A report on language life in China： More than half of children only use tablets or learning machines when studying.

　　On August 16th, the Ministry of Education released the language life in China in 2022 at the "1+1" press conference held in Anyang, Henan Province, and a number of annual reports such as "Report on Language Life in China (2023)" were released at the same time.

　　The Paper noted that in the "domain section" of the Report on Language Life in China (2023), the Survey on the Use of Children’s Intelligent Phonetic Products (hereinafter referred to as "the Survey") showed that although student tablets or learning machines have various educational and entertaining functions, more than half of children still use them only for study.

　　According to the "Survey", the survey adopts a combination of questionnaires and interviews. The survey is based on families and targets children aged 0-12 and their parents, which are distributed in first-,second-,third-and fourth-tier cities. Among the respondents, 42.0% have student tablets/learning machines, 31.2% have children’s smart voice watches, and 8.9%, 7.9%, 5.7% and 4.3% have smart reading pens/scanning, teaching story machine, home smart speakers and smart conversation lights respectively.

　　Different age groups have different preferences for intelligent voice products. Children aged 0-3 prefer intelligent early education machines that can play story words, foreign languages and music. Children aged 3-7 prefer to use student tablet/learning machine and smart point reading pen/scanning pen. Children’s smart voice watches and student tablets/learning machines with comprehensive functions are the preferred products of school-age children, accounting for 90.1% of the total use of smart products in this age group.

　　The survey found that although students’ tablets or learning machines have various educational and entertaining functions, more than half of the children still use them only when studying. Children’s intelligent voice watch has the main functions of positioning and calling. Older children mostly use smart watches to listen to music and books, and they will wear them when they play with their partners and when they travel alone.

　　According to the Survey, intelligent voice products provide rich materials and diverse language environments for children to learn languages. The survey shows that the audio-visual materials in intelligent voice products stimulate children’s imitation behavior. Children aged 1-3 are also interested in imitating incomprehensible language forms. Phonetic intelligent products can make children use language more easily and absorb knowledge.

　　In the aspect of phonetic assistance, the Survey pointed out that parents and children think that the most practical function of intelligent phonetic products is phonetic retrieval, followed by remote audio and video tutoring and providing listening and speaking materials. 56.7% of children often use voice retrieval function, 42.6% often use audio-visual counseling function, and 38.2% often use it to obtain listening and speaking materials. In terms of age, the proportion of children above the third grade in primary school who use intelligent voice products to assist reading has increased significantly, from 26.3% before the third grade to 46.3%.

　　In terms of assisting social interaction, the Survey shows that 68.3% of parents say that children are more active and lively in communication after using intelligent voice products. 31.7% of parents are worried that their children prefer to communicate with smart products and have less communication with their families. 53.3% of parents said that when family members and voice assistants are present at the same time, children will give priority to asking voice assistants instead of parents when they encounter problems.

　　The Survey also mentioned that intelligent voice products have become a tool for some children to socialize and a means to arouse topics, which has promoted the language communication between children and their peers or family members to a certain extent. At the same time, intelligent voice products enrich children’s dialogue style to a certain extent, and exercise children’s language expression ability. Children know to adopt different stylistic styles when dealing with people and products.