L2-ARCTIC: A Non-Native English Speech Corpus

In this paper, we introduce L2-ARCTIC, a speech corpus of non-native English that is intended for research in voice conversion, accent conversion, and mispronunciation detection. This initial release includes recordings from ten non-native speakers of English whose first languages (L1s) are Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Arabic, each L1 containing recordings from one male and one female speaker. Each speaker recorded approximately one hour of read speech from the Carnegie Mellon University ARCTIC prompts, from which we generated orthographic and forced-aligned phonetic transcriptions. In addition, we manually annotated 150 utterances per speaker to identify three types of mispronunciation errors: substitutions, deletions, and additions, making it a valuable resource not only for research in voice conversion and accent conversion but also in computer-assisted pronunciation training. The corpus is publicly accessible at https://psi.engr.tamu.edu/l2-arctic-corpus/

The influence of an online pronunciation teacher’s manual on teachers’ cognitions

Despite their importance, teacher’s manuals (TM) have never drawn much attention in language teaching research, and therefore they have not been researched from the perspective of pronunciation teaching. It may be that they have not been perceived as having a role more than being an answer key for student materials (Sheldon, 1987). However, TMs deserve attention since curriculum materials - including TMs - have a positive impact on teachers’ learning and professional development (Grossman & Thompson, 2008). TMs may especially be crucial in supporting teachers in pronunciation teaching since many teachers find this skill challenging because of lack of training (Foote, Holtby, & Derwing, 2011), lack of experience (Burns, 2006), lack of knowledge (Baker & Murphy, 2011), and lack of confidence (Bernat, 2008). This study investigated native and non-native English-speaking teachers’ (NEST and NNEST) cognitions – mainly knowledge –in relation to (1) pronunciation teaching and (2) pronunciation teaching materials. In addition, the study explored (3) how teachers used an online teacher’s manual (OTM) and (4) what kind of influences the OTM had on pronunciation teachers’ cognitions about and confidence in pronunciation teaching. Data of this study for the first two research questions came from the survey responses of 54 teachers (NEST=34; NNEST=20) and interview responses of 24 teachers (NEST=14; NNEST=10). Data for the third and fourth research questions came from the weekly journal responses and the tracking of real-time data use of eight teachers (NEST=5; NNEST=3) who taught with the OTM. Findings showed that native and non-native English-speaking teachers said that lack of subject-matter knowledge or pedagogical content knowledge made pronunciation teaching challenging at times. Lack of knowledge was shown to be influential on their confidence in teaching certain pronunciation features. Examination of teachers’ cognitions related to pronunciation teaching materials showed that most of the teachers used a textbook while teaching pronunciation and less experienced teachers relied on their textbooks more heavily. In line with this finding, less experienced teachers, regardless of their language background, used the OTM more strictly, and mostly for the guidance it provided rather than for the answers. The OTM was influential in increasing and refreshing teachers’ knowledge of pronunciation, regardless of language and education background, and in boosting some teachers’ confidence in teaching pronunciation. Additionally, the use of the OTM was influential on creating positive attitudes towards using technology in teaching for some teachers who previously preferred using printed materials. This study shows that all kinds of teachers, NESTs and NNESTs, inexperienced and experienced, trained and untrained may benefit from information presented in a multimodal format in an OTM. The OTM brings flexibility into teachers’ materials preferences with its practicality and accessibility. This study shows that a TM designed in an online platform is promising for making contributions to teachers’ cognitions including their knowledge, and attitudes, and therefore positively affecting their confidence as pronunciation teachers. In this, a TM can be more than just an answer key, and can also become an important contributor to the continuing development of teacher cognitions. For pronunciation teaching, where many teachers have had inadequate training, a well-designed TM can provide the support that can make their teaching more knowledgeable and effective.</p

Pronunciation Materials

Pronunciation is increasingly popular in professional conferences where sessions are often filled to overflowing. Similarly, pronunciation materials today show up in a wide variety of sources. Baker and Murphy (2011) tell us that “the past decade has witnessed an explosion in the number of … classroom textbooks; teacher’s manuals; classroom-based research reports; teacher-training books; book chapters; journal articles; CD-ROMs; videos, computer software; Internet resources, most of which are geared directly toward ESL/EFL teachers” (p. 37). This explosion means that research into pronunciation materials needs to be based on sound research and best practices. Grant (1995) provided an early look at pronunciation materials development, but little attention has been paid to this area until recently. This chapter presents principles that should underlie pronunciation materials and then examines how four skills books follow those principles.This chapter is published as "• Levis, J., & Sonsaat, S. (2016). Pronunciation materials. In M. Azarnoosh, M. Zeraatpishe, A. Favani & H. R. Kargozari, Issues in materials development (pp. 109-119). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Posted with permission</p

L2-ARCTIC: A Non-Native English Speech Corpus

In this paper, we introduce L2-ARCTIC, a speech corpus of non-native English that is intended for research in voice conversion, accent conversion, and mispronunciation detection. This initial release includes recordings from ten non-native speakers of English whose first languages (L1s) are Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Arabic, each L1 containing recordings from one male and one female speaker. Each speaker recorded approximately one hour of read speech from the Carnegie Mellon University ARCTIC prompts, from which we generated orthographic and forced-aligned phonetic transcriptions. In addition, we manually annotated 150 utterances per speaker to identify three types of mispronunciation errors: substitutions, deletions, and additions, making it a valuable resource not only for research in voice conversion and accent conversion but also in computer-assisted pronunciation training. The corpus is publicly accessible at https://psi.engr.tamu.edu/l2-arctic-corpus/.This article is published as Zhao, G., Sonsaat, S., Silpachai,A., Lucic, I., Chukharev-Hudilainen, E., Levis, J., Gutierrez-Osuna, R., L2-ARCTIC: A Non-Native English Speech Corpus. Perception Sensing Instrumentation Lab. 2018. Posted with permission.</p

Golden Speaker Builder - An interactive tool for pronunciation training

The type of voice model used in Computer Assisted Pronunciation Instruction is a crucial factor in the quality of practice and the amount of uptake by language learners. As an example, prior research indicates that second-language learners are more likely to succeed when they imitate a speaker with a voice similar to their own, a so-called “golden speaker”. This manuscript presents Golden Speaker Builder (GSB), a tool that allows learners to generate a personalized “golden-speaker” voice: one that mirrors their own voice but with a native accent. We describe the overall system design, including the web application with its user interface, and the underlying speech analysis/synthesis algorithms. Next, we present results from a series of listening tests, which show that GSB is capable of synthesizing such golden-speaker voices. Finally, we present results from a user study in a language-instruction setting, which show that practising with GSB leads to improved fluency and comprehensibility. We suggest reasons for why learners improved as they did and recommendations for the next iteration of the training.This accepted manuscript is published as Shaojin Ding ,Christopher Liberatore ,Sinem Sonsaat ,Ivana Luˇci ́c ,Alif Silpachai ,Guanlong Zhao ,Evgeny Chukharev-Hudilainen ,John Levis ,Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna , Golden Speaker Builder - An interactive tool for pronunciation train-ing,Speech Communication(2019), DOI: 10.1016/j.specom.2019.10.005. Posted with permission.</p