Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to describe Text-to-Speech (TTS) Technology: its history, mechanism, systems, and structures. This study explains how to produce artificially digital, synthesized English TTS speech sounds on personal laptop/desktop computers; further, it addresses the validity of TTS speech sounds for Japanese learners. Users can produce English speech sounds by using the downloaded TTS system on their personal computers. There are numerous English audio materials for English as a foreign language (EFL) education in Japan. However, almost all English language audio learning materials used in Japanese schools are developed by commercial publishing companies. As Japanese teachers of English (JTEs), we sometimes feel that such audio materials do not fit our students’ English abilities. The result of five studies using English TTS sounds for Japanese EFL learners proved that none of the participants noticed that the sounds were artificially digital, synthesized sounds produced by personal computers. This finding implies that using TTS is one way for English language teachers—not only in Japan, but also in other EFL countries—to produce English audio materials that fit their students’ English language abilities. |
