163 research outputs found

    Persian ITAs and Speech Comprehensibility: Using CAPT for Pronunciation Improvement

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    Abstract It has been shown in the past that International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) struggle with phonological and communication issues in the classroom (Pickering, 1999; 2001). This issue leads to misunderstandings between ITAs and undergraduate students, frustrating them both as well as the parents of the students and the departments. However, studies have shown that with the right training, ITAs can focus on suprasegmental features, improving their speech comprehensibility and intelligibility (Gorusch, 2011). This study investigates the effect of Computer Assisted Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT) via tutorial videos and visual feedback on the improvement of ITAs’ speech comprehensibility. Across 5 US universities, 60 Persian ITAs, a video group (n=20), a visual feedback group(n=21), and a control group (n=19), completed an oral production pretest and recorded five diagnostic sentences plus spontaneous speech files. Over the next six weeks, all groups received in-person non-CAPT instruction, but the video group received and watched extra eight tutorial videos designed to target suprasegmental features and the feedback group was exposed to Praat visual feedback. Participants were also paired with a pronunciation tutor who provided instruction and feedback once a week. A perception posttest was administered, and the same 5 sentences with the spontaneous talk were once again recorded. The pre-and post-treatment sentences were then rated by 169 undergraduate students for comprehensibility. The findings of this study provide a greater understanding of how explicit instruction of pronunciation through CAPT can improve the speech comprehensibility of ITAs. The number of international people in academic and professional contexts is rising, it is necessary to guide them through appropriate instruction to improve their communication quality. The results of this study suggest that even short intervention programs that include targeted in-person tutoring, tutorial videos, and visual feedback may improve ITAs’ communications. Results also imply the need for pronunciation support for ITAs in their respective academic institutions

    Using automatic speech processing for foreign language pronunciation tutoring: Some issues and a prototype

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    Detection of Non-native Speaker Status from Backwards and Vocoded Content-masked Speech

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    This paper addresses the issue of speech rhythm as a cue to non-native pronunciation. In natural recordings, it is impossible to disentangle rhythm from segmental, subphonemic or suprasegmental features that may influence nativeness ratings. However, two methods of speech manipulation, that is, backwards content-masked speech and vocoded speech, allow the identification of native and non-native speech in which segmental properties are masked and become inaccessible to the listeners. In the current study, we use these two methods to compare the perception of content-masked native English speech and Polish-accented speech. Both native English and Polish-accented recordings were manipulated using backwards masked speech and 4-band white-noise vocoded speech. Fourteen listeners classified the stimuli as produced by native or Polish speakers of English. Polish and English differ in their temporal organization, so, if rhythm is a significant contributor to the status of non-native accentedness, we expected an above-chance rate of recognition of native and non-native English speech. Moreover, backwards content-masked speech was predicted to yield better results than vocoded speech, because it retains some of the indexical properties of speakers. The results show that listeners are unable to detect non-native accent in Polish learners of English from backwards and vocoded speech samples

    Cross-Linguistic Perception and Learning of Mandarin Chinese Sounds by Japanese Adult Learners

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    This dissertation presents a cross-linguistic investigation of how nonnative sounds are perceived by second language (L2) learners in terms of their first language (L1) categories for an understudies language pair---Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Category mapping experiment empirically measured the perceived phonetic distances between Chinese sounds and their most resembling Japanese categories, which generated testable predictions on discriminability of Chinese sound contrasts according to Perception Assimilation Model (PAM). Category discrimination experiment obtained data concerning L2 learners' actual performance on discrimination Chinese sounds. The discrepancy between PAM's predictions and actual performances revealed that PAM cannot be applied to L2 perceptual learning. It was suggested that the discriminability of L2 sound contrasts was not only determined by perceived phonetic distances but probably involved other factors, such as the distinctiveness of certain phonetic features, e.g. aspiration and retroflexion. The training experiment assessed the improvement of L2 learners' performance in identifying Chinese sound contrasts with exposure to high variability stimuli and feedback. The results not only proved the effectiveness of training in shaping L2 learners' perception but showed that the training effects were generalizable to new tokens spoken by unfamiliar talkers. In addition to perception, the production of Chinese sounds by Japanese learners was also examined from the phonetic perspective in terms of perceived foreign accentedness. Regression of L2 learners' and native speakers foreign accentedness ratings against acoustic measurements of their speech production revealed that although both segmental and suprasegmental variables contributed to the perception of foreign accent, suprasegmental variables such as total and intonation patterns were the most influential factor in predicting perceived foreign accent. To conclude, PAM failed to accurately predict learning difficulties of nonnative sounds faced by L2 learners solely based on perceived phonetic distances. As Speech Learning Model (SLM) hypothesizes, production was found to be driven by perception, since equivalence classification of L2 sounds to L1 categories prevented the establishment of a new phonological category, thus further resulted in divergence in L2 production. Although production was hypothesized to eventually resemble perception, asynchrony between production and perception was observed due to different mechanisms involved

    L2 Speaking at the University: Naturalistic Changes, Rater Judgments, and Teacher Training

