It took me a long time to prepare for this post, as I didn’t expect it to be this hard to put everything in a single post. Anyway, here is a closer look at how ELSA AI works.
INTRODUCTION
Perhaps I’ve been kinda “obsessed” with the technology of ELSA Speak that I did talk about it way too much. Consequently (and unfortunately), I was supposed to be an advertiser for the company. However, like others, I am just one of the millions of customers who have to pay money to receive the services. From then on, I haven’t talked much about ELSA and their products, apart from when I am asked about it.
Having used ELSA Speak over the past few years, I’ve had some hands-on experience with the product, and of course, nothing is perfect. Nevertheless, the ELSA company has invented some practical products, especially ELSA Speak and Speech Analyser. But recently, I’ve been standing in awe of ELSA AI – another new feature in the app.
ARTIFICIAL CONVERSATIONS
Please take a few minutes to read the screenshots of my conversations with ELSA AI below. For each conversation, I create a separate album so that it’s easier to follow. Even though Halloween has gone, I hope these screenshots won’t be that haunting. For a better reading experience, please click on each photo and zoom in.
Here is another convo between ELSA AI and me. In this case, the AI “surprised me” with a situation that seemed boring to me, so I asked it to come up with another idea:
This dialogue sounded less philosophical than the previous one, but in general, it did surprise me as the topic was quite interesting.
If you find the 2 conversations rather dreary, I hope this one is on another level:
To lighten the story, I tried to add a “plot twist” in the end, but maybe it still appeared stupid 🤡
And last but not least, this is my shortest convo with ELSA AI up till now:
CONCLUSION
At first, I thought ELSA AI was just like other virtual assistants like Bixby, Siri, Bard,… like an AI friend to talk to while we feel bored. However, with its detailed comments and suggestion for learner’s progress on different aspects (grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary), ELSA is more like a “teacher” rather than a mere assistant.
My knowledge is limited, particularly in technology, let alone the mechanism behind AI and the like. However, with my real-life experience accumulated from both learning and teaching, I think the technologies supplied by ELSA (ELSA Speak, Speech Analyser, and ELSA AI) are helpful for those who are keen (self) learners, equipping themselves with sufficient skills, input (lexical and grammatical), and of course, the confidence from practicing with improvising situations and evaluation from the AI.
Perhaps now is just the beginning of ELSA AI, so it’s definitely perfected in the not-too-distant future. We are seeing the dawn of a new era in which AI can significantly help, providing personalized experiences for language learners with incredible accuracy that hardly any human teachers can have. There are some questions:
“What’s the role of teachers when technology seems dominant in correcting and giving feedback?”
“How can AI technology be employed in classroom teaching?”
I’ve got an answer for the first question, while the second has yet to be answered.
I don’t think there would be a scenario when teachers were entirely replaced by any cutting-edge technology. In fact, we, as human beings, cannot live well without real connection. The importance of a teacher is far beyond just finding and fixing students’ mistakes. I’ve never expected to change anyone’s perspective, let alone their life, but I hope and now try to instruct my students from what I deem appropriate. This could include utilizing technological tools to make their studies or daily life easier.
Last but not least, from a user’s experience, I hope that the ELSA AI dev team will launch a new feature, allowing users to share/store their convos with ELSA AI and track their progress as well ^^
brillbro 