Learning English using the Chatbot Game

[amichail]

I believe that the Chatbot Game can be used to help people learn English as a second language:

http://chatbotgame.com
http://chatbotgame.com/?cmd=chat_rs
http://chatbotgame.com/?cmd=chat_s

Players of the Chatbot Game shape the chatbot's personality and expertise by adding simple chat rules. The better their chat rules, the higher they will score. Higher scoring rules are more likely to be used to generate a chatbot response.

I think such a game may be useful for learning English as a second language. After all, to score lots of points, you will do well by focusing on common sorts of conversation fragments -- exactly the sort of thing that someone learning English should focus on. Moreover, you get to see how well your rules do in actual chats in terms of a rule score and actual conversation fragments.

If the player uses poor grammar in a chat rule, then that rule may not score well assuming that most people chatting with the bot already know English pretty well. Even if someone doesn't vote down a rule with bad grammar, he/she might comment on the bad grammar in his/her response.

In essence, the chat rules can be viewed as open-ended exercises that are graded by the people chatting with the bot.

What do you think?