Exploring the effects of robot-assisted multimodal composition on students’ audience awareness for English writing

Previous studies have focused on the effects of employing robot-assisted multimodal composition to facilitate learners' development of audience awareness; however, how the process promotes such awareness is under-explored. In this study, therefore, how a robot-assisted multimodal composition approach might facilitate EFL students' audience awareness for English writing was investigated. A total of 53 advanced EFL learners at a university of science and technology in Taiwan were engaged in creating multimodal presentations using social robots with the capacity to provide authentic meaning-making environments for students to flexibly design and produce video presentations drawing on various semiotic modes for different purposes and audiences. The data included participants' pre- and post-intervention English essays, recorded interviews, concept maps, planning worksheets, final video presentations, and reflective surveys. The pre- and post-intervention English essays were analyzed employing a paired-sampled t test, and a multimodal analysis was applied to the other data. The findings revealed that the students' audience awareness in their English writing improved as they progressed through the robot-assisted processes of identifying their target audiences' needs and expectations, establishing logical connections with them, designing interactive features with multimodal materials to stimulate audience responses, and constructing effective communication flows so as to create a presentation to be published on YouTube. These processes contributed to the students' increased sensitivity towards their audiences. Pedagogical and further research implications are discussed.