Development of Affect-oriented Autonomous English Pronunciation Learning Materials

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K13114
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
• Research Institution: Tokyo City University (2021-2023); Tokyo Denki University (2020)
• Principal Investigator: Chujo Junko 東京都市大学, 共通教育部, 准教授 (10640295)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 英語教育 / 第二言語習得 / 発音 / 教材開発 / 音声認識

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study aimed to develop affect-focused, systematic, autonomous pronunciation instruction materials for Japanese English learners to attain intelligible English pronunciation.
To foster autonomous learners, this research focused on two important pronunciation-related learning skills, namely, self-monitoring and self-repair.This study placed a special focus on the evaluation process of the learners’performance and a sound recognition system was incorporated as the core of their evaluation. It was found that this system was highly beneficial to both learners and educators. Learners were able to receive instant feedback. Educators reduced their evaluation time, allowing them to focus on examining the learners' progress, problems, and weakness via feedback from the worksheet.
This first style of pronunciation instruction materials in the field was published as a book titled Learning English Pronunciation with Speech Recognition: A Fun Drill Book（2024,Hituzi Syobo Publishing).

Free Research Field

英語教育

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の主な学術的意義は、これまで英語発音教育で研究対象とされてこなかった英語発音教育の基軸としてのセルフモニター技術とセルフ・リペアの技術を、学習者が自動音声認識を用い、自律的に記録をとる方法により身に付けることが可能であることを実証的に明らかにしたことである。そして、得られた知見をベースとし、具体的に発音練習教材として提示できた。開発教材は、小学生・中学生・高校生・大学生と校種を問わず、学習者への明示的かつ効果的な音声指導法と教材のモデル提示、そして日本人の英語口頭コミュニケーション能力の向上をもたらす上で有力な一助となるものであり、社会的意義がある。