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Sample of how students use the foreign language TTS (text-to-speech) in the LRC
Last week, I noticed this student in the LRC working on a speaking assignment in her SLA class. First, she wrote a draft of her presentation. She then had the Deskbot TTS wizard (in the lower right of her screen) read out the draft to her. She recorded her version, modeling after the Deskbot’s pronunciation. Then she had the Deskbot read out the draft again, to compare with her own recording.
Look for the little guy in the lower right corner of the screen with the cartoon bubble over his head.
I favor the use of the Deskbot TTS (a Windows XP technology) as an easily accessible speaking dictionary, including during face-to-face teaching, when students may otherwise be too shy to make an utterance because they are not sure about the pronunciation of a single word, or even ask the teacher to pronounce it for them. Prosodically, the deskbot TTS leaves many things to be desired. Let’s hope that Windows 7 will enable us to set up more advanced TTS support in the LRC.
Protected: How to conduct an easy oral exam with Sanako1200 (Model imitation/Question Response) – Part II: Implementation/instruction of examined students
Conference Interpreting Videos on Intranet
On campus, students can click 
, click 
, paste “\\lgu.ac.uk\lgu$\multimedia student\mmedia\mmedia1\language_services\teaching_materials\online_resources.xls”, click 
. Click a cell with a hyperlinked video to play the video in Windows Media Player.
In Windows Media Player, you can access (right-click on top window frame if menus are hidden) the menu: “File”/”Save” to save the video on a flash memory drive and take if off campus. You can play back the videos on MS-Windows and MAC computers (you may first have to install the support for the Windows Media Video format on the MAC from Microsoft). More help.
How to use language services digital videos
- Language Services produced digital videos
- Are MPEG4-compressed to a size and format and stored in a location to be the most versatile answer to your playing needs
- Play over the network shares not only in the interpreting suite (mgb-36) or the moorgate library language centre (mg4-11)
- But from any computer on the campus network, student or staff computer
- Provided access to network shares, see network shares.
- attempt to ensure widest possible compatibility
- by using widely-used audio and video codecs (Windows Media Video 9, Windows Media Audio3, Windows Media Video Screen , MP3) which MS also supports on the Mac-Platform (free download of wmv/wma support for the Mac OS X version 10.3.9 or later, QuickTime version 7.0 or later) from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx ).
- Have been tested to work in the HALE interpreting suite (mgb-36) and the moorgate library language centre (mg4-11)
- For playing videos on your PC, staff can get necessary upgrades from x4444.
- For playing videos on your home PC, students can contact the student helpdesk.
- Are MPEG4-compressed to a size and format and stored in a location to be the most versatile answer to your playing needs
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Other ways to find help
If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
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