Here's self-help for India-born speakers
of English! The American
Accent Program, an ESL pronunciation tutor on
interactive multimedia CD-ROM, is one of the best programs in
my experience of publishing numerous software reviews. This program,
comprising modules for vowels, consonants, and intonation, offers
highly effective training in "standard" American English
pronunciation.
The American Accent Program (AAP) features single-click
record-and-playback, which allows learners to compare their articulation
with that of a native speaker. Yes, I know that easy record-and-playback
feature has long been available on audio tapes that accompany
pronunciation textbooks. The exciting new feature in this and
other CD-ROM pronunciation programs is animation. Animation makes
it possible to show the precise tongue, lip, and air movements
corresponding to an articulation exercise.
AAP's vowel and consonant modules introduce the International
Phonetic Alphabet and offer practice exercises in 14 vowel and
24 consonant sounds first by themselves and then embedded in
words and sentences. On-screen help, pull-down menus, as well
as buttons for navigation and control make AAP easy to use.
The intonation module provides clear definitions of stress, pitch,
steps and glides, duration, intonation patterns, compound nouns,
heteronyms, word reductions, sentence level intonation, contrastive
intonation, and tag questions.
AAP explains steps and glides as follows: "In American English
our pitch covers a range of four tones. We move our pitch within
this range using either steps or glides. Correctly using these
steps and glides is essential if your words are to be understood.
In step changes, each syllable of a word has its own separate
tone. Example words: paper, constant. There is no gliding through
the intervening tones. Gliding pitch refers to the voice sliding
up or sliding down on a particular vowel. Example words: love,
time."
AAP defines heteronyms as "words that are spelled alike
but can either be nouns, adjectives or verbs, depending on the
intonation used to say them."
The program then provides practice exercises with heteronymic
pairs such as object used as a noun or adjective (which requires
stress on the first syllable) and object used as a verb (which
requires stress on the second syllable). The accompanying exercises
are at the word as well as the sentence level.
The segment on intonation patterns includes word and sentence
exercises on eight patterns of stress on syllables -- ranging
from a single syllable word soon where a glide is used to a four
syllable word application where primary stress is on the third
syllable with secondary stress on the first syllable.
Contrastive intonation is explained as follows: "Stress
the boldfaced word in each sentence. Notice how the meaning of
the message changes when a different word is emphasized."
A sample set of practice sentences are:
Is anyone using the computer?
Is anyone using the computer?
Is anyone using the computer?
AAP comes with a brief user's guide and a 140-page workbook that
provides production hints for the articulation exercises on the
CD-ROM. All of the on-screen explanations in AAP are lucid and
the practice exercises effective. Although more expensive than
a pronunciation> textbook-with-audio tapes, AAP with its comprehensive
coverage is a very effective tool for self-teaching.
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American Accent Program (version
5)
Single Program Pack, $295
Available on both Windows and Macintosh platforms.
Ford Language Institute
4199 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA 92715
(800) 445-8043