A  Research  Study  of the Development of  a  Computer  Aided/Assisted 
Instruction (CAI) System for the Japanese Language Education Based  on 
the Spoken Dialog Mode
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Masatake DANTSUJI, Taizo UMEZAKI*, Yutaka KOBAYASHI**
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Faculty of Letters, Kansai University<P>
3-3-35 Yamate-cho, Suita-shi, Osaka, 564 Japan<P>
(*) Faculty of Engineers, Chubu University<P>
(**) Kyoto Institute of Technology<P>
e-mail: dan@kansai-u.ac.jp
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This study attempts to construct a computer aided instruction system
for the elementary course of the Japanese language education.  This
study aims to help to reduce labor of teachers and to make it possible
to do repeated practice of studying by students.  We carried forward
our study by uniting a knowledge of acoustic phonetics and that of
speech processing and by making use of the speech recognition
technology.  We have examined articulatory properties of the Japanese
pronunciation by means of making use of the procedures of the
experimental phonetics.  The results were processed into computer by
making use of the acoustic phonetic analysis.  We have extracted
acoustic parameters such as formant structures from the input speech
data of the language learners.  We make it possible for learners to
understand their faults of pronunciation audio visually by means of
computer graphics such as vowel charts and the outputted model voice.
On the computer monitor screen speech waves as well as spectrum
envelope, fundamental frequency contours, etc.  are displayed to help
teachers to evaluate the pronunciation of learners.
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