Intonation tutor by SPIRE (In-SPIRE): An online tool for an automatic feedback to the second language learners in learning intonation

Abstract

In spoken communication, intonation often conveys meaning of an utterance. Thus, incorrect intonation, typically made by second language (L2) learners, could result in miscommunication. We demonstrate In-SPIRE tool that helps the L2 learners to learn intonation in a self-learning manner. For this, we design an interactive self-explanatory front end, which is also used to send learner's audio and hand-shake signals to the back-end. At the back-end, we implement a system that takes the learner's audio against a specific stimuli and computes pitch patterns representing the intonation. For this, we apply pitch stylization on each syllable segment in the audio. Further, we compute a quality score using the learner's patterns and the respective ground-truth patterns. Finally, the score, the patterns of the learners and the ground-truth are sent to the front-end for display as a feedback to the learners. Thus, the learner could correct any mismatch in his/her intonation with respect to the ground-truth. The proposed tool benefits the learners who do not have access to effective spoken language training. © 2018 International Speech Communication Association. All rights reserved.