Effects of imitation, discrimination and feedback in a speech recognition system on CFL pronunciation

106

For all the Chinese learners, the attainment of successful communication is essential. And the correct articulation/pronunciation is then necessary if we want to get our meaning across in a lucid style. Along with the advancement of technology and the development of speech recognition device, Computer Assisted Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT) is now under way and incorporated into teaching which conjoins both information technology and pedagogical theory. This sort of technical invention as a medium of pronunciation diagnosis not only helps students benefit from the pleasure of independent learning but also allows teachers to focus more on the quality of the teaching materials per se. This study proposes three strategies as what follows: Speech Imitation, Speech Discrimination, and Automatic Feedback after speakers imitate the correct sound given. Besides, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) would be applied in conjunction with these strategies to facilitate CAPT and also encourage learners to practise Chinese pronunciation. This research aims to argue that the different combinations of strategies may shed light on the correct sound acquisition of learners. Whilst practising monosyllables’ pronunciation, the deployment of the strategies are found to be helpful in rectifying their mispronunciation to several levels. The participants in this research include 60 foreign learners of Chinese language, and they had been randomised into 4 groups. Each group is designed to undergo a specific combination of strategies. Lastly, we’d evaluate and compare the learning effect of speakers amongst the four groups. The result shows that: 1. The background of participants would influence the Chinese pronunciation acquisition. Those who are of the Sino-sphere (Chinese cultural sphere) usually have a more desirable performance than those who aren’t. 2. Each group makes progress in the posttest, yet the degree of progress varies across groups. 3. The upshot of the pronunciation test of the group which taps into all three strategies is more satisfactory than that of the group which uses the sole strategy ‘Automatic Feddback.’ 4. From the questionnaire in Appendix, we know that most participants have positive feedback towards this system. In the last chapter, we will further our discussion based on the conclusion and the interviews with participants, and summarise this paper with some advices and potential research directions..