Using Speech and NLP Resources to build an i CALL platform for a minority language, the story of An Scéalaí, the I rish experience to date (2022)

Abstract: This paper describes how emerging linguistic resources and technologies can be used to build a language learning platform for Irish, an endangered language. This platform, An Scéalaí, harvests learner corpora - a vital resource both to study the stages of learners’ language acquisition and to guide future platform development. A technical description of the platform is provided, including details of how different speech technologies and linguistic resources are fused to provide a holistic learner experience. The active continuous participation of the community, and platform evaluations by learners and teachers, are discussed.

## introduction this paper presents our experience in developing an intelligent-computer-assisted language learning (icall) platform for the irish language, an scéalaí ('the storyteller'). it promotes the study of irish, an endangered language, in two distinct ways. firstly, it deploys linguistic and computational resources to optimise the language learning process. secondly, it harvests data about how language learners use the platform and stores learners' linguistic compositions, which is crucial for the study of the irish acquisition process. the system is complex in that it integrates a number of linguistic and speech resources into a single user-friendly application for learners, while being hosted within a management system that enables high-level guidance by teachers and/or autonomous learning by individuals. a crucial feature is that an scéalaí collects valuable learner data, hitherto unavailable, encompassing both the learners' linguistic output and their engagement with the language tools of the system. an scéalaí has entailed a cycle of design, implementation, testing, evaluation, redesign, and at the heart of the process has been an extensive collaboration with sectors of the language learning community. as an online system, it has been one of the fortuitous consequences of the global pandemic that an acute appetite for such a resource has resulted in a context which facilitated widespread testing. the present account provides a flavour of the developmental process and discusses the wider potential of this type of platform for many other minority and endangered languages. an scéalaí, as an icall platform, is intelligent in that it utilises speech and nlp knowledge and resources in an integrated platform that can opti-mise the learners' acquisition of the four language skills (writing, listening, reading and speaking) in a holistic way. it is also intelligent in capturing the many dimensions of how learners progress in the development of their language skills, providing an intelligent learner corpus (an corpas cliste). this corpus will guide the future content and platform development. the platform has involved the integration of different disciplines (linguistics, computational linguistics, engineering sciences) with expertise in the local language and its context. for us, and for many working with minority or endangered languages, getting such an integrated research environment has been very challenging (see more below). as mentioned, a crucial partner in the enterprise has been the active participation of the teaching and learning community. the platform and the experience described here hopefully demonstrates how such interdisciplinary research and development can work alongside a language community, to provide smart learning technologies that will serve future generations of learners and researchers in the field. there are many challenges for learners of irish, the most pressing being that most learners do not have ready access to native speakers of the language, or genuine interactions using the language. teaching resources are often very traditional and often criticized. as in the typical minority language teaching context, the teachers are themselves second language learners. despite the many challenges, the large numbers of learners presents an opportunity to develop and test systems with large numbers of participants, as evidenced here. ## description of the platform the platform is rather complex and includes a user-friendly interface where the learner has the benefit of access to feedback based on linguistic and speech resources. this integrated platform is targeting the parallel development of the four language skills (writing, speaking, listening, reading). the system also encompasses software for user and content management, which ensures that the platform is robust and user-friendly and is at all times harvesting learner data. the latter is key to a growing body of learner data, an corpas cliste, which will be used to study the stages of the acquisition process. this information will enable content development in line with acquisition stages, that can furthermore be personalised to the individual learner. the platform development was an in-house collaboration where the software was written by our own students. these are pursuing an integrated programme in computer science, linguistics and a language, where irish is an option foot_2 . (note that this kind of programme provides the researchers with the key interdisciplinary skills and knowledge of the language, a fundamental prerequisite for developing sophisticated technologies for minority or endangered languages). ## community @xmath0 experienced irish language teachers advised on aspects of the initial design of the platform. from prototype stage onwards, extensive consultation and evaluations has been carried out with the community of learners and teachers. the system grows as new/updated technologies come on stream and is being enhanced continuously in response to users' feedback. groups of users who have contributed evaluations include trainee teachers in ireland; second level pupils in ireland; third level students in ireland; irish learners in america (part of a fulbright scheme for irish teaching in third level institutions in the us); the general public (recruited by word of mouth, as the system is online). the total number of accounts registered to date is 4,428. the learner corpus now totals 42,542 stories; 5,596,257 words (an average of 131.55 words per story). ## conclusions successful language transmission is key to language maintenance and revitalisation. in the irish context, where the population at large receives irish language instruction, there is the potential to make irish a vibrant second language beyond the native speaker (or gaeltacht) population. computational approaches and the incorporation of linguistic and technology resources can turn the digital timebomb into a major stimulus to language pedagogy and indirectly to language maintenance. besides its immediate use as a pedagogical platform, an scéalaí will enable documentation and analysis of the stages of acquisition and it will stimulate future development and increasingly effective, technology-based interventions, where our linguistic knowledge is brought to bear. our experience has been that the language community is central to all aspects of the wider abair initiative -in this case, the engagement of the educational sector -not a passive recipient but a vital partner in the enterprise, involved in every aspect from design to evaluation and dissemination. the current platform is a work in progress. it integrates speech and language knowledge as well as core language technologies to provide a holistic learning environment. as further resources, such as asr, come on stream, the aim is to expand the capacity of the platform in ways that will further enrich the learners' experience.