Effective Use of Text-to-Speech Technology for Japanese Learners of English

概要

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Synthetic speech has been used in various applications, but probably the most mportant and useful application of speech synthesis has been in reading and communication aids for the blind. The first commercial Text-to-Speech (TTS) application was the Kurzweil reading machine for the blind introduced by Raymond Kurzweil in the late 1970s. We found this system very useful for helping Japanese learners with visual impairments improve their English reading skills. Based on our success, we organized a small team to research the development of new English teaching methods for visually impaired students. After several trials, readKON, a reading support software equipped with English speech synthesis, was developed for use in our project. We also developed a computer-based vocabulary size test for the visually impaired named kobaTEST. In this report, we introduce these original software applications, and explain some of our findings. It is clear that these two TTS applications help sighted readers of English as well as the visually impaired.