The Navy is shifting its training and education from traditional methods, such as on-site instruction, texts, and observing students during drills, to computer-supported learning such as web-based instruction and computer simulations in lieu of live drills. This transition presents the challenge of keeping the best parts of traditional methods of instruction while obtaining the advantages that computers afford. The challenge is more difficult because to maximize savings in manpower, money and time, computer-based learning must be able to teach, evaluate and give feedback to students without any instructor in the loop.

A valuable aspect of traditional training methods, in which computers currently fall short, is the mentor/student relationship: an experienced person monitoring and guiding a novice's performance. The mentor gives the student direct, personalized feedback in a setting where the student can ask questions and discuss issues. Most computer simulations are lacking in this type of interaction.

We propose that giving computers the ability to hint, question, prompt and guide a student's actions using natural language will more closely simulate this relationship and greatly improve the effectiveness of computer-based learning. To assess this hypothesis, we are utilizing natural language technology to (1) allow students to use a damage control trainer for surface ships by speaking with the simulation system, and to (2) support a concurrent spoken discussion with an intelligent coaching system that aims to improve the student's immediate and future performance. The combined system performs a mentoring function, helping students learn correct actions and avoid practicing mistakes. We present data from United States Naval Academy cadets using the spoken damage control trainer and a spoken tutoring system, categorizing the opportunities their sessions present for coaching and organizing these opportunities within a mentoring framework. Additionally, natural language interaction has the advantage that students train as they will perform on duty.