Computer-assisted prosody training: Improving public speakers' vocal charisma with the Web-Pitcher

Abstract

Computer-assisted prosody training (CAPT) has so far mainly been used to teach foreign languages, although prosody is still hardly taken into account in language leraning. Conversely, prosody receives a lot of attention in studies and activities related to public-speaker training. But, despite that, CAPT tools are practically unknown in this type of training. The present paper addresses this gap and introduces the “Web Pitcher”, a new browser-based version of the feedback and evaluation software “Pitcher” that was developed in 2018 for the prosody-oriented training of charisma – a key characteristic of successful public speakers, which is defined as signaling competence, self-confidence and passion. In an online experiment with 60 test users it is investigated here whether and to what extent the Web Pitcher positively influences the prosodic charisma triggers of its users, and which feedback modes in which order lead to the greatest learning success. An acoustic analysis of before- vs. after-training speeches given by the 60 test users shows that the Web Pitcher improves six key prosodic charisma triggers of its learners by an average of 53 % after one hour of training – and thus performs at eye level with its offline precursor, the Pitcher. With the correct combination of its two feedback modes, the Web Pitcher even outperforms its offline precursor in terms of user improvement. The results are discussed with a view to further R&D steps and the integration of the Web Pitcher in real coaching activities. In this context, the paper also contains a link through which researchers can register and use the Web Pitcher for their own scientific purposes, also beyond questions of public-speaker or charisma training.

The ProA Online Tool for Prosody Assessment and Its Use for the Definition of Acoustic Models for Prosodic Evaluation of L2 Spanish Learners

“…Also, some 2022), but it can also be used to create and complete new tests out of the ProA set. The app is similar to other existing CAPT tools for prosody assessment and training, such as Web Pitcher (Niebuhr 2021), but for the moment, it includes only assessment functionalities with no specific tasks for training. However, the ProA tool offers a larger set of evaluation tasks, which are oriented to the assessment of prosody in a wide range of communicative uses, a fact which makes them suitable to evaluate the prosodic skills of L2 Spanish learners but also in other fields in which a diagnostic evaluation of prosody could be necessary, such as Speech Therapy (for the evaluation of basic communicative uses of prosody, such as the production of declarative or interrogative sentences) or Secondary School teaching (to evaluate, for example, the prosodic skills of a student when reading a text aloud in public).…”