Lessons Learned from the Athena Language Learning Project: Using Natural Language Processing, Graphics, Speech Processing, and Interactive Video for Communication-Based Language Learning

The Athena Language Learning Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) began in 1983 as an attempt to apply the principles of communicative language learning to the multifunctional interactive medium promised by emerging technologies. The three emerging technologies that the project explored were natural language processing (NLP), interactive video, and speech processing. Graphics were used to create a microworld in which to exchange natural language input and computer generated language as output (Kramsch, Morgenstern, & Murray, 1985; Murray, Furstenberg, & Morgenstern, 1988).