Learn to Listen (L2L): Perception training system for learners of English as a second language.

Abstract

Computer software (L2L) is being developed for comprehensive perception training of English by second language learners. Our goal is to facilitate generalization of post‐training improvement of phoneme perception to the perception of running speech. Three studies are reported for two groups of adult listeners, one Korean and the other Spanish. In study 1, large sets of confusable phonemes were identified from an assessment task for each group. Then training sets for consonants in CV nonsense syllables and vowels in familiar real words were selected and recordings from multiple talkers were obtained. Materials for the word‐in‐sentence (WIS) task were developed with a single low‐context carrier phrase which contained three words from the vowel training. In study 2 new Korean and Spanish listeners were trained using a protocol that included a pre‐test, eight hours of training, a post‐test, and one hour using the WIS task. Training results showed: (1) both Korean and Spanish listeners improved from pre‐ to post‐tests for vowels and consonants; (2) in vowel identification, Koreans outperformed Spanish by 34% (3) vowel identification in the WIS task appeared easier than in word‐only task, a result confirmed by a study using the WIS task without training (study 3). [Work supported by NIH.]