ABSTRACT
Speech technologies constitute an area of growing interest for computerassisted language learning (CALL) as new speech processing tools become available with potential to serve learners. As schematized in Figure 3.1, language learning (or acquisition) is based on successive approximations, which can be called feedback loops. The primary loop is based on speech perception and speech production. The secondary loop is based on reading and writing (see Gómez, Martinez, Nieto, & Rodellar, 1994). Departing from the interactionist model put forth in the previous chapter by Clifford and Granoien, which widely frames the communicative processes of language acquisition, the feedback loop model closely frames the physiology of learning-in particular, hearing and articulating speech sounds and how these two processes work together.
