What is English teacher Captain Kelly, the “chatbot” hailed by Gabriel Atal?

Voice assistant is convenient for learning English in primary school. He has experience in many academies since 2021.

With the development of AI, chatbots are also entering classrooms. Especially starting with English and learning foreign languages. In an interview at Parisian, Minister of National Education, Gabriel Attal, responded to a question about the role of screens in education and praised the merits of Captain Kelly software. “We are bringing it to other languages ​​as well,” he said.

On that day National Education Website, “Captain Kelly”, is featured as “Voice Assistant for Elementary School English Learning”. In fact, it’s an app – only on Android – designed in collaboration with publisher Belin.

Correct pronunciation

The software is then used by teachers in the classroom Three hours of trainingIt uses an installed smartphone’s microphone and camera to help students work on their English.

Traditional activities for learning a language are listed on the National Education website, such as repeating words spoken by a voice assistant or answering questions in English. According to the publisher, the software is capable of analyzing the quality of the student’s pronunciation and correcting it if necessary.

“Captain Kelly can analyze the human voice through a microphone, compare it to a linguistic model calibrated for French-speaking children, and then classify the production as acceptable, correct or incorrect,” the page explains. Dedicated to the application.

About a hundred companies are on trial

The camera is intended to perform image analysis in real time. The student has to show the cards showing various printed illustrations to the camera to answer the voice assistant’s questions.

On that day His websiteBelin ensures None of the collected data (audio, video, geo-location) is retained and the tool can be used without an internet connection. If the application is free, the publisher is marketing an educational guide, and its importance is remembered In his videosSold for 30 euros.

At the end of 2021, on the initiative of Jean-Michel Blanker, in about one hundred institutions, several feedbacks from the first test of the tool are mentioned on the national education website. Uses in various academies (Créteil, Dijon, Besançon, Réunion) are noted significantly.

Contacted by Tech&Co about the number of users of the tool nationally, the Ministry of National Education and publisher Belin have yet to respond.