Looks at how speech-interactive computer-assisted language learning can help the classroom teacher carry out recommendations from immersion-based approaches to language instruction. Emerging methods for pronunciation tutoring are demonstrated from Carnegie Mellon University's FLUENCY project, addressing not only phone articulation but also speech…

Discusses language awareness activities for sensitizing trainee English-language teachers to suprasegmental phonological features in English, with particular reference to features associated with the concept of "stress timing." Discusses stress timing and how it relates to English, and examines the quasi-authentic material drawn from a television…

Infants parse speech into word-sized units according to biases that develop in the first year. One bias, present before the age of 7 months, is to cluster syllables that tend to co-occur. The present computational research demonstrates that this statistical clustering bias could lead to the extraction of speech sequences that are actual words,…

This study investigated syllable duration as a measure of speech rhythm in the English spoken by Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. A computer dataset of Hong Kong English speech data amounting to 4,404 syllables was used. Measurements of syllable duration were taken, investigated statistically, and then compared with measurements of 1,847 syllables…

Six working papers on phonology, primarily concerning less commonly taught languages, are presented are in this volume. Titles include: "Non-Uniqueness Condition and the Segmentation of the Chinese Syllable" (Benjamin Ao); "Theoretical Consequences of Metathesis in Maltese" (Elizabeth Hume); "Cs and Vs or Moras: The Case…

This paper explores the features of rhythm that make English difficult for speakers of Chinese and suggests some techniques for helping students speak English with an English rhythm. The focus is on information obtained during a workshop: the rhythmic differences between Chinese and English, word rhythm in English, and sentence rhythm in English.…

The role of phonology in communication is explored, and it is argued that explicit instruction in English phonology for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) is a valuable aid in promoting communicative competence. Further, it is proposed that limericks can be used as a means for classroom instruction in English phonology. Focus is on ESL…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Indian immigrants in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Iranian immigrant speakers of Farsi in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The…

English is a stress-timed language whose syllables have a much wider variety of onsets, codas, and combinations than many languages. English also has the widest range of syllable length and quality between stressed and unstressed syllables and a distinctive pattern of intervals between stressed syllables. These characteristics make it difficult…

Although the black poet Melvin B. Tolson is recognized and respected by other poets and critics, he is unknown both to students and to the general reading public. This paper points out that the key to understanding Tolson's poetry, and much of the poetry coming out of black America, is his use of language. The paper examines one of Tolson's major…

A delineation of the differences between speaking and writing should clarify the functions and possible future of prose. Speech has a speaker to provide language with inflectional stress and a visible audience to respond immediately to that language. On the other hand, prose ("an art of written language")--which is separated in time from an…

Describes "Imitation Exercise," which has been developed to help beginning language learners cope with hearing and recognizing a collection of sounds they are unfamiliar with. By conducting the exercise entirely in the students' native languages, they are not threatened, and in addition, they are allowed to listen to sounds in a familiar,…

Involving students in an active study of dialect differences will enhance their own self awareness and their knowledge and understanding of cultural diversity. (JH)

Twenty-nine kindergarten children judged to have weak or inadequate psychomotor abilities affecting their acquisition of written language participated in a psychomotor training program. The program used rhythmic, optic, phonemic, kinesthetic, and melodic exercises to attempt to facilitate the children's language acquisition and thus to improve…