Speech Works for Windows Speech Works is perfect for any non-native English speaker who wishes to modify or reduce their accented English. With the help of an on-screen video model, Speech Works quickly and easily teaches you 14 different English dialects, including the "standard American" accent, and offers automatic lesson plans for 30 foreign languages. There are 24 scientifically developed interactive lessons, each with 3 easy steps: Listen to the model - just point and click on an individual word or an entire sentence to hear the correct pronunciation. Watch the way the model moves her/his mouth as she/he says the word. Repeat - the program will record you saying the same word or sentence. Play back and hear your own pronunciation compared to the model's. It's easy to hear your progress. Save your recordings so that you can hear the difference over a short time. Speech Works Personal $139 Speech Works Professional $495
Course and Features - How It Works - System Requirements and Pricing Product Review - Research Study - Speech Works Professional
This innovative program can help you modify or reduce your accent and improve your English pronunciation, intelligibility and communication skills. And you can use it in the privacy of your own home or office! Speech Works comes in two version: Speech Works Personal for students to practice their pronunciation and accent, and Speech Works Professional aimed at teachers who want to monitor students and their progress within a classroom or private tutoring sessions.
The key to Speech Works' effectiveness is its listen-record-compare technique which makes full use of your computer's unique teaching capabilities.
Speech Works 4 offers six vocabulary preferences: Adult, High School, K-8, New Immigrant, Medical: Nursing, and Medical: Pharmacy. These choices control more than vocabulary alone. They also control the level of detail and difficulty of explanations, and the types of exercises that are presented. Users can change the preferences at any time to adjust to the students’ needs.
Included here is a research study that evaluates the efficacy of Speech Works in the improvement of speech pronunciation with a group of thirteen ESL students. Entitled Computer-Assisted Accent Modification: Effects of Monitored vs. Unmonitored Independent Practice, it was delivered at the 1997 ASHA Meeting in Boston MA by Lawry N. Reid (M.B.A., M.F.A., M.M., Dean College) and Linda J. Ferrier (Ph.D., Northeastern University).
Speech Works offers specific lesson plans automatically formulated for 46 different first languages and English dialects: American: Black, American: Eastern, American: Southern, Australian English, Arabic, British English, Canadian English, Cantonese, Caribbean English, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, East African English, Egyptian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Malaysian English, Mandarin, New Zealand English, Persian, Philippine English, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Singaporean English, South Asian English, South African English, Spanish, Taiwanese, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, West African English.
Speech Works consists of 24 Lesson Units, with each unit targeting a different sound or speech pattern.
There are a number of different types of exercises within each unit including:
The Discriminating Sounds Exercise is a tic-tac-toe game. In this exercise you practice listening to and recognizing the difference between the specific sounds studied in the unit lesson. You play the game by listening to pairs of words and deciding if they are the same or different. You try to win the game by getting three smiling faces in a row - up, across, or diagonally.
To start the game, click on one of the nine tiles showing question marks. Click the Play button to hear the model recording of two words. If they sound the same, click on the Same button. If they sound different, click on the Different button. A smiling face appears if you are correct. Choose more tiles until you win or lose the game. You can listen to each pair of recordings as many times as you want, and play the game as many times as you want.
After you can easily tell if the words are the same or different, go on to the Word Pairs exercise, where you will practice pronouncing the same sounds.
The five word pairs in this exercise sound the same except for the last sound. Click on an underlined word to hear the model recording. Click on a black arrow on the left to hear the model recording of the pair of words.
Hold the microphone in your hand and click on one of the black arrows to listen to the model recording of a pair of words. Next, click the microphone button on the audio palette and speak the pair of words into the microphone. The progress bar on the palette fills during the recording time. If you spoke after the progress bar had already filled, try recording again. Just click on the microphone button and speak into the microphone.
When you have finished recording, the Play Self (single person), Play Both (two person) buttons are active. The Save (disk icon) button is active if you have signed in on the Main Menu. Click on the Play Self button to hear your recording. Listen to the model voice with your recording by clicking on the Play Both button. If you want to record again, click on the microphone button to make a new recording.
Recording yourself and listening to your voice compared with the model voice is the key to success with Speech Works. That's all there is to it!
The problem (i.e., key sound) in the sentence exercise here is the same as the word drill but this time the word is in a sentence. The key sound in each sentence is darkened (bold face type). Click on the black arrow to hear the model recording of the sentence. Recording works the same as in the word pair exercise. When you use the sentence exercises, work first on the problem sounds. After you can make the sounds in the sentence exercises, you may want to listen to the whole sentences carefully and practice their rhythms and pitches.
Once again, the problem is the same but this exercise is more difficult and uses a more professional vocabulary. Click on an underlined word to hear the model recording of it or click on the black arrow to hear the model recording of the word in a phrase. Notice that the key sounds in the underlined words are darkened.
At the top of the screen is a common sentence you can memorize and use. It contains the same problem (i.e., sound) as in the previous exercises in the Unit. You can listen to the model recording by clicking on the arrow. The recording feature always works in the same way.
You are asked to think of one word that contains the problem sound and to try to use that word where you speak English. If you can't think of a word, there are some examples and there is always one word that everyone uses. Click on the arrow pointing to these words to play their model recordings.
Extra Practice is an excellent place to review and practice all of the target sounds emphasized in a unit. Clicking on one of the tabs displays a common word, sentence or technical word containing the target sound. Each time you click on the Next Common Word/Phrase/Sentence button, a different word, phrase or sentence is displayed with the target highlighted. Clicking on the arrow plays the model recording and the Audio Palette operates identically as before, so you can record yourself and compare your pronunciations with the models.
Speech Works is a pronunciation improvement CD-ROM for Windows. It makes basic pronunciation instruction an engaging multimedia experience. It is easy to use, fun, and effective.
There are 24 lessons, each of which focuses on specific sounds and aspects of English speech. The high-tech features bring the learning activities to life. At the beginning of each lesson an instructor explains the content of the lesson and why it is important. The activities begin with a listening exercise for the sounds targeted in the lesson. The "Discrimination Game" is scored like "Tic-Tac-Toe". The user can choose male or female voices as the model for this game and at any time throughout the program. The game can be played repeatedly with new words each time.
The next activity addresses minimal pairs. The user listens to the model then repeats and records his or her own voice. The user then plays back the model voice followed by his or her own recording. This feature is the heart of the program. The user gets immediate feedback by hearing the difference between his or her own speech and the model's. Learners can listen to and imitate the model as many times as they want. Users can save recordings on their hard drive or on a floppy disk, which is very useful for tracking progress.
The "Extra Help" feature includes video of facial close-ups and x-ray drawings that demonstrate how to move the mouth to form the words and sentences.
Lessons continue with sentences using the target sounds, professional vocabulary, workplace vocabulary, and extra practice, all with the same procedure for recording.
The bank of words and sentences is large and comprehensive - over 5000 in total. Although the professional vocabulary targets working adults, Speech Works can be used by a variety of learners in various settings, virtually anyone who wishes to improve their pronunciation.
The production quality of Speech Works is highly professional. The video and graphics are strong and clear. A computer novice can use this program with ease.
Speech Works is an excellent new tool for ESL students. My students have found it provides the instruction, practice and feedback they need to speak English with greater clarity and confidence.
Windows 95/98/ME/NT; 32 MB RAM; 5 MB hard disk space; 4x CD drive; and SoundBlaster compatible sound card.
Speech Works Personal Single-user version for Windows $139
Speech Works Professional The ultimate pronunciation tool designed for use with an instructor. Includes diagnostic assessment tools and convenient student progress reporting features. $495