Download or read book An Evaluation of Text to Speech Synthesizers in the Foreign Language Classroom written by Tiago Bione and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As stated in Cardoso, Smith, and Garcia Fuentes (2015), second language researchers and practitioners have explored the pedagogical capabilities of Text-To-Speech synthesizers (TTS) for their potential to enhance the acquisition of writing (e.g. Kirstein, 2006), vocabulary and reading (e.g. Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, 2007), and pronunciation (e.g. Cardoso, Collins, & White, 2012). Despite their demonstrated effectiveness, there is a need for up-to-date formal evaluations of TTS systems, specifically for their potential to promote the ideal conditions under which languages are acquired, particularly in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment, as suggested by Cardoso, Smith, and Garcia Fuentes (2015). This study evaluated a modern English TTS system in an EFL context in Brazil, at a number of levels, including speech quality, opportunity to focus on form, and learners' cognitive processing of TTS-generated texts. Fifteen Brazilian EFL learners participated in the study in which they listened to both human and TTS-produced speech samples while performing the above-mentioned tasks. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data about participants' perceptions of the technology. We report an analysis of these interviews, which indicate that EFL learners have overall positive attitudes towards the pedagogical use of TTS, and that they would like to use the technology as a learning tool. [For the complete volume of short papers, see ED572005.].
Download or read book CALL communities and culture short papers from EUROCALL 2016 written by Salomi Papadima-Sophocleous and published by Research-publishing.net. This book was released on 2016-12-18 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 23rd EUROCALL conference was organised by the Cyprus University of Technology Language Centre. The theme of the conference was “CALL communities and Culture”. Between the 24th and 27th August 2016, over 135 presentations were delivered and 27 posters were presented; 84 of these presentations appear in this volume of selected peer-reviewed short papers.
Download or read book Critical CALL Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference Padova Italy written by Francesca Helm and published by Research-publishing.net. This book was released on 2015-12-02 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theme of the conference this year was Critical CALL, drawing inspiration from the work carried out in the broader field of Critical Applied Linguistics. The term ‘critical’ has many possible interpretations, and as Pennycook (2001) outlines, has many concerns. It was from these that we decided on the conference theme, in particular the notion that we should question the assumptions that lie at the basis of our praxis, ideas that have become ‘naturalized’ and are not called into question. Over 200 presentations were delivered in 68 different sessions, both in English and Italian, on topics related specifically to the theme and also more general CALL topics. 94 of these were submitted as extended papers and appear in this volume of proceedings.
Download or read book Text to Speech Synthesis written by Paul Taylor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text-to-Speech Synthesis provides a complete, end-to-end account of the process of generating speech by computer. Giving an in-depth explanation of all aspects of current speech synthesis technology, it assumes no specialised prior knowledge. Introductory chapters on linguistics, phonetics, signal processing and speech signals lay the foundation, with subsequent material explaining how this knowledge is put to use in building practical systems that generate speech. Including coverage of the very latest techniques such as unit selection, hidden Markov model synthesis, and statistical text analysis, explanations of the more traditional techniques such as format synthesis and synthesis by rule are also provided. Weaving together the various strands of this multidisciplinary field, the book is designed for graduate students in electrical engineering, computer science, and linguistics. It is also an ideal reference for practitioners in the fields of human communication interaction and telephony.
Download or read book The Path of Speech Technologies in Computer Assisted Language Learning written by Melissa Holland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-02-08 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection examines the promise and limitations for computer-assisted language learning of emerging speech technologies: speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, and acoustic visualization. Using pioneering research from contributors based in the US and Europe, this volume illustrates the uses of each technology for learning languages, the problems entailed in their use, and the solutions evolving in both technology and instructional design. To illuminate where these technologies stand on the path from research toward practice, the book chapters are organized to reflect five stages in the maturation of learning technologies: basic research, analysis of learners’ needs, adaptation of technologies to meet needs, development of prototypes to incorporate adapted technologies, and evaluation of prototypes. The volume demonstrates the progress in employing each class of speech technology while pointing up the effort that remains for effective, reliable application to language learning.
Download or read book The Path of Speech Technologies in Computer Assisted Language Learning written by Melissa Holland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-02-08 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection examines the promise and limitations for computer-assisted language learning of emerging speech technologies: speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, and acoustic visualization. Using pioneering research from contributors based in the US and Europe, this volume illustrates the uses of each technology for learning languages, the problems entailed in their use, and the solutions evolving in both technology and instructional design. To illuminate where these technologies stand on the path from research toward practice, the book chapters are organized to reflect five stages in the maturation of learning technologies: basic research, analysis of learners’ needs, adaptation of technologies to meet needs, development of prototypes to incorporate adapted technologies, and evaluation of prototypes. The volume demonstrates the progress in employing each class of speech technology while pointing up the effort that remains for effective, reliable application to language learning.
Download or read book Text to speech Synthesis in Computer assisted Language Learning for Irish written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Language Teaching and Language Technology written by Arthur van Essen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text assesses the importance of language technology to increasingly popular computer-assisted language learning work. The book contains writings on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, testing, distance learning and user studies.
