Visual approach to speech sounds

Many people often struggle to master the pronunciation of foreign languages without much success. One of the reasons why L2 learners are not successful is because teaching pronunciation in the classroom is usually marginalized. With the advent of computers, this problem may partially have been overcome, due to the fact that many different types of systems and software for autonomous learning have been developed, allowing learners to improve their pronunciation skills outside the classroom. However, there are few, if any, systems and software that can present a form of visual feedback that allows learners to actually understand what their problems are. In this paper, we present the auditory-visual pronunciation system that we have developed. One of the key features of this system is that it employs easy-to-understand visuals of the speech organ that can be seen from different angles. In addition, the internal organs can also be presented by changing the mode to transparent. Furthermore, movement of the speech organs can freely be adjusted by the instructors so that the learner’s movements (especially the deviant) can be highlighted by comparing them with those of the model samples.