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    This dissertation explores issues related to the development and evaluation of second language (L2) oral performance and to teacher training in L2 pronunciation pedagogy. Study 1 investigated naturalistic changes in L2 graduate student presentations given at the beginning and end of the students’ first two terms of study at an English-medium university. The presentations were evaluated for accentedness, comprehensibility, fluency, topic structure clarity, and overall quality by native English listeners. Links between the listener evaluations and the speakers’ use of paratones (measured as pitch increase at topic shifts) were also explored. The participants became significantly less accented and more comprehensible, but no other changes were found, and pitch increase values were not correlated with any of the listener ratings. Listener comments provided more intricate insights into the role of intonation in perceptions of structural clarity and overall quality of L2 presentations. Study 2 involved participants from the same pool as those in Study 1, but examined longitudinal changes over four time points. Samples taken from L2 graduate student presentations mostly in engineering and computer science were evaluated for accentedness, comprehensibility, fluency, content, organization, and speaking style by two groups of listeners: content specialists and non-specialists. Overall, no significant changes were found, but an analysis of individual performance revealed that some speakers appeared to improve in fluency and speaking style. The main difference between the listener groups was that specialists valued content and organization more than non-specialists, and their comments tended to be more specific and mention a wider range of assessment criteria. Study 3 explored the effects of training in pronunciation pedagogy on student teacher cognitions. Pre-service teachers from one university attended a course in phonology and pronunciation teaching, while a comparable group from another university received no specific training in pronunciation teaching. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. The treatment participants developed more favorable views of explicit pronunciation teaching and became more confident in their ability to teach pronunciation than the comparison group. The interviews revealed other cognition changes and several positive aspects of the course that influenced cognition development, as well as potential areas for improvement

    The phonological development of adult Japanese learners of English : a longitudinal study of perception and production.

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    SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN042757 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

    Sequential grouping constraints on across-channel auditory processing

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    Rhythm matters: the role of rhythmic attending for non-native learners of English

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    In English connected speech, reduction processes can dramatically affect the phonetic shape of words, especially function words, reducing their intelligibility for non-native listeners. There is a close connection between reduction and speech rhythm: metrically weak syllables reduce more, and may be cued only by subtle phonetic detail that non- native listeners struggle to detect. Despite growing evidence that attention to speech and music is rhythmically guided and that speech processing depends on language rhythm, little work has tested whether encouraging non-native learners to attend to rhythm might support their comprehension of casual speech. This thesis investigates whether comprehension of Glaswegian connected speech can be improved if English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners receive training which relies on entraining the learners’ attention to a rhythmic speech stimulus. Three experiments were conducted. All three of them followed the same pre-test, training and post-test structure. The training differed across experiments as explained below, but in all cases, the pre-test and post-test assessed participants’ comprehension of reduced unstressed function words and morphemes in casually-spoken sentences. All pre-tests and post-tests involved listening to fast casual sentences spoken by Glaswegian English native speakers while reading the sentences on a computer screen where they appeared with gaps, corresponding to reduced unstressed function words. Participants’ task was to fill these gaps with the words they heard. The participants’ score on these tests was the dependent variable. Experiment 1 investigated whether listening to rhythmically organized speech would improve learners’ comprehension as opposed to speech that was not rhythmically organized. In its training phase, EFL learners in the experimental group listened to speech of high rhythmicity, i.e. sentences of regular metrical structure which had been recorded by asking the speaker to align their speech to a regular metronome beat. Each sentence was presented four times, with its rate increasing from slow to fast, so that participants were exposed to a range of degrees of phonetic reduction, within a rhythmically predictable frame. A control group of learners listened to speech of low rhythmicity: metrically irregular sentences which had been recorded without a metronome beat, as part of a read story; again they heard four presentations ranging from slow to fast rate. To maintain attention, participants’ task during training was to count the number of times food was mentioned. Experiment 1 did not show a significant difference between the experimental and control group in terms of improvement in pre- and post-test comprehension scores, though the numerical result showed more improvement in the experimental than in the control group, i.e. in the expected direction. Experiment 2 tested whether sensorimotor synchronisation with the beat in speech would improve the learners’ connected speech comprehension, as opposed to control training. Participants in the experimental group received training in which they performed sensorimotor synchronisation (i.e. finger tapping) with the beat they perceived in the speech they heard, while the control group received training in which they listened to the same stimuli but did not tap to the beat. Instead their task was to listen and tap their finger when they heard a randomly placed click sound. Three listener groups took part in this experiment: Chinese EFL learners, native English speakers of a different variety than the speech presented (Canadian and US English), and Glaswegian English native speakers. The results showed that only the Chinese EFL learners improved in the post-test, compared to the control group. In the Canadian/US group, an interesting interaction was found suggesting that the listener’s musical ability affected whether they could benefit from the training. No improvement was found in the Glaswegian native group, whose performance was highest overall. In the third experiment, Chinese EFL learners, who were attending a preparatory course to study at the University of Glasgow, took part in a short 4-week course, with one 40-minute session per week. In this training phase they learned, as a group, to drum the rhythm of Glaswegian English utterances. The control group continued their curriculum as usual. Neither group showed a significant improvement in comprehension from pre- to post-test, which may relate to aspects of the group training setting, or to the level of English of the participants. The results allowed further exploration of the role of prior musical ability, but this did not appear to affect performance, unlike in Experiment 2. Taken together, these results are interpreted in the light of Dynamic Attending Theory (Large & Jones 1999) as well as of previous research on perceptual learning and the role of musical ability in learning a second language. Overall, the results of the three experiments offer only limited support for the idea that rhythmic training helps comprehension. The mix of negative and positive findings is interpreted in the light of Dynamic Attending Theory (L&J 1999), as well as previous research on perceptual learning and the role of musical ability in learning a second language. The conclusion argued for here is that benefits of rhythmic training are seen under specific circumstances, where training is set up in such a way as to optimize the possibility of entrainment to speech
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