Education and demonstration – Language
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-25
2001-05-01
O'Neill, Michael (Department: 3713)
Education and demonstration
Language
C434S185000, C704S009000, C704S200000, C704S231000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06224383
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to computer assisted natural language instruction.
2. Description of Related Art
Learning a language can be difficult. A foreign language student typically invests many years of study and may still never achieve fluency or reduction of an accent. Many students have invested heavily in language instruction by human teachers. Such training may be expensive, and inconsistent, because of the differences in training and ability of the teachers.
Some foreign language instructional software has been developed. For example, systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,810,599 and 5,697,789. Some prior systems provide non-interactive language instruction. Such a system may not sufficiently provide feedback to a student to allow the student to correct pronunciation problems. The student may continue to make the same errors, without improvement even after diligent training with the system.
In addition to learning foreign languages, it is desirable to improve pronunciation and articulation of one's native language. It would be desirable to obtain a system and method to assist in doing so.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An embodiment of the invention relates to a method of computerized language instruction for a student. Based on data regarding past performance of the student, an adjustable speech recognizer is adjusted. An utterance is received from the student, and the utterance is processed using the adjusted adjustable speech recognizer. The adjustable speech recognizer may comprise an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine.
The data regarding past performance of the student includes data regarding detected speech pathologies, or may comprise data regarding past performance of the student with a series of contexts, wherein a context comprises a set of words and utterances. The data regarding past performance of the student may comprise a statistical weighted average of data regarding past performance of the student with each of a series of contexts. A context may comprise a set of words and utterances selected to allow recognition of the words and utterances by the adjustable speech recognizer. Processing the utterance using the adjusted adjustable speech recognizer then may include determining whether the utterance matches an utterance in a selected context.
According to an embodiment of the invention a set of contexts is created. Each context includes a set of words and utterances selected to allow recognition of the words and utterances by a speech recognizer. For each context, a set of subcontexts is created. Each subcontext includes the words and utterances of the context and selected mispronunciations or misarticulations of the words and utterances of the context. A subcontext is selected from the set of contexts. An utterance is received from a student. The utterance is processed based on the selected subcontext, and the student is responded to based on the processing.
An embodiment of the invention includes recursively passing a portion of a received utterance to an ASR engine. The words in the utterance are determined based on a first output of the ASR engine and a second output of the ASR engine resulting from processing the portion.
An embodiment of the invention includes creating a context. The context includes a set of words and utterances selected to allow recognition of the words and utterances by a speech recognizer, and a set of distracters, which comprise sets of syllables used less frequently in the context, the sets of syllables not forming words or utterances in the context. An audio input is received, and the input is compared with information in the context. If the input more closely matches a distracter than a word or utterance, the input is ignored. Otherwise, the input is processed to determine an associated word or utterance.
Embodiments of the invention include systems based on the described methods. Embodiments of the invention include a computer readable medium having computer readable code embodied on the medium that causes a computer to execute the described methods or portions or combinations thereof. The computer readable medium may comprise a floppy disk, CD ROM, memory, or other medium.
One embodiment of the invention is a system for computerized language instruction for a student. The system includes a processor and logic to receive a digital representation of an audio signal. An adjustable speech recognizer is coupled to receive the digital representation. Logic in the system stores data onto a storage device based on performance of the student, and logic in the system adjusts the adjustable speech recognizer based on the stored data based on performance of the student.
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Harris Chanda
O'Neill Michael
planetLingo, Inc.
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
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