Computer-based learning: what automatic speech recognition has to offer

Abstract

"Teacher-fronted instruction, with a teacher who teaches many students, is a very common teaching setting in many countries. This also applies to language learning, although one could imagine that having a teacher who can devote all his or her attention to only one or a few students would be more beneficial, especially when practicing oral skills. In fact, research has shown that students who receive one-on-one instruction perform as well as the top two percent of students who receive traditional classroom instruction (Bloom 1984). The problem is that, in general, a human tutor for every student is not feasible, because it is too expensive and there are not enough teachers. A possible solution would be to use computer tutors: computer-assisted learning (CAL). Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has already received considerable attention. Many text-based CALL systems have already been developed, in which information is provided on the computer screen (the output of the computer), and the user can interact by means of a keyboard and a mouse (the input of the computer). But what about speech?"