Schedule: 2009-09-10 (12:45 - 13:30)
Parallel Session 3 (Room A-1)

Title: Investigating the effectiveness of CALL software to train English proficiency
Authors: Hiroyuki Obari
Abstract: We are now living in the age of internationalization in which English is considered to be one of the most important languages in the world. How can the struggling Japanese learn to speak more understandable English for international communication? It is commonly said that Japanese speakers tend to speak English with Japanese accent, which sounds like Japanese even when speaking English. What is most important in speaking English is to follow the right patterns of prosody and to pronounce the English words properly.
This presentation is to investigate the effectiveness of software to improve English pronunciation and proficiency for Japanese EFL learners. Several parameters such as speech duration, speech power, F0 (pitch), the ratio of vowel and consonant length in each speech production were introduced to find out how much students made progress in English pronunciation and overall English proficiency. 60 first year students majoring in Economics participated in this study for the first semester in 2008.
The empirical study was carried out from April 14 to July 14 of 2008 for about three months. Students were required to use this software called “Hatsuonryoku” for about 30 minutes while the rest of the 90 -minute lesson was spent on studying World Heritage using the internet with particular emphasis on presentation. “Hatsuonryoku” is software that trains students in English pronunciation and listening.
The CASEC (Computer English Test) was used to assess the overall English proficiency as a pre-test in April and as a post-test in July. After the first semester, the progress of CASEC was measured and several parameters mentioned above between pre and post recorded readings of each student were checked.
The study concluded that the average score of CASEC improved from 532(SD109.2) in April to 583(SD 83.1) in July after having used this software for seven lessons. The differences of parameters between pre and post-recorded readings indicated that using this software helped students to improve English pronunciation and overall English proficiency.
To be more specific, this software helped to students to improve speech duration, speech power, F0(pitch), which helped the speakers to achieve more native-like speech, and found out the differences in the ratio of vowels and consonants of each recorded utterance.
It is concluded that students made progress in CASEC and proved that they could speak English with a more understandable accent. The results of this study will be explained more in details in this presentation.
Keywords: CASEC, Computer test, Prosody, Speech Recognition, Hatsuonryoku (CALL software)

Main topic: Research in new language learning environments

Biodata: Dr. Hiroyuki Obari is a professor who obtained his M.A. in TESOL from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Tsukuba. He is currently teaching at Aoyama Gakuin University and is a visiting researcher at AIST in Japan, and was a visiting research fellow at University of Oxford in 2008.
Type of presentation Paper presentation

Paper category Research

Target educational sector Higher education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	2009-09-10 (12:45 - 13:30) Parallel Session 3 (Room A-1)
Title:	Investigating the effectiveness of CALL software to train English proficiency
Authors:	Hiroyuki Obari
Abstract:	We are now living in the age of internationalization in which English is considered to be one of the most important languages in the world. How can the struggling Japanese learn to speak more understandable English for international communication? It is commonly said that Japanese speakers tend to speak English with Japanese accent, which sounds like Japanese even when speaking English. What is most important in speaking English is to follow the right patterns of prosody and to pronounce the English words properly. This presentation is to investigate the effectiveness of software to improve English pronunciation and proficiency for Japanese EFL learners. Several parameters such as speech duration, speech power, F0 (pitch), the ratio of vowel and consonant length in each speech production were introduced to find out how much students made progress in English pronunciation and overall English proficiency. 60 first year students majoring in Economics participated in this study for the first semester in 2008. The empirical study was carried out from April 14 to July 14 of 2008 for about three months. Students were required to use this software called “Hatsuonryoku” for about 30 minutes while the rest of the 90 -minute lesson was spent on studying World Heritage using the internet with particular emphasis on presentation. “Hatsuonryoku” is software that trains students in English pronunciation and listening. The CASEC (Computer English Test) was used to assess the overall English proficiency as a pre-test in April and as a post-test in July. After the first semester, the progress of CASEC was measured and several parameters mentioned above between pre and post recorded readings of each student were checked. The study concluded that the average score of CASEC improved from 532(SD109.2) in April to 583(SD 83.1) in July after having used this software for seven lessons. The differences of parameters between pre and post-recorded readings indicated that using this software helped students to improve English pronunciation and overall English proficiency. To be more specific, this software helped to students to improve speech duration, speech power, F0(pitch), which helped the speakers to achieve more native-like speech, and found out the differences in the ratio of vowels and consonants of each recorded utterance. It is concluded that students made progress in CASEC and proved that they could speak English with a more understandable accent. The results of this study will be explained more in details in this presentation.
Keywords:	CASEC, Computer test, Prosody, Speech Recognition, Hatsuonryoku (CALL software)
Main topic:	Research in new language learning environments
Biodata:	Dr. Hiroyuki Obari is a professor who obtained his M.A. in TESOL from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Tsukuba. He is currently teaching at Aoyama Gakuin University and is a visiting researcher at AIST in Japan, and was a visiting research fellow at University of Oxford in 2008.
Type of presentation	Paper presentation
Paper category	Research
Target educational sector	Higher education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No