Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on CALL No.3 July 2016 Pp. 99-112
Using BetterAccent Tutor and Praat for Learning English Intonation
Naima Hamlaoui
Department of English
Faculty of Letters, Human and Social Sciences
El-Bouni Campus
Badji Mokhtar University,
Annaba, Algeria
Nawel Bengrait
Department of English
Faculty of Letters and Languages
University of Guelma 8 Mai 1945
Guelma, Algeria
Abstract:
Learning English pronunciation necessitates a deep understanding of the prosodic features such as intonation. The present study reports the effective use of BetterAccent Tutor and Praat programs for the learning of English intonation with an experimental and a control group that involves nine students during a third semester phonetics course, at the Department of English, University of Guelma, Algeria. The research aims at investigating the usability of audio-visual feedback paradigm to learn prosody by Algerian students in order to enhance their English intonation renditions. The experimental method enabled generating, measuring and analyzing intonation contours, pitch and intensity of English wh-questions and tag-questions. The results revealed that the audio-visualization technology support helped the students to identify the errors and to understand the functionality of acoustic features they produce regarding intonation patterns.
Keywords: Audio-visual feedback, intonation software, pitch, intensity, acoustic features