Promoting English Pronunciation via Mobile Devices-Based Automatic Speech Evaluation (ASE) Technology

• Published in: Blended Learning. Enhancing Learning Success Vol. 10949; pp. 333 - 343
• Main Authors: Liu, Xiaobin, Zhu, Chunxiao, Jiao, Jianli, Xu, Manfei
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2018; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Automatic Speech Evaluation; Imitating-speaking; Immediate feedback; MALL; Phonetics teaching
• ISBN: 9783319945040; 3319945041
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-94505-7_27

Traditional English teaching in China pays insufficient attention to phonetics teaching and usually leads to learners’ poor pronunciation. With the rapid development of the Automatic Speech Evaluation (ASE) technology, many applications are designed to help learners improve their pronunciation. However, no formal conclusion has been made on the effectiveness of ASE-based “imitating-speaking” with immediate feedbacks in English phonetics learning. This study analyzes the validity of the ASE-based “imitating-speaking” by using Fluent English as the tool of the two-month experiment. 64 learners in China are chosen as the subjects and they are divided into an experimental group and a control one. The result turns out that ASE-based “imitating-speaking” helps to improve learners’ pronunciation and intonation. Moreover, on the basis of the result of the experiment, the study sums up some relative teaching and learning strategies that are employed in this phonetics learning method.