MIAPARLE: a computer-assisted pronunciation teaching application for learning L2 prosody

Innovative project idea

Second language learners tend to imprint the prosody (i.e., accentuation, intonation) of their native language onto the second language (e. g., pronunciation of po-ta-TO instead of po-TA-to), which can lead to communication difficulties. Despite its crucial role in communication, prosody is rarely taught in language courses, even in foreign-language pronunciation courses. Our web application MIAPARLE will fill in the gap by providing a wide range of activities to learn how to discriminate and produce not only L2 stress contrasts and also L2 tone contrasts.

Benefits for students and teaching at UZH

MIAPARLE will have a clear impact on second language learning and teaching. On the one hand, with the integration of MIAPARLE in language courses, the learners will be aware about the stress or tone system of the foreign language, which will improve their pronunciation, and hence their communication with native and/or non-native speakers. On the other hand, MIAPARLE will provide educational tools, easy to use in a language course, even by L2 teachers who are not specialists in phonetics/prosody.