This article proposes a computer-based approach to effectively enhance second language learners’ willingness to communicate in the target language. To do so, we implemented a conversational agent embedding a dialogue management model based on two conversational strategies (i.e., communication strategies and affective backchannels), serving as scaffolds for enhancing learners’ willingness to communicate in the target language. Here, we report on differences observed among second language learners’ preferences for both conversational strategies according to their initial level of willingness to communicate and on variations of their willingness with respect to such differences. Although we found that most students generally preferred a combination of both strategies, learners’ preferences and the effects of the support provided by these strategies varied according to their level of willingness to communicate. Learners with lower willingness to communicate tended to prefer affective backchannels, whereas those with higher willingness to communicate seemed to favor communication strategies. These results were consistent with post-test results, which showed that learners’ expected willingness to communicate tended to be higher after interacting with systems embedding their preferred strategies. In sum, these results are preliminary evidence of the meaningfulness of accounting for such learners’ preferences in adaptively using and fading the strategies employed by conversational agents to motivate second language learners to communicate in the target language.

中文翻译：

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在L2学习者-对话代理互动中，寻求个性化支架和动机支持的衰落：一项探索性研究

本文提出了一种基于计算机的方法，可以有效地增强第二语言学习者以目标语言进行交流的意愿。为此，我们实现了一个对话代理，该对话代理嵌入了基于两种对话策略（即交流策略和情感反向渠道）的对话管理模型，从而增强了学习者以目标语言进行交流的意愿。在这里，我们报告了第二语言学习者根据其初始交流意愿水平对两种会话策略的偏好之间观察到的差异，并报告了他们对此类差异的意愿变化。尽管我们发现大多数学生通常更喜欢两种策略的结合，学习者的偏好和这些策略提供的支持的效果根据他们交流的意愿水平而有所不同。交流意愿较低的学习者倾向于使用情感反向渠道，而交流意愿较高的学习者似乎更喜欢交流策略。这些结果与测试后的结果一致，后者表明学习者与嵌入其首选策略的系统进行交互后，其预期的交流意愿往往更高。总而言之，这些结果是在适应性地使用和淡化对话代理程序以激发第二语言学习者以目标语言进行交流的策略时，考虑此类学习者的偏好的有意义的初步证据。