Technological Resources for Second Language Pronunciation Learning and Teaching

Book excerpt: Second language (L2) pronunciation has become increasingly visible as an important area of L2 teaching and research. Despite the growing number of resources available focused on L2 pronunciation, technology in L2 pronunciation has received much less attention. While technology has been an enduring strand of L2 pronunciation research, it has also been somewhat inconspicuous. Indeed, research has examined a wide variety of technologies such as language-learning platforms, speech visualization software, and Automatic Speech Recognition. Despite the abundance of research, it can be difficult to gain a full sense of work in this area given the lack of a comprehensive and consolidated resource or reference. This book endeavors to fill that gap and make L2 pronunciation technologies more visible by providing teachers and researchers an introduction to research in a wide variety of technologies that can support pronunciation learning. While working to introduce practitioners to numerous technologies available, it also dives into the research-basis for their use, providing new studies and data featuring a wide variety of languages and learning contexts.