Revolutionizing Autonomous Pronunciation Learning through AI
The fact that AI has gained significant attention in its use as a mechanism for language education is important, allowing individuals to learn diverse languages in economically accessible ways. This heralds a major transformation in our world owing to the ways in which AI technologies will reinvent several aspects of our socio-economic lives.
As such, researchers have leveraged AI-driven technologies to allow individuals great assistance with learning the correct pronunciations to improve their skills in a foreign or native language. By means of tools that furnish personalized feedback, individuals are able to correct the specific errors that exist in the way they pronounce words and learn the mechanism to pronounce a word correctly.
Pronunciation is an important aspect of language learning, even as it is often the most ignored. A large part of traditional platforms that facilitate language learning insist simply on communication and not on style: thus speakers are taught to speak and write with correct grammar, but not enough insistence is paid to how they speak. This is because pronunciation is thought to be a mere accessory that is not strictly required. However, this is absolutely not the case because of how pronunciation is located within a social milieu such that it is an indicator of class: the sad reality of our world is that people are judged on the basis of their pronunciations.
In a country like India, a lot of working professionals from underserved socioeconomic backgrounds are unable to get good jobs, despite having a fair fluency in English, simply because they speak heavily accented English which is deemed as unprofessional. Further, the lack of properly trained teachers who can instruct students in the right pronunciation is another major reason why most students in government schools in India are unable to achieve proficiency in English pronunciation.
It is precisely problems like these that are tackled by AI. By incorporating AI-based apps into their language learning routines, students can maximize their autonomy in developing the skills of correct pronunciation. However, research conducted by researchers like Senowarsito1 and Sukma Nur Ardini has found out the current problems that exist in these technologies. According to them, these technologies are primarily concerned with segmental and not suprasegmental features of pronunciation. Where segmental features involve elements like the sounds of vowels and consonants, suprasegmental features involve elements like pitch, length, rhythm, and intonation. Thus, it is not enough to merely focus on segmental features: doing so, will result in mechanical-sounding speech, instead of speech that sounds like it is being spoken by a fluent speaker.
This is why it is important for scientists to invest more in these technologies to make them more robust, making AI an invaluable ally in the quest for linguistic proficiency. Therefore, we can hope that AI will undoubtedly revolutionize the way we navigate language education.
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