I’ll be giving a presentation next Friday at 3pm, as part of the Natural Lanuage Processing seminar series, addressing some of my work with the Tactical Language project.
All are welcome to attend.
This talk will be a preview of the work I’ll be presenting at CALICO this year.
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Time: 3-4pm, Friday 2006/05/12
Location: 11-CR, ISI
Title: Pedagogical Contextualization of Language Learner Speech Errors
Abstract:
The traditional approach to diagnosing learner speech errors in Computer Aided Language Learning is to create a linguistic profile of the learner/user. We, however, propose that work must also be done to model the linguistic profile of a typcial native listener.
Not all errors in second langage learner speech are created equal. Different errors sound more “severe” or “harsh” to native speaker ears and should therefore be treated with more emphasis in pedagogical interaction.
The Tactical Language Training System (TLTS) is a speech-enabled virtual-reality based computer learning environment designed to teach Arabic spoken communication to American English speakers. This talk addresses the ways the TLTS contextualizes non-native speech errors, and how this contextualization fits in the corrective exchanges between a non-native learner and a pedagogical agent built to model a native listener.
The pedagogical system used in TLTS includes:
- Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models which are built on a combination of both annnotated and unannotated non-native speech with native speech data.
- A stochastic generative model for errors in learner speech that creates mispronunciation grammars for the ASR
- Reweighting of system-perceived mispronunciation severity based on aggregate native speaker judgements of quality pronunciation and intelligiblity.
- Contextualization of feedback based on lexical and phonetic inventories of the native and non-native languages.