We are pleased to announce a pilot grant collaboration with Pangea Chat. Similar to our established collaboration with Extempore, this program will allow us to support instructor-led projects that make use of Pangea Chat’s functionality and leverage established benefits to language learners. As with our other grant programs, successful projects will measure targeted proficiency gains, use the solution in a new manner, solve a stubborn or newly identified impediment to learner success, or otherwise contribute to best practices for technology-enhanced language learning. Our first collaboration project is entitled “AI-Facilitated Group Chat Activities: Exploring the Pangea Bot’s Impact on Conversations and Spanish Language Learning Affordances.”
The proposal outlines the following:
This project experiments with and investigates how an AI-powered chatbot in the Pangea Chat app enhances learning enjoyment, collaboration, satisfaction, and outcomes for Spanish learners at the A1–B1 levels. Pangea Chat integrates multimodal features—text, voice, emojis, and AI suggestions—to facilitate group interaction through task-based communication. Through its Activity Planner feature, the AI bot can play multiple roles (e.g., discussion partner, facilitator, or game player) and provides in-the-moment grammar and vocabulary support in task-based group chats… A task-based language teaching (TBLT) framework guides the design of thematic tasks aligned with beginner and intermediate Spanish topics, such as travel, sports, influencers and social media jobs, or environmental issues… We plan to use 18 tasks for two classes in Fall 2025. The students will be at the beginner and low intermediate levels. The tasks are generated by the Activity Planner in Pangea Chat and carefully edited before they are assigned to each group chat.
This research aims to:
-Demonstrate how AI supports meaningful communication and language development in beginner and intermediate Spanish learners
-Show how humor, immediate feedback, and task-based interaction improve enjoyment and learner satisfaction
-Contribute new insights into how negotiation of form and meaning occurs in AI-mediated, multimodal learning environments
-Address gaps in current CMC research by providing evidence of how AI-facilitated peer collaboration enhances learner autonomy, output, and enjoyment.
We are excited about this project and hope that it serves as a strong pilot that leads to wider opportunities for grant-supported research and practice in the future.