Student Response Evaluation for Spoken Language Learning: A Case Study of Learning Chinese Tones

This paper presents speech analysis, visualization, and student response evaluation techniques that have been used for computer-aided learning a foreign language by an adult learner. The general framework for student response evaluation is described. It is based on collecting experimental data about experts’ and novices’ performance and applying machine learning and knowledge management techniques for deriving evaluation rules. A case study of learning tones of Standard Chinese (Mandarin) is discussed in details.