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	Speech Works - Teacher Speech Works - Personal SW: Research Results

SPEECH WORKS: PERSONAL VERSION
Interactive Pronunciation Practice for All Ages

Elizabeth R. Blackmer, Ph.D. and Linda J. Ferrier, Ph.D., C.C.C.
Northeastern University

This innovative program can help you modify or reduce your accent and improve your English pronunciation, intelligibility and communication skills. And, you can use it in the privacy of your own home or office.

The key to Speech Works' effectiveness is its listen-record-compare technique which makes full use of your computer's unique teaching capabilities.

• Listen to the model.
• Record your voice saying the same word,
...phrase, or sentence
• Compare your effort to the model voice.

This immediate feedback enhances learning and is highly motivating - you'll actually hear yourself improve as you work through a lesson.

Speech Works 4 (Windows only) offers 6 vocabulary preferences:

...• Adult ... • High school ... • K-8 ... • New Immigrant ... • Medical: Nursing ... • Medical: Pharmacy These choices control more than vocabulary alone. They also control the level of detail and difficulty of explanations, and the types of exercises that are presented. Users can change the preferences at any time to adjust to the students’ needs.

Speech Works offers specific lesson plans automatically formulated for 46 different first languages and English dialects:
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• American: Black • American: Eastern • American: Southern • Australian English • Arabic • British English • Canadian English • Cantonese • Caribbean English • Chinese • Croatian • Czech • East African English • Egyptian • Farsi • French • German • Greek • Hebrew • Hindi • Hungarian • Indonesian • Italian	.	• Japanese • Korean • Malay • Polish • Portuguese • Russian • Serbian • Singaporean English • South Asian English • South African English • Spanish • Taiwanese • Tamil • Thai • Turkish • Urdu • Vietnamese • West African English • Malaysian English • Mandarin • New Zealand English • Persian • Philippine English

Speech Works consists of 24 Lesson Units. Each unit targets a different sound or speech pattern.

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	• Unit 1: Finish that Word ..("t", "p" and "k" sounds) • Unit 2: Clearer Endings ..("d" vs "t"; "b" vs "p" ..and "g" vs "k" sounds) • Unit 3: Double Trouble ..("nt" and "nd" sounds) • Unit 4: Very Useful ..("v" vs "f" and "v" vs "b" sounds) • Unit 5: Hardly Hard ..(the "h" sound) • Unit 6: Getting Along ..(the "ng" sound) • Unit 7: Contours: Up & ..Down (asking questions, rising pitch ..and pitch in lists) • Unit 8: Up Front ..(five front vowels) • Unit 9: At Last ..(the lowest front vowel) • Unit 10: Light Work ..(the "l" sound with vowels) • Unit 11: Flying ..(the "l" sound with consonants) • Unit 12: Get Ready ..(the "r" sound)		• Unit 13: A Little Riddle ..(the "l" and "r" sounds) • Unit 14: Says Who? ..(the "s" and "z" sounds) • Unit 15: This with That ..(the two "th" sounds) • Unit 16: Cheer Up! ..(the "ch" and "sh" sounds) . • Unit 17: Just Enough ..(the "j" sound) • Unit 18: Willing Work ..(the "w" and "y" sounds) • Unit 19: Loud & Quiet ..(stress and linking) • Unit 20: Less Confusion ..(central vowels and vowel variation) • Unit 21: Good To Do ..(back vowels) • Unit 22: Right Now ..(three diphthongs) • Unit 23: Stretching ..("s" in initial consonant clusters) • Unit 24: Hard Work ..("r" followed by a consonant) .

There are a number of different types of exercises within each unit including:

• Discriminating Sounds Exercises
• Word Pair Drills
• Sentence Exercises
• Professional Vocabulary Drills
• Workplace Practice
• Extra Practice Section
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DISCRIMINATING SOUNDS EXERCISE

The Discriminating Sounds Exercise is a tic-tac-toe game. In this exercise you practice listening to and recognizing the difference between the specific sounds studied in the unit.

You play the game by listening to pairs of words and deciding if they are the same or different.

You try to win the game by getting three smiling faces in a row - up, across, or diagonally.

To start the game, click on one of the nine tiles showing question marks. Click the Play button to hear the model recording of two words.

If they sound the same, click on the Same button. If they sound different, click on the Different button. A smiling face appears if you are correct. Choose more tiles until you win or lose the game.

After you can easily tell if the words are the same or different, go on to the Word Pairs Drill, where you will practice pronouncing the same sounds.

WORD PAIRS DRILL

The five word pairs in this exercise sound the same except for the last sound. Click on an underlined word to hear the model recording.

Click on a black arrow on the left to hear the model recording of the pair of words.

Listen to the model recording of a pair of words. Click the microphone button and speak the pair of words into the microphone.

When you have finished recording, the Play Self (single person), Play Both (two person) buttons are active. The Save (disk icon) button is active if you have signed in on the Main Menu.

Click on the Play Self button to hear your recording. Listen to the model voice with your recording by clicking on the Play Both button. If you want to record again, click on the microphone button to make a new recording.

Recording yourself and listening to your voice compared with the model voice is the key to success with Speech Works. That's all there is to it!
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SENTENCE EXERCISE

The key sound in this exercise is the same as the word drill but this time the word is in a sentence. The key sound in each sentence is darkened (bold face type).

Click on the black arrow to hear the model recording of the sentence. Recording works the same as in the word pair exercise.

When you use the sentence exercises, work first on the problem sounds. After you can make the sounds in the sentence exercises, you may want to listen to the whole sentences carefully and practice their rhythms and pitches.

PROFESSIONAL VOCABULARY EXERCISE

Here the problem is the same but this exercise is more difficult and uses a more professional vocabulary.

Click on an underlined word to hear the model recording of it or click on the black arrow to hear the model recording of the word in a phrase. Notice that the key sounds in the underlined words are darkened.

WORKPLACE PRACTICE EXERCISE

At the top of the screen is a common sentence you can memorize and use. It contains the same problem (i.e., sound) as in the previous exercises in the Unit. You can listen to the model recording by clicking on the arrow. The recording feature always works in the same way.

You are asked to think of one word that contains the problem sound and to try to use that word where you speak English. If you can't think of a word, there are some examples and there is always one word that everyone uses. Click on the arrow pointing to these words to play their model recordings.

EXTRA PRACTICE

Extra Practice is an excellent place to review and practice all of the target sounds emphasized in a unit.

Clicking on one of the tabs displays a common word, sentence or technical word containing the target sound.

Each time you click on the Next Common Word (Phrase or Sentence) button, a different word (phrase or sentence) is displayed with the target highlighted.

Clicking on the arrow plays the model recording and the Audio Palette operates identically as before, so you can record yourself and compare your pronunciations with the models.
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