Designing Pronunciation Learning Tools: The Case for Interactivity against Over-Engineering

Paired role-play is a common collaborative activity in language learning classrooms, adding meaning and cultural context to the learning process. This is complemented by teachers' immediate and explicit feedback. Interactive tools that provide explicit feedback during collaborative learning are scarce, however. More commonly, supporting dialogue practice takes the form of computer-aided single-student read-and-record activities. This limitation is partly due to the complexity of processing language learners' speech in unconstrained tasks. In this paper, we assess the value of pronunciation error detection algorithms within a realistic, software-aided, paired role-playing task with beginning learners of French. We found that students' pronunciations improve regardless of the type of error detector employed -- even for those using simple heuristics. We suggest that speech technologies for language learning have been too focused on engineering goals. Instead, new interactive designs supporting collaboration may be used to overcome engineering limitations and properly support students' engagement.