Opportunities for computer-aided instruction in phonetics and speech communication provided by the internet.

Abstract

Spoken language engineering is starting to deliver technological products to the commercial market and has an important future role in supporting the multilingual structures of modern Europe. The field will be driven forward by basic science and applied research by experts drawn from a variety of backgrounds; among them: linguistics, psychology, computer science and electrical engineering. The wide range of expertise required in this discipline brings difficulties for our educational systems, but also challenges us to use our knowledge of technology and communication to improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning. This paper investigates how resources currently available on the Internet could be exploited in the education of phonetics and speech communication. It discusses the technology, outlines the requirements for computer-aided learning in the field, gives a taxonomy of the available components with examples, and criticises the main weaknesses in the current provision.