Recently, a surge of scholarly attention has been paid to the impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools on second/foreign language (L2) education. Nonetheless, there is a lack of evidence on the role of AI-assisted robots or robot-assisted language learning (RALL) in English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ psycho-emotional factors and academic behaviors. To address this gap, drawing on the technology acceptance model (TAM), the present study probed into the impact of robot-assisted L2 education on Chinese EFL students’ classroom engagement and willingness to attend classes (WTAC). Two questionnaires were filled out by a sample of 155 students at the start and end of a four-month period of intervention. The participants were randomly assigned to a control group (n = 80) and an experimental group (n = 75). Robot-assisted instruction was given to the experimental group. The results of the analysis of covariance indicated that both classroom engagement and WTAC significantly improved among experimental group students from pre-test to post-test due to the intervention. The results are discussed concerning the theoretical and empirical evidence, and practical implications are presented to EFL educators and policymakers regarding the utility of adopting AI robots in L2 education.
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