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Overview Streaming Speech: Listening and Pronuncation for Advanced Learners of English is an award-winning ten chapter electronic publication for adult learners of English (EFL/ESOL) who want to achieve the highest levels of skill in listening and speaking. It is a 20-hour course that can be used in the classroom, or in self-access, or both. The core of Streaming Speech is the electronic publication which allows users to see words, click on them, and hear them as originally spoken. The Student's Book exists as a study-aid to facilitate the relationship between the classroom (where Streaming Speech is ideally introduced), study and practice in self-access mode, and tutorials in which teachers assess students' progress. Target users include: pre-sessional students; non-native teachers of English in training; candidates for high-level oral/aural exams; people preparing for tertiary level education in Britain. Recordings of spontaneous speech are used both as a focus for listening work (which targets the fastest, messiest sections of speech), and as models for pronunciation (vowels and consonants are presented in short sections of spontaneous speech). Streaming Speech is available on CD-ROM (multiple-user licences are available), over the web by annual subscription (to institutions). A Teacher's Guide is available as a series of pdf downloads on the resources page. The patterns of spontaneous speech are revealed Spontaneous speech is presented in a form which reveal its patterns, its stream-like quality, and speaker strategies (eg giving yourself planning time while speaking). Presented in an un-tidied-up form (the way listeners encounter it), users are taught to become familiar and comfortable with handling the variabilities of such speech - for both listening and speaking. Fast speech made easy Listening comprehension questions focus on the fastest, meaning-bearing parts of the recording - those parts which are likely to present problems of both perception and understanding. Questions also focus on important features (rhythm, intonation) of the stream of speech, and which then become the learning focus. Throughout, users learn how soundshapes of words, familiar in slow speech, are defamiliarised in normal everyday speech. Click on the speaker icons to hear both slow paused speech, and normal streamed speech - then click on the individual words:
Spontaneous speech Recordings of natural spontaneous (not artificial scripted) speech, are used for both listening and pronunciation work. The voices of eight people from Britain and Ireland are used. You see, you click, you hear! - The latest technology On almost every page of Streaming Speech, you see transcripts of spontaneous speech, you click on them, and you hear them as they were originally spoken. Macromedia Flash movies provide this interactive relationship between user, on-screen text, and the original recordings. The rhythms and intonation curves are also animated using Flash. Flash movies are also used to create drag-and-drop exercises, the scores for which are monitored by the Fabris delivery mechanism.
To
use Streaming Speech you need ... Try it on the Web! You can try out Streaming Speech on the web by clicking here. This gives you access to the Introduction and Chapter 1 on-line. Demonstration Disk For a demonstration
disk of Streaming Speech, Listening and Pronunciation for Advanced
Learners of English, write to |
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