Streaming Speech.

Streaming Speech by Richard Cauldwell addresses, in an interesting and theoretically-argued way, problems of speech perception and production as experienced by foreign language learners. The approach used, while focusing on English, is not language-specific.

TECHNICAL MATTERS

Streaming Speech comes in the form of a CD inside a modest-looking package with minimal paper documentation. It installs effortlessly. The material takes the shape of a Web-based interactive system (it actually runs in Internet Explorer 5 or above) and is written in a Web-based authoring system called Fabris (http://www.fab24.net). This system is loosely based on Toolbook by Asymetrix. Streaming Speech has the potential to be deployed across the Internet (a version of it is, in fact, already available as a demonstration http://www.fab24.net/SS_Demo/guest1.htm). In the long term, the ability to be served across the Internet leading to the potential to integrate with other systems will enable Streaming Speech to increase its user base as well as increase its range of related teaching and learning support. The system, which consists of lesson materials and a recording applet installs itself painlessly and with no detectable software problems.

PEDAGOGIC MATTERS

Streaming Speech is a self-study computer package arranged in 10 chapters. It presents itself as a series of attractive pages, which are meant to be navigated sequentially within each chapter. Learners are also able to connect to any part of the program at any time through access to a layered series of menus some with drop-down boxes. The interface provided is simple yet information-rich, allowing learners to travel easily from point to point in response to their perceived needs. The page in Figure 1 shows the range of options usually available at any one time, including a drop-down menu of the chapter content.

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The richness of the menu structure is supplemented with some presentation niceties. For instance, one of the introduction pages (see Figure 2) features a photograph of the author (top right) and small photographs of the speakers. When the mouse passes over each speaker some biographical information is displayed in a popup window and the speaker's voice is heard. This side-by-side arrangement allows quick contrasting and comparing of voice quality, speech rhythms, and delivery, while personalising the learning experience and reinforcing the sense of friendship/closeness which the author clearly tries to generate between himself, informants, and learners. Disappointingly, the author's picture remains silent.

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The Introduction to Streaming Speech identifies potential users (upper intermediate/advanced learners of English and language teacher trainees) and presents some key concepts. These include a description of "fast spontaneous speech," the main object of study in the program, which is defined as being between 250 and 500 words per minute with significant inter and intra speaker variations depending on context and communicative needs. The introduction also describes the format of each chapter.

The stated objective of the resource is to use "authentic fast spontaneous speech of native speakers of English--all friends or colleagues of mine--to teach listening and pronunciation in a revolutionary way."

Further, the author states,

This sets the scene, establishes priorities, and reveals the author's theoretical framework. Perception comes first, then production. What is not stated explicitly but is implied, is that perception and production are viewed as mutually reinforcing processes and that working with them in the way described above results in a cyclical process of progressive refinement of both.

The first eight chapters of the program are based on the discussion and analysis of eight speakers of British Isles English all identified as friends of the author and all having a connection with the University of Birmingham. With one exception, they all produce unscripted speech as part of an interview and talk spontaneously about their personal lives and the things that matter to them. The exception just mentioned is in chapter 5 and consists of a fragment of a university lecture. Thus the corpus of speech samples is fairly small and consists of the voices of educated people marked by some common regional and cultural variations. This choice of example voices, though probably offering too little spoken language for a full listening course and a full sensitisation to the range of British Isles English, is a reasonable one given the practicalities of courseware production.

According to the author,

This structure is adhered to consistently with awareness-raising exercises provided at each step of the way. For instance, the screen below (Figure 3) is meant to bring to the learner's notice the prosodic features of a speech-unit. It does that by using a special notation which identifies stressed syllables (uppercase letters or large circles) and which is arranged in the shape of an intonation curve. Clicking the speaker icon will play the speech-unit and each syllable is highlighted as it is pronounced. While there is plenty of evidence that learners have difficulty in perceiving correct prosody, the feedback provided here can begin to make learners aware of where stress patterns are supposed to occur and how speech melody is organised.

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There are many similar awareness-raising exercises built into this program. The two screen displays which follow represent some of the more complex ones.

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While awareness of prosodic features is crucial to the achieving the author's objectives, the "fast speech" aspect of the programs is further developed through specific exercises which, for instance contrast slow "dictionary" pronunciations of individual words with the same words produced in natural language. This kind of exercise is valuable in that it heightens learners' awarenesses that "words" simply do not exist in natural spoken language. In time, armed with their new sense of awareness, learners' expectancies as to the content of natural spoken language will change.

Awareness and listening exercices are reinforced through the pronunciation practice which is available throughout the program. This is based on a record and compare approach. Learners are required to match the models provided in every way, thus hopefully developing their sense of the phenomena under scrutiny. However, they are asked not only to record a final product such as "fast speech" in action, but also to record some of the language which contrasts strongly with "fast speech," for example, "dictionary" pronunciations of words. This is so as to give them opportunities for experiencing contrasts not only as listeners but as producers, too. These changes in forms of perception are designed to give learners the opportunity to listen and perceive differently, thus increasing the probability of changing the ways they both hear and produce. While learners are likely to be able to detect gross errors in their performances (e.g., speed mismatches between the model and themselves), such an approach is problematic in the more subtle areas of pronunciation and runs the risk of reinforcing incorrect pronunciation habits unless the learner's perceptions have been sufficiently sharpened to enable some degree of self-correction. To counteract the problem, it might have been possible to incorporate a speech recognition engine of one kind or another (e.g., the popular Auralog Tell Me More http://www.auralog.com). These programs, while improving in their functionality probably have some way to go before they are fully reliable. It is possible to envisage other ways of providing feedback such as incorporating visual displays, However, speech recognition systems and visual displays are both expensive to incorporate and potentially difficult to manage.

Though clearly linked to the production of correct sounds and prosody, the speed-matching exercises are less likely to be problematic as ample support is provided to develop awareness of the global timing issues involved. While the provision and nature of any feedback remains problematic in all programs such as this one, the level of information and awareness-raising provided by this particular system through its exercises, animations, and tests is likely to enable learners to begin making inroads into their perceptual mechanisms. Of course, the ultimate effectiveness of the package will need to be tested over time.

The content for the approach just outlined is based on an integrated view of speech phenomena. Each of the first eight chapters deals with a combination of features. For instance, chapter 2, "On the Move Again," says it is about long vowels but lists the following activities: "speak in a distinct rhythm; speak without a distinct rhythm; use prominences, non-prominences and pauses--360 words per minute."

Thus, this program adopts a standard intellectual position in relation to articulation phenomena, appearing to focus on speech sounds but in fact doing something else: working on prosodic features, rate of delivery and articulation phenomena. In a world where the study of pronunciation is still very strongly focused on the study of individual sounds, such an approach makes discursive sense.

Chapter 9 consists of a "segment workshop: choose a speaker to work on the vowels and consonants of English." Learners are asked to select from one of six speakers on whom they would like to model their voices. This is in itself a positive original approach designed to enhance learners' comfort levels and enable them to "tune in" to the kind of English that they wish to produce. The same approach is used here in relation to fast and slow speech but this time there is special emphasis on particular groups of vowel and consonants grouped together.

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