Visual feedback for a student learning language pronunciation

Abstract

The learning of language pronunciation can be a frustrating and time consuming process. Traditional methods require feedback from another person, usually an instructor or another student, or use of a self assessment technique such as the listen record and compare technique. These techniques have flaws. Human factors such as self confidence, shyness, fatigue, hearing ability, vocal tract agility, and confidence in the instructors fairness and competence all influence how rapidly a student acquires new pronunciation skills. A new technique to replace or augment existing techniques needs to be explored. This thesis proposes the use of a computer to provide visual feedback to both complement auditory feedback to a student and lessen the detrimental impact that these human factors have on learning pronunciation. A computer shows no bias and provides an environment that affords privacy and the ability to practice whenever the student is willing. Additionally, the use of a computer to provide visual feedback helps a student to better understand exactly what portions and in what areas the pronunciation attempt is incorrect. This thesis identified three required areas of pronunciation feedback; phoneme, stress and intonation, and integrated them into a single interface. An object oriented LISP implementation is presented to display the visual feedback and a design for digital speech processing is proposed to analyze the pronunciation and supply the interface with data