Download or read book Broadcast News Workshop 99 Proceedings written by Darpa and published by Morgan Kaufmann. This book was released on 1999-06-29 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Synthetic Voices in the Foreign Language Context written by Tiago Bione Alves and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second language (L2) researchers and practitioners have explored the pedagogical capabilities of text-to-speech synthesizers (TTS) for their potential to enhance the acquisition of writing (Kirstein, 2006), vocabulary and reading (Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, 2007), and pronunciation (Cardoso, Collins, & White, 2012; Liakin, Cardoso, & Liakina, 2017; Soler-Urzua, 2011). Despite the positive evidence to support the use of TTS as a learning tool, the applications need to be formally evaluated for their potential to promote the conditions under which languages are acquired, particularly in an English as a foreign language (EFL) environment, as suggested by Cardoso, Smith, and Garcia Fuentes (2015).The current study evaluated the voice of a modern English TTS system--used in an EFL context in Brazil--in terms of its speech quality, ability to be understood by L2 users, and potential for focus on specific language forms, and was operationalized based on the following criteria: (1) users’ ratings of holistic features (comprehensibility, naturalness, and accuracy, as defined by Derwing & Munro, 2005); (2) intelligibility (the extent to which a message is actually understood), measured with a dictation task; (3) text comprehension (i.e., users’ ability to understand a text and answer comprehension questions); and (4) users’ ability to hear a specific morpho-phonological feature (i.e., the aural identification of English past tense -ed.)Twenty-nine Brazilian EFL learners listened to stories and sentences, produced alternately by a TTS voice and a human, and rated them on a 6-point Likert scale according to the abovementioned holistic criteria (comprehensibility, naturalness, and accuracy). In addition, they were asked to answer a set of comprehension questions to assess their ability to understand what they had heard. To measure intelligibility, participants completed a dictation task in which they were asked to transcribe utterances, as recommended by Derwing and Munro (2005). Finally, participants performed an aural identification of 16 sentences to judge whether the target feature (past mark -ed) was present or not. After these tasks were completed, semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data regarding participants’ perceptions of the technology. Results indicate that the performance of both the TTS and human voices were perceived similarly in terms of comprehensibility, while ratings for naturalness were unfavorable for the TTS voice. In addition, participants performed relatively similarly in response to both voices with respect to the tasks involving text comprehension, dictation, and identifying a target linguistic form (past -ed) in aural input. These findings suggest that TTS systems have the potential to be used as pedagogical tools for L2 learning, particularly in an EFL setting where natural occurrence of the target language is limited or non-existent.
Download or read book English Language Learning and Technology written by Carol A. Chapelle and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2003-12-17 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores implications for applied linguistics of recent developments in technologies used in second language teaching and assessment, language analysis, and language use. Focusing primarily on English language learning, the book identifies significant areas of interplay between technology and applied linguistics, and it explores current perspectives on perennial questions such as how theory and research on second language acquisition can help to inform technology-based language learning practices, how the multifaceted learning accomplished through technology can be evaluated, and how theoretical perspectives can offer insight on data obtained from research on interaction with and through technology. The book illustrates how the interplay between technology and applied linguistics can amplify and expand applied linguists’ understanding of fundamental issues in the field. Through discussion of computer-assisted approaches for investigating second language learning tasks and assessment, it illustrates how technology can be used as a tool for applied linguistics research.
Download or read book Resources in Education written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Using Computers in Teaching Foreign Languages written by Geoffrey R. Hope and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1984 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Future proof CALL language learning as exploration and encounters short papers from EUROCALL 2018 written by Peppi Taalas and published by Research-publishing.net. This book was released on 2018-12-08 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 26th EUROCALL conference was organised by the University of Jyväskylä (JYU) Language Campus and specifically the Language Centre. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Future-proof CALL: language learning as exploration and encounters’, which reflects an attempt to envision language teaching and learning futures in a changing world. What brought researchers together this year are shared concerns in relation to the sustainability of language learning and teaching in technology-rich contexts that are marked by ever-increasing complexity. The collection of short papers in this volume is a very thorough view into the conference proper exhibiting the complexity and novelty of the field of CALL. There are exciting new openings and a more profound exploration of theoretical underpinnings of the contemporary issues in teaching and learning, cross-cultural communication, mobile learning and the like.
Download or read book Computer Applications in Second Language Acquisition written by Carol Chapelle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-22 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring computer applications in second language acquisition, this book addresses issues such as effective use of software in language teaching, values and limitations of computer-assisted testing.
Download or read book Text Speech and Dialogue written by Kamil Ekštein and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-30 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Text, Speech, and Dialogue, TSD 2021, held in Olomouc, Czech Republic, in September 2021.* The 2 keynote speeches and 46 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 101 submissions. The topical sections "Text", "Speech", and "Dialogue" deal with the following issues: speech recognition; corpora and language resources; speech and spoken language generation; tagging, classification and parsing of text and speech; semantic processing of text and speech; integrating applications of text and speech processing; automatic dialogue systems; multimodal techniques and modelling, and others. * Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held in a "hybrid" mode.
