Description

TipTopTalk! is a mobile application using the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and speech synthesis (Text-To-Speech, TTS) technologies for teaching and self-assessment of the pronunciation of any language (or dialect). In addition, it includes a social game and gamification module to allow the interaction between people, to achieve goals, and to encourage participation in and difussion of the application via social networks, thus avoiding possible abandonments in the first days of use (main problem of most language learning applications). To this end, the application will be adapted to the user, that is, it will suggest modes and games according to their game progress. The teaching and basic game model is based on a set of minimal pairs. From a pedagogical point of view, the use of minimal pairs allows students to realize the risk of changing the meaning of words by shifting only one of their phonemes. Besides, the use of minimal pairs allows to focus on phonetic contrasts not normally noticed by foreign language students. A strategy called Native Cardinality Method is followed, which is divided into three phases: auditory repetition of sounds, perceptive sensitization and sound-making. It is based on a set of minimal pairs (words that differ only in a phoneme) classified by language and dialect (currently: Spanish from Spain, English from the USA, simplified Chinese, Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil). This application covers the need to adapt teaching materials to new technologies, such as smartphones or tablets, benefiting from the advantages that these devices can bring to the teaching and pronunciation of languages. Their portability, user-friendliness and high motivational aspect make them an ideal resource to improve pronunciation. The pronunciation accuracy can be classified into three levels: basic, intermediate and advanced. The application allows to learn and improve gradually, thus achieving a greater satisfaction and engagement while learning a foreign language.

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