The impact of ASR-based reading tutor on young EFL learners’ oral skills: a case study of Google Read Along

Google Read Along, a recent ASR-based reading tutor, offers interactive activities that allow learners to read aloud while the system immediately identifies and highlights pronunciation and fluency errors. Grounded in Second Language Acquisition theories—including interactionist theory and sociocultural theory—Google Read Along offers various pedagogical features that support oral language development. Despite its potential, research on the app’s effectiveness remains underexplored. Addressing the growing global emphasis on improving English education for children, particularly in non-English-speaking countries, this study evaluates the app’s impact on young EFL learners’ oral skills, including sentence reading, question answering, picture description, storytelling, and overall speaking performance. Thirty-five elementary school EFL learners participated in a six-week intervention, with 18 in the experimental group using Google Read Along and 17 in the control group using picture books. Each group completed ten 10–15-minute sessions. Results from a linear mixed-effects model reveal that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in overall speaking performance. While the app did not yield significant improvements in sentence reading compared to conventional methods, its effects were more pronounced in learners’ ability to describe pictures and, notably, in answering questions and storytelling, where greater improvement trends were observed. These findings underscore the value of ASR-based reading tutors like Google Read Along in promoting oral skills and communicative competence among young language learners.