A Multilingual CALL Game Based on Speech Translation

Manny Rayner, Pierrette Bouillon, Nikos Tsourakis, Johanna Gerlach, Maria Georgescul, Yukie Nakao, Claudia Baur

Abstract
We describe a multilingual Open Source CALL game, CALL-SLT, which reuses speech translation technology developed using the Regulus platform to create an automatic conversation partner that allows intermediate-level language students to improve their fluency. We contrast CALL-SLT with Wang's and Seneff's ``translation game'' system, in particular focussing on three issues. First, we argue that the grammar-based recognition architecture offered by Regulus is more suitable for this type of application; second, that it is preferable to prompt the student in a language-neutral form, rather than in the L1; and third, that we can profitably record successful interactions by native speakers and store them to be reused as online help for students. The current system, which will be demoed at the conference, supports four L2s (English, French, Japanese and Swedish) and two L1s (English and French). We conclude by describing an evaluation exercise, where a version of CALL-SLT configured for English L2 and French L1 was used by several hundred high school students. About half of the subjects reported positive impressions of the system.
Anthology ID:
L10-1417
Volume:
Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'10)
Month:
May
Year:
2010
Address:
Valletta, Malta
Editors:
Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Jan Odijk, Stelios Piperidis, Mike Rosner, Daniel Tapias
Venue:
LREC
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Publisher:
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
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Pages:
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URL:
http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2010/pdf/610_Paper.pdf
DOI:
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Cite (ACL):
Manny Rayner, Pierrette Bouillon, Nikos Tsourakis, Johanna Gerlach, Maria Georgescul, Yukie Nakao, and Claudia Baur. 2010. A Multilingual CALL Game Based on Speech Translation. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'10), Valletta, Malta. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
A Multilingual CALL Game Based on Speech Translation (Rayner et al., LREC 2010)
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http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2010/pdf/610_Paper.pdf
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