Teaching suprasegmentals through strategy use and technology

textIn an increasingly global world, there is a growing demand for pronunciation instruction. A focus on intelligibility as the goal in pronunciation instruction has risen to the forefront of the literature. Suprasegmentals are a practical goal for instruction since they have been shown to have a greater impact on overall intelligibility, but many language curricula do not allocate time or resources to pronunciation instruction at all, making it difficult for teachers to incorporate much needed suprasegmental learning in language classrooms. This Report suggests a practical way to incorporate suprasegmental learning in a mixed language background classroom: a project that incorporates a Web 2.0 tool, VoiceThread, and Covert Rehearsal Model strategy use.Foreign Language Educatio

Supporting Stylized Language Models Using Multi-Modality Features

As AI and machine learning systems become more common in our everyday lives, there is an increased desire to construct systems that are able to seamlessly interact and communicate with humans. This typically means creating systems that are able to communicate with humans via natural language. Given the variance of natural language, this can be a very challenging task. In this thesis, I explored the topic of humanlike language generation in the context of stylized language generation. Stylized language generation involves producing some text that exhibits a specific, desired style. In this dissertation, I specifically explored the use of multi-modality features as a means to provide sufficient information to produce high-quality stylized text output. I also explored how these multi-modality features can be used to identify and explain errors in the generated output. Finally, I constructed an automated language evaluation metric that can evaluate stylized language models

Teaching American English Pronunciation in a Spanish Speaking Context: A Guide for EFL Teachers in Chile

This field project addresses the lack of education surrounding pronunciation teaching, and it specifically responds to the opportunities available within English as a Foreign Language settings. This project is especially relevant to English language teachers who would like to study pronunciation teaching and its history. The objective of this research is to inform educators of the validity of teaching pronunciation and to teach educators effective strategies that can be used. Theories of Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis form the foundation of this project, as well as theories of Interlanguage and Markedness. The literature review includes extensive research into the subject matter of pronunciation teaching and Contrastive Analysis. The project is a video-lecture series to support the pronunciation instruction for native Spanish speakers. The Contrastive Analysis is between English and Spanish, and the video-lecture series was made for a specifically Chilean audience

Directions for the future of technology in pronunciation research and teaching

This paper reports on the role of technology in state-of-the-art pronunciation research and instruction, and makes concrete suggestions for future developments. The point of departure for this contribution is that the goal of second language (L2) pronunciation research and teaching should be enhanced comprehensibility and intelligibility as opposed to native-likeness. Three main areas are covered here. We begin with a presentation of advanced uses of pronunciation technology in research with a special focus on the expertise required to carry out even small-scale investigations. Next, we discuss the nature of data in pronunciation research, pointing to ways in which future work can build on advances in corpus research and crowdsourcing. Finally, we consider how these insights pave the way for researchers and developers working to create research-informed, computer-assisted pronunciation teaching resources. We conclude with predictions for future developments

Current Debates in the Theory and Teaching of English L2 Pronunciation

Ironically, the single concept that appears to be universal in the field of English pronunciation research and instruction, its common denominator as it were, is diversity. Research theory and classroom practice have both convincingly proven that explicit training may indeed lead to improvements in a learner’s clarity of speech, but it seems that everything else is open for debate. Variability in opinions begins with different interpretations of basic concepts, of individual speech sounds, syllables, phrases and utterances. Correctly identifying research foci, and by extension, educational priorities for classroom instruction also divides English L2 pronunciation professionals. Models are yet another area of contention – whether to focus on traditional pronunciation points of reference, e.g. features of Received Pronunciation or General American, or to concentrate instead on interactions where no native speaker is present, as proposed by the English as an International Language (EIL) framework. Next, dispelling doubts about its effectiveness can be a challenging endeavour when progress often manifests in small increments which require a significant investment of time and effort. Finally, the decision to incorporate digital technology and the Internet into the pronunciation classroom remains a dividing line between enthusiasts and those that call CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) a fad that will soon pass. The purpose of this paper is to examine these hotly debated issues, while acknowledging that its emphasis on depth may be at the expense of breadth. Its scope will allow it to touch upon but the most significant disputes, those that bridge research theory with English L2 pronunciation classroom practice.Keywords: English L2 pronunciation instruction; curriculum and materials design; pronunciation teaching effectivenes

MISPRONUNCIATION DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN MANDARIN ACCENTED ENGLISH SPEECH

This work presents the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Mispronunciation Detection and Diagnosis (MDD) system, with application to pronunciation evaluation of Mandarin-accented English speech. A comprehensive detection and diagnosis of errors in the Electromagnetic Articulography corpus of Mandarin-Accented English (EMA-MAE) was performed by using the expert phonetic transcripts and an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system. Articulatory features derived from the parallel kinematic data available in the EMA-MAE corpus were used to identify the most significant articulatory error patterns seen in L2 speakers during common mispronunciations. Using both acoustic and articulatory information, an ASR based Mispronunciation Detection and Diagnosis (MDD) system was built and evaluated across different feature combinations and Deep Neural Network (DNN) architectures. The MDD system captured mispronunciation errors with a detection accuracy of 82.4%, a diagnostic accuracy of 75.8% and a false rejection rate of 17.2%. The results demonstrate the advantage of using articulatory features in revealing the significant contributors of mispronunciation as well as improving the performance of MDD systems

