Co-designing a Social Robot for Newcomer Children's Cultural and Language Learning

TL;DR

This study explores co-designing a social robot named Maple to support newcomer children's cultural and language learning, addressing challenges in socio-emotional and educational settings.

Contribution

It provides a domain summary, discusses cultural and community aspects, and offers preliminary design guidelines for integrating SARs into language learning environments.

Findings

Identified four recurring challenges in supporting newcomer children

Discussed the role of robots in fostering cultural orientation and community belonging

Provided initial design guidelines for social robot integration in classrooms

Abstract

Newcomer children face barriers in acquiring the host country's language and literacy programs are often constrained by limited staffing, mixed-proficiency cohorts, and short contact time. While Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) show promise in education, their use in these socio-emotionally sensitive settings remains underexplored. This research presents a co-design study with program tutors and coordinators, to explore the design space for a social robot, Maple. We contribute (1) a domain summary outlining four recurring challenges, (2) a discussion on cultural orientation and community belonging with robots, (3) an expert-grounded discussion of the perceived role of an SAR in cultural and language learning, and (4) preliminary design guidelines for integrating an SAR into a classroom. These expert-grounded insights lay the foundation for iterative design and evaluation with newcomer children and their families.