ChitterChatter: Curriculum-Aligned AI Speaking Partners for Language Learning Classrooms
Jadon Geathers, AJ Alvero, René F. Kizilcec · 2025
Despite the importance of speaking practice in language learning, most students struggle to find low-stakes opportunities for authentic oral communication. ChitterChatter addresses this challenge by providing an AI-powered tool that enables instructors to create curriculum-aligned, voice-enabled conversation activities for students. Built on OpenAI's Realtime API and designed through iterative feedback from language education experts, ChitterChatter offers personalized, adaptive speaking practice while maintaining a judgment-free environment that promotes student comfort and confidence. Our pilot study with university-level Spanish learners shows that students value the platform's ability to provide authentic conversation practice without fear of judgment, although barriers to adoption remain. This paper presents ChitterChatter's design, preliminary evaluation results, and future directions for enhancing the system. Our findings demonstrate the potential of AI conversation partners to support classroom language instruction by increasing both the quantity and quality of speaking practice opportunities for students.