Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability

Satsuki Naijo; Akinori Ito; Takashi Nose

doi:10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132

Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability

Satsuki Naijo, Akinori Ito, Takashi Nose

ENG - Communications Engineering

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

The current Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) system uses DNN-based speech recognition results to evaluate learner's pronunciation with high accuracy when using many utterances for the evaluation. However, when we use only a few utterances, the accuracy of the CAPT system deteriorates. One reason for the deterioration is that the score calculated by a CAPT system is biased depending on the pronunciation diffi- culty of the sentences when using a small number of utterances. In this study, we developed a CAPT system that takes the sen- tence speakability (pronunciation difficulty of sentences) into account. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the human evaluation and the machine score was 0.46 in the con- ventional method, while it improved to 0.57 with the proposed method.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021
Publisher	International Speech Communication Association
Pages	101-105
Number of pages	5
ISBN (Electronic)	9781713836902
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132
Publication status	Published - 2021
Event	22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021 - Brno, Czech Republic Duration: 2021 Aug 30 → 2021 Sept 3

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH
Volume	1
ISSN (Print)	2308-457X
ISSN (Electronic)	1990-9772

Conference

Conference	22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021
Country/Territory	Czech Republic
City	Brno
Period	21/8/30 → 21/9/3

Keywords

Computer-assisted pronunciation training
Sentence speakability
Speech recognition

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Language and Linguistics
Human-Computer Interaction
Signal Processing
Software
Modelling and Simulation

Access to Document

10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132

Cite this

Naijo, S., Ito, A., & Nose, T. (2021). Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability. In 22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021 (pp. 101-105). (Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH; Vol. 1). International Speech Communication Association. https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132

Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability. / Naijo, Satsuki; Ito, Akinori ; Nose, Takashi.

22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021. International Speech Communication Association, 2021. p. 101-105 (Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH; Vol. 1).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Naijo, S, Ito, A & Nose, T 2021, Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability. in 22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH, vol. 1, International Speech Communication Association, pp. 101-105, 22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021, Brno, Czech Republic, 21/8/30. https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132

Naijo S, Ito A , Nose T. Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability. In 22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021. International Speech Communication Association. 2021. p. 101-105. (Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH). doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132

Naijo, Satsuki ; Ito, Akinori ; Nose, Takashi. / Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability. 22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021. International Speech Communication Association, 2021. pp. 101-105 (Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH).

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title = "Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability",

abstract = "The current Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) system uses DNN-based speech recognition results to evaluate learner's pronunciation with high accuracy when using many utterances for the evaluation. However, when we use only a few utterances, the accuracy of the CAPT system deteriorates. One reason for the deterioration is that the score calculated by a CAPT system is biased depending on the pronunciation diffi- culty of the sentences when using a small number of utterances. In this study, we developed a CAPT system that takes the sen- tence speakability (pronunciation difficulty of sentences) into account. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the human evaluation and the machine score was 0.46 in the con- ventional method, while it improved to 0.57 with the proposed method.",

keywords = "Computer-assisted pronunciation training, Sentence speakability, Speech recognition",

author = "Satsuki Naijo and Akinori Ito and Takashi Nose",

note = "Funding Information: Part of this work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI JP17H00823. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2021 ISCA.; 22nd Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2021 ; Conference date: 30-08-2021 Through 03-09-2021",

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doi = "10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1132",

language = "English",

series = "Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH",

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N2 - The current Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) system uses DNN-based speech recognition results to evaluate learner's pronunciation with high accuracy when using many utterances for the evaluation. However, when we use only a few utterances, the accuracy of the CAPT system deteriorates. One reason for the deterioration is that the score calculated by a CAPT system is biased depending on the pronunciation diffi- culty of the sentences when using a small number of utterances. In this study, we developed a CAPT system that takes the sen- tence speakability (pronunciation difficulty of sentences) into account. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the human evaluation and the machine score was 0.46 in the con- ventional method, while it improved to 0.57 with the proposed method.

AB - The current Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) system uses DNN-based speech recognition results to evaluate learner's pronunciation with high accuracy when using many utterances for the evaluation. However, when we use only a few utterances, the accuracy of the CAPT system deteriorates. One reason for the deterioration is that the score calculated by a CAPT system is biased depending on the pronunciation diffi- culty of the sentences when using a small number of utterances. In this study, we developed a CAPT system that takes the sen- tence speakability (pronunciation difficulty of sentences) into account. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the human evaluation and the machine score was 0.46 in the con- ventional method, while it improved to 0.57 with the proposed method.

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Improvement of automatic english pronunciation assessment with small number of utterances using sentence speakability

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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