Abstract:

Foreign language (L2) learning systems usually address the development of skills related to lexical or grammatical knowledge and proficiency. Pronunciation training, although it is a key condition for fluent communication in an L2, has not received the same amount of attention. The constant quality improvement of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) has given way to a substantial increase in the number of applications which include some form of training based on the use of these technologies. There are no many contributions on the experimental evaluation of the learning effectiveness and level of user acceptance of computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) tools using ASR or TTS or both. Also, there is still some debate on the feasibility of these tools as learning aids, since they are still seen as an imperfect and unfair alternative to the human expert teacher. In this work, we present the design and evaluation of two different versions of a mobile CAPT application designed to help pronunciation training of English as L2 for native Spanish students. In particular, 372 university-level native Spanish learners of English as L2 tested one of the two versions of the CAPT system, which includes exposure, perception, and production tasks on a set of minimal pairs. The interaction with the CAPT system has been automatically recorded by file logs. Questionnaires and focus groups were also used to gather data. Results show a significant pronunciation improvement among the learners at the end of the experimentation, as well as a positive acceptance of the CAPT tool by learners, teachers, and instructors. The large dataset gathered will help researchers, teachers, and instructors to design future improved versions of the tool.

Keywords:

Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT), autonomous learning, mobile learning tools, learning environments.