Improved automatic pronunciation feedback for English learners

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Fundy Language Analytics, Inc. is a young Nova Scotia company which is developing a novel software product to help language students learn English. The primary goal of the product is to supplement the one-on-one learning of the student by providing speech exercises with automated feedback. This automated feedback is in the form of detecting and highlighting words which are pronounced incorrectly. The prototype software can already detect a limited class of pronunciation errors, however, the company needs to extend the functionality of the speech detection system. One critical limitation is that feedback is simply a pass/fail (i.e. either you said the word correctly, or you didn't). This diminishes the quality of feedback for language learners and also limits the software's ability to automate error correction. For example, once a problem is detected and well understood, videos of correct pronunciation could be provided that get to the core problem that the learner is having. The company doesn't have the expertise to add the needed ability to score the errors. In this new partnership, Dr. Franklin Mendivil, Department of Mathematics and Statistics will bring his expertise in applied image and signal analysis, to bear on Fundy Language Analytics' challenge to provide more functionality to the prototype. He will work closely with the company to build in the ability of the speech detection algorithm to determine how close the student is to speaking a word correctly, and then give them richer feedback based on this knowledge.