SPATS-ESL

Communication Disorders Technology, Inc. (CDT) was formed by Charles S. Watson and Diane Kewley-Port, Professors of Speech and Hearing Sciences at Indiana University, and Daniel P. Maki, Professor of Mathematics at Indiana University. CDT's goal is to become the market leader in the development of new technologies for speech and hearing professionals (speech pathologists and teachers of the deaf), for teachers of foreign languages and for teachers of people with developmental disabilities.

For the past decade, investigators at CDT have been building speech training aids that combine automatic speech recognition technology with state-of-the-art computer graphics capability. Support for much of this research and development has come from the National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovative Research program. CDT has assembled a team of investigators with expertise in speech and hearing sciences, mathematics, engineering, linguistics, instructional systems technology, graphical arts, and computer programming.

Currently, five products have been developed and clinically tested. The company's first product, ISTRA (Indiana Speech Training Aid), has been marketed in Indiana since 1994. Development of HearSay, an English pronunciation training system, began in June 1995. A hearing screening device, Home Hearing Evaluator, is produced by CDT in collaboration with engineers at Autosound 2000 in Burlington, North Carolina. You-Said-It, a system for teaching English as a first language to people with developmental disabilities, is a work-in-progress at CDT. SPATS (Speech Perception And Training System) for enabling those with impaired hearing to take better advantage of their hearing aids and cochlear implants.

The Importance of Perceptual Training for ESL Students

ESL students who have excellent reading and writing skills in English often continue to have great difficulty in understanding conversational speech by a native speaker. Failure to understand English at normal conversational rates is, in a sense, the hidden language disability of a great many non-native speakers. A non-native speaker of English may have very obvious problems with pronunciation, but the fact that they often do not understand what is said to them may be disguised by their smiling and nodding in response. Only when an experiment is run incorrectly, a financial transaction mis-routed, or the wrong medication administered, does it become obvious that their perception of English may be an even more serious problem than their pronunciation. It is also worth noting that as perception of the sounds of English becomes more accurate, it is very likely that improved pronunciation will be an additional consequence. One reason for this is that certain speech sounds, such as the l-r distinction (as between “lace” and “race”) for native speakers of Japanese, cannot be identified correctly. But there is nothing wrong with the listener’s auditory system; they simply have not learned to listen correctly. Considerable research has shown, however that ESL students can learn to hear differences, like those between /l/ and /r/ (for native speakers of Japanese, Chinese or Korean), that were previously inaudible to them. Trials of SPATS with ESL students at Indiana University have shown that within approximately 20-30 hours of SPATS combined training on the syllable constituents of English (onsets, nuclei and codas) and recognition of English sentences, most ESL students approach the recognition accuracy of native speakers for these fundamental speech sounds.

Distribution of SPATS-ESL

SPATS-ESL is made available to independent ESL schools and to university units, such as Engineering or Business Programs with large numbers of international students in need of improving their ability to converse in English. SPATS-ESL is designed for students with basic knowledge of written English as evidenced by paper and pencil TOEFL scores at or above 500. SPATS-ESL is not designed to teach English grammar, vocabulary, or idioms. It is designed to teach International Students with a basic knowledge of English to be able to accurately perceive naturally spoken English sentences and to be able to identify the basic sounds of spoken English accurately. Success with the program can be documented by proctored tests, discussed in a later section, and certificates can be issued that certify the learner’s competence in perceiving both the basic sounds of English and naturally spoken English sentences. SPATS-ESL is not available for purchase by individual users, in part because its successful use has only been demonstrated when students are supervised and have periodic proctored tests of their achievement.

The Importance of Proctored Tests

here is an apt analogy between SPATS-ESL training and the study of the piano. Nothing but self-directed home study might be sufficient for the very unusual student to learn to play that instrument. But the vast majority of piano students will only learn to play if they have periodic sessions with a teacher, in which they receive feedback, admonitions about practice, reinforcement for their achievements, and new assignments. Learning to perceive the complex code that is represented by the sounds of English, when that code differs in many fundamental ways from that of one’s native language, is a complex perceptual skill. This skill improves with systematic practice as do perceptual-motor skills like playing the piano, playing tennis or platform diving. The SPATS-ESL system includes proctored tests to be very efficiently administered by a teacher or staff member. On the basis of the proctored tests the ESL student is given periodic evaluative feedback and guidance for future training sessions. These proctored tests are an important part of SPATS-ESL training, and in fact are essential for trainees to enjoy the maximum benefits of their practice. The proctored tests can also be used to award certificates recognizing the specific level of speech recognition achieved by the ESL student, and to make that information available in a meaningful form to prospective employers.

CDT provides to those programs that adopt SPATS-ESL, without charge, the necessary additional software for proctored testing. The proctored tests measure each student’s competence in the perception of the basic sounds of English at four graded levels of difficulty, and their competence in recognizing naturally spoken sentences in the quiet and in moderate amounts of background conversational noise.

SPATS-ESL is Appropriate for Students from All Language Backgrounds.

SPATS-ESL adapts its training to each individual’s needs, independent of their language background (the student’s native language, or “L1”) so there is no need to use different programs for students from various L1’s. SPATS-ESL also is progressive, in that it begins with the most common sounds of English and adds more as it works toward the student’s learning of the complete set of 109 sounds of English speech (including the consonants and consonant clusters in syllable initial and final positions and the vowels and vowel-like sounds).

Student’s Guide to SPATS-ESL

Even though SPATS-ESL has complete on-screen instructions a Student’s Guide has been prepared to supplement the on-screen material.   Those interested in learning more about SPATS-ESL may find that scanning the Student’s Guide will help them understand the system. (Also, an Administrator’s Guide to SPATS-ESL and Proctored Tests is in preparation and should be posted no later than June 15, 2009.)
Click here for Student’s Guide to SPATS-ESL

On Becoming a SPATS-ESL Certified Program.

Programs interested in licensing SPATS-ESL should contact support@comdistec.com or call (812) 336-1766.

For other information about SPATS training systems, please contact Dr. James D. Miller.
Email: jdmiller@comdistec.com;   
Telephone:  (812) 336-1766.   

Or mail inqueries to:
Dr. James D. Miller
Communication Disorders Technology, Inc.
Indiana University Research Park
501 N. Morton Street, Suite 215
Bloomington, IN 47404

References:

Miller, JD, Sillings, R, Watson, CS, and Kewley-Port, D  (2009) “Speech Perception Assessment and Training System (SPATS-ESL) for speakers of other languages learning English” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125(4): 2755 (A)
[Poster Presented at “Special Workshop on Cross-Language Speech Perception: Variations in Linguistic Experience” Portland, OR.  May 21-23.]

Miller, J.D., Sillings, R., Watson, C.S., and Kewley-Port, D. (2010) “Speech Perception Assessment and Training System (SPATS-ESL) for speakers of other languages learning English” In house, 16-page manuscript that expands on the above Poster
[Download pdf version]

Miller, JD, Sillings, R, Watson, CS, Darcy I, and Bardovi-Harlig, K (2009) “Experience with computerized speech-perception training (SPATS-ESL) for speakers of other languages learning English” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125(4):2767(A)
[Power-Point presentation presented at “Special Workshop on Cross-Language Speech Perception: Variations in Linguistic Experience” Portland, OR  May 21-23.]

Kewley-Port, D., Nishi, K., Park, H., Miller, J.D., and Watson, C.S. (2009). Learn to Listen (L2L): Perception training system for learners of English as a second language. /J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 125, No. 4, 2773.
[Poster presented at the "Cross-language speech perception and variations in linguistic experience" Portland, OR May 23, 2009.]