One affordance of these technologies is that they encourage students, especially, low-elementary students or kids, to initiate and lead a spontaneous interaction with an English speaking entity. although the interaction is not as authentic as it is in real life. but it's still helpful for such students to build their "confidence" and "fluency" with using the language Coniam (2008).
One of the limitations though is also the type of interaction and the language used. In relation to what has been mentioned above, these technologies are robotic in using the language. Therefore, they have limitations in discussing general knowledge issues. Therefore, such tools might not be useful and effective for upper-intermediate students and above Coniam (2008).
An example of integrating these tools in an ESL classroom would be the following. the task is targeting 10-year-old elementary students at an international preschool in Armenia. the task is a part of their homework. studnets are assigned to intiate a conversation with one of the chat-bots (Mitsuku at http://www.mitsuku.com) for at least 10 minutes a week about different topics. sometimes the teacher can ask students to discuss the topics they learn in class. after that, students bring their conversations to class. the teacher gives feedback to the structure of the students' questions and answers, grammar, vocabulary choice, etc. however, this would help the teacher during the course to monitor the overall progression of the students' learning process.
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