A study of the effects of the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on improving the spoken English of university students: Voices of students from a Chinese university

Recently, artificial intelligence has received more and more widespread attention, and its applications in all aspects of people’s lives are increasing, especially in the field of education. This study used the research method of semi-structured interviews with the aim of exploring the role of AI in improving college students’ speaking, in order to better utilise AI to promote college students’ learning of spoken English. In this study, 11 students from a Chinese university were interviewed for about 10 minutes each, and they were questioned about their ideas of using AI to learn speaking, and their answers were used to understand the current development of AI in speaking. And, a content analysis of the interview results revealed that most of the university students thought that AI helped their speaking learning, but at the same time, they also pointed out that there were still some aspects of AI that needed to be improved. They also evaluated the functions of these AI apps for speaking practice from different perspectives. Finally, this study discusses the practical significance of AI-assisted English-speaking learning and suggestions for further research.