to do this job as well as a human but they can make our job easier.
Ask any parent who has struggled during the pandemic to help their child with algebra, and they will be thrilled about the potential of AI to support their children when they are struggling at home with homework or test preparations. Tutoring and studying programs are becoming more advanced thanks to AI.
We have spent the last few months focusing on tutoring here at EDGEucating. You may want to check out the following articles if you are interested in specific tutoring resources.
Coaching and Teacher Professional Development
AI is currently making its way to helping teachers improve and customize lessons. It can provide feedback about the success of the lesson as a whole, monitor student progress, and alerts when there might be an issue with student performance, as well as identify areas where teachers can improve instruction.
Teachers are sometimes not aware of gaps in their lessons and educational materials that can leave students confused about certain concepts. AI can help solve this problem. Coursera, a massive open online course provider, is already putting this into practice. When a large number of students are found to submit the wrong answer to a homework assignment, the system alerts the teacher and gives future students a customized message that offers hints to the correct answer.
AI-based learning systems will be able to give educators useful information about their student’s learning styles, abilities, and progress, and provide suggestions for how to customize their teaching methods to students’ individual needs. Recently, The University of Murcia in Spain began testing anAI-enabled chatbot to answer students’ questions about the campus and areas of study. As this chatbot was rolled out, the school’s administrators were surprised to discover that it was able to answer more than 38,708 questions, answering correctly more than 91% of the time. Google recently released a new AI-powered learning platform, students can learn in highly individualized ways, and educational institutions can scale their efforts to meet student needs. The platform is a suite of applications and APIs that can be integrated into an institution’s existing infrastructure. This new platform includes a chatbot that was designed with education in mind.
Although this form of AI is another that is still in its infancy stage, it is rapidly becoming more mainstream. (4)
Testing
Artificial intelligence can vastly improve the types of assessments teachers use to guide student learning. The use of AI student assessments is rapidly expanding in education. Many software platforms are beginning to integrate built-in stealth assessments that students do not even recognize as a test. This is beneficial for students with test anxiety, removing it as a factor, and increasing engagement. Many of these tests are designed to appear more like games, which increases student engagement and decreases resistance to learning and testing.
Testing doesn’t just mean an end-of-unit assessment. There are several companies such as Content Technologies and Carnegie Learning currently developing intelligent instruction design and digital platforms that use AI to provide learning, testing, and feedback to students from pre-K to college level that gives them the challenges they are ready for identifying gaps in knowledge and redirects to new topics when appropriate. Ongoing assessments are often much more powerful and meaningful than comprehensive end-of-topic assessments.
AI has been used by state departments for years to grade state tests and by large testing organizations for scoring tests like the ACT and SAT. With the vast new developments in AI-related to education, we can expect changes in our mandated assessment systems to follow suit.
Well-designed formative assessments that take advantage of the latest advancements in technology can help students learn faster and better. From intelligent tutoring, stealth assessments, games, and virtual reality, mini-tests built by AI can provide a wide variety of ways to use this technology to build engaging tools.(4)
Student recruitment
The program of using AI to teach Chinese students in their native language in European universities is complemented by a very important function for any European university: the recruitment of Chinese students to study online. We use not only our representatives in the Chinese educational community. We actively use artificial intelligence bots in social networks in China, which give us an average of up to 100,000 candidates for training per year.
Assistance in obtaining grants for education
We help each of the Chinese applicants, if necessary, to apply for an educational grant. This process also involves neural networks and artificial intelligence, which have gained experience and knowledge of the grant process.
Conclusion
What do we offer European universities?
We offer cooperation in recruiting Chinese students to study at European universities online and providing the entire process of their learning in Chinese with artificial intelligence systems.
Used sources:
1. Yu Xiaolin “Difficulties in teaching Chinese students…” https://earchive.tpu.ru/bitstream/11683/51568/1/conference_tpu-2018-C19_p346-350.pdf
2. Alexandra Urman “A neural network instead of a teacher, a game instead of cramming: how artificial intelligence will change education” https://knife.media/ai-education/
3. Alex McFarlan “10 Best AI Tools for Education” https://www.unite.ai/10-best-ai-tools-for-education/
4. Alicia Verweij “AI Trends Changing Education In 2022” https://edgeucating.com/5-artificial-intelligence-trends-in-education-in-2022/
5. Phonexia, “Speech to text”, https://www.phonexia.com/
6. WoxWorker, Best voice translators https://voxworker.com/ru/blog/luchshie-golosovye-perevodchiki
7. Transkriptor, Convert audio to text
8. eChinacities.com, “4 English-Chinese Voice Translator Apps that Actually Work” https://www.echinacities.com/expat-life/4-English-Chinese-Voice-Translator-Apps-that-Actually-Work
9. Kudo, “Enhance your meetings with
live interpretation”, Kudo, https://kudoway.com
10. Preply, “Online Chinese tutors & teachers for private lessons”, https://preply.com/en/
This article is an abstract collection of materials from the Internet.