Evaluating the explicit pragmatic instruction of requests and apologies in a study abroad setting:the case of ESL Chinese learners at a UK Higher Education institution

This study aimed to determine the effects of an explicit instructional treatment, within a study abroad context, for improving the spoken pragmatic competence of Chinese English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in the UK. The intervention in this study specifically focused on the speech acts of requests and apologies, and the effects of differentiated training materials, i.e., paper-based versus computer-based tasks. Instructional effects were compared to a control group receiving no instruction to further investigate the extent to which exposure to the second language environment naturally enhanced the development of request and apology language. The data were captured from 61 undergraduate Chinese learners of English. Two experimental groups (paper-based vs. computer-based training materials) participated in ten hours of explicit instruction on the linguistic and cultural aspects of making requests and apologies in an academic setting. A language contact questionnaire tracked learners’ engagement with English outside the classroom. A pretest and multiple posttest design using oral and written production tasks analysed instructional effects over time, measured against the uninstructed control group. The oral task took the format of innovative computer-based virtual role plays, which were also employed for communicative practice with one of the experimental groups. The data were: i) rated for socio-pragmatic success by experienced tutors, and ii) linguistically analysed, including identifying what were considered the essential components for successful requests and apologies. Results showed that explicit instruction was highly effective, with the group using computer-based tasks outperforming the other groups. Some evidence of attrition was found in the longer term, however. Exposure to the L2 environment facilitated little change in the production of request and apology language though increased L2 interaction appeared concomitant with prolonged L2 stay. The outcomes underline the positive benefits of explicit pragmatic instruction and technology-enhanced teaching, but indicate a need for regular input and practice opportunities for long-term retention of pragmatic knowledge

Evaluating the explicit pragmatic instruction of requests and apologies in a study abroad setting:the case of ESL Chinese learners at a UK Higher Education institution

This study aimed to determine the effects of an explicit instructional treatment, within a study abroad context, for improving the spoken pragmatic competence of Chinese English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in the UK. The intervention in this study specifically focused on the speech acts of requests and apologies, and the effects of differentiated training materials, i.e., paper-based versus computer-based tasks. Instructional effects were compared to a control group receiving no instruction to further investigate the extent to which exposure to the second language environment naturally enhanced the development of request and apology language. The data were captured from 61 undergraduate Chinese learners of English. Two experimental groups (paper-based vs. computer-based training materials) participated in ten hours of explicit instruction on the linguistic and cultural aspects of making requests and apologies in an academic setting. A language contact questionnaire tracked learners’ engagement with English outside the classroom. A pretest and multiple posttest design using oral and written production tasks analysed instructional effects over time, measured against the uninstructed control group. The oral task took the format of innovative computer-based virtual role plays, which were also employed for communicative practice with one of the experimental groups. The data were: i) rated for socio-pragmatic success by experienced tutors, and ii) linguistically analysed, including identifying what were considered the essential components for successful requests and apologies. Results showed that explicit instruction was highly effective, with the group using computer-based tasks outperforming the other groups. Some evidence of attrition was found in the longer term, however. Exposure to the L2 environment facilitated little change in the production of request and apology language though increased L2 interaction appeared concomitant with prolonged L2 stay. The outcomes underline the positive benefits of explicit pragmatic instruction and technology-enhanced teaching, but indicate a need for regular input and practice opportunities for long-term retention of pragmatic knowledge

The effect of explicit instruction and auditory/audio-visual training on Chinese EFL learner's perception of intonation

Ph. D. Thesis (Integrated)Intonation accounts for a big part in speech intelligibility and is notoriously difficult to be acquired by L2 learners. The bulk of research on L2 intonation has focussed on the examination of learners’ intonational performance at the phonetic and phonological levels using perceptual and/or production tasks; however, empirical studies on whether and how intonation training can help improve learners’ performance are surprisingly scarce. This study fills this gap by devising instruction and training materials which were meticulously tailored for Chinese learners of English, the largest population of English learners in the world. The participants were 60 English-related majoring students from Newcastle University, most of whom wanted to become English teachers following their studies. They were pseudorandomly mapped into three groups according to their overall English proficiency. Two of the groups were taught explicitly on the forms and functions of English intonation but one selfpracticed auditorily on Audacity whereas the other audio-visually on Praat. The third group, which served as control, did not get any intonation training. Learners’ competence of intonation was assessed by a comprehension task before, immediately after, and two months after the three-week training course. Ten native speakers of Southern British English were recruited for the pre- and post-test to set a baseline for the analysis of learners’ performance. The results are: 1. Chinese EFL learners did significantly worse than native speakers in terms of understanding intonation meanings contrasted by accentuation, phrasing, and tone. 2. Learners’ comprehension ability was improved immediately after the training for all three aspects. 3. The training effect remain in the delayed post-test. 4. The audio-visual group did not perform significantly better than the auditory group. The results indicate that certain aspects of intonation are teachable and learnable, and tailor-made instruction and materials are effective and applicable in use. This study provides English teachers in China with novel ways to equip Chinese EFL learners with greater intonational competence