Abstract
Community literacy programs supporting young newcomer children in Canada face limited staffing and scarce one-to-one time, which constrains personalized English and cultural learning support. This paper reports on a co-design study with United for Literacy tutors that informed Maple, a table-top, peer-like Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) designed as a practice partner within tutor-mediated sessions. From shadowing and co-design interviews, we derived newcomer-specific requirements and added them in an integrated prototype that uses short story-based activities, multi-modal scaffolding (speech, facial feedback, gesture), and embedded quizzes that support attention while producing tutor-actionable formative signals. We contribute system design implications for tutor-in-the-loop SARs supporting language socialization in community settings and outline directions for child-centered evaluation in authentic programs.
Abstract (translated)
加拿大社区扫盲项目中支持新移民儿童的课程面临人员配备有限、一对一时间稀缺的问题，这限制了针对性的英语和文化学习支持。本文报告了一项与“联合扫盲组织”导师开展的协同设计研究，该研究为“枫叶”提供了设计依据——这是一款桌面式、拟人化的社会辅助机器人（SAR），旨在导师介导的会话中作为练习伙伴。通过观察与协同设计访谈，我们提取了新移民儿童的具体需求，并将其整合到一个集成原型中。该原型采用基于短篇故事的活动、多模态支架（语音、面部反馈、手势）以及嵌入式测验，既能支持儿童注意力，又能生成可供导师采取行动的形成性信号。我们提出了关于导师在环社会辅助机器人支持社区场景中语言社会化的系统设计启示，并概述了在真实项目中开展以儿童为中心评估的方向。
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18804
