Prompting an LLM Chatbot to Role Play Conversational Situations for Language Practice

Pablo Gervás, Carlos León, Mayuresh Kumar, Gonzalo Méndez, Susana Bautista

2025

Abstract

Chatbots based on Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated a remarkable ability to engage in conversations that are linguistically correct and make sense from a pragmatic point of view. A significant trait of their proven abilities is that, using verbal instructions provided as contributions to an ongoing conversation, they can be configured to provide specific content and/or modify the role that they play in the exchange. The present paper explores the feasibility of developing a framework of prompts designed with such an aim in mind. The prompting should ensure that the chatbot engages a language learner in an interaction where it proposes conversational situations of appropriate complexity, takes part in them playing the role of one of the participants, while monitoring the linguistic correctness of the contributions by the learner and providing feedback on their language performance both proactively and in response to learner requests. The paper reports on an experiment that tested this type of functionality students of Spanish as a second language at Aligarh Muslim University in India.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Gervás P., León C., Kumar M., Méndez G. and Bautista S. (2025). Prompting an LLM Chatbot to Role Play Conversational Situations for Language Practice. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU; ISBN 978-989-758-746-7, SciTePress, pages 257-264. DOI: 10.5220/0013235400003932

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu25,
author={Pablo Gervás and Carlos León and Mayuresh Kumar and Gonzalo Méndez and Susana Bautista},
title={Prompting an LLM Chatbot to Role Play Conversational Situations for Language Practice},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU},
year={2025},
pages={257-264},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013235400003932},
isbn={978-989-758-746-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU
TI - Prompting an LLM Chatbot to Role Play Conversational Situations for Language Practice
SN - 978-989-758-746-7
AU - Gervás P.
AU - León C.
AU - Kumar M.
AU - Méndez G.
AU - Bautista S.
PY - 2025
SP - 257
EP - 264
DO - 10.5220/0013235400003932
PB - SciTePress