Students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) face unique challenges in English education. Some do not have access to spoken English or American Sign Language (ASL) inputs that promote language skill development early in life.
To make grammar practice more accessible for these students, Erin Finton, a lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), teamed up with Google to create Grammar Laboratory, an AI-powered English learning tool.
Using a bilingual approach comparing both ASL and English, Finton created videos of herself signing an explanation of English grammar conventions, such as when to use the articles a, an, and the. The video explains not just what the convention is in English but also how it relates to conventions of ASL, a distinction not always explored in English education. The tool then checks students’ understanding of the grammar convention using AI-generated questions.
The questions are an assignment rather than an assessment, and each one includes an “I’m not sure” option that prompts further explanation. Students can also use a chat box to ask for clarification or help. This option is especially helpful for DHH students who struggle with the contextual understanding necessary to answer the question rather than the grammar skill itself.
The Google AI underlying Grammar Lab is agentic and designed to adapt—that is, the AI isn’t just responding to students’ questions or prompts; the AI agent is familiar with what students are looking for in the specific context of learning English. Finton and the Grammar Lab team are refining the AI model to build student profiles, tailoring the AI explanations to each student’s language proficiency. A film produced for Google by BBC StoryWorks highlights the development of the Grammar Laboratory tool.