Transforming language education: A systematic review of AI-powered chatbots for English as a foreign language speaking practice

Artificial intelligence chatbots recently caused a stir in the world by promising to transform education systems in a multitude of ways. To analyze pertinent publications in the SSCI journals, a systematic review was conducted for this study, which investigates the trends of chatbots in education studies, with a focus on English speaking skills. Despite the increasing use of AI-powered chatbots in education, limited research has explored how to develop the merits of AI-powered chatbots in English-speaking teaching or learning. The empirical evidence of chatbot applications from 24 research studies conducted in an English-speaking learning environment and published between 2017 and 2023 was examined in this systematic review. The topic of study on chatbots in English language-speaking practice skills was determined to be in its early stages, which suggests that there is a lot of space for performing pertinent research to support creative English-speaking learning and work with chatbots to enhance learning results. The findings suggest that the AI chatbot learning approach for English-speaking proficiency was intended to speed up the English learning process and assist students in meeting the goals or results of the courses. Also, some benefits (e.g. alleviating speaking anxiety and improving speaking pronunciation) were highlighted in each area. Specifically, the study provides insights into the effectiveness of AI chatbots in enhancing students' English-speaking learning outcomes, confidence, engagement and motivation. This study concludes with recommendations for in-service English teachers, chatbot designers and chatbot researchers in the future.