Listen and Spell

Listen and Spell Assim Deodia

Idea

The idea is to develop an application which would help children to learn new words, improve their vocabulary and pronunciation of words. The activity would speak out a randomly selected word from a predefined set of words and the user is expected to spell the word correctly. For voice synthesis activity would be using Speech-Dispatcher and for the list of words it will have a custom dictionary. This activity is an extension of TalknType.

Need

The basic thing needed to learn a language is to learn its building blocks i.e. words and their pronunciation and how they are spelled. Grammar of course had its preference. This project aims to provide an activity which would help children to learn new words, their pronunciation, the way they are spelled and to some extent its meaning also.

Use Case Scenario

A simple use case scenario of the Test Mode is as follows

• User opens the activity and enters the difficulty level of which he/she would like to hear words.
• A random word would be selected and spoken out from the corresponding level:word list. e.g. "Spell Ocean" would be spoken out.
• User is required to spell the word correctly. (Time limit can be optional)
• The activity would speak out each letter as the user types and the whole word as user submit the word.(This will help user to "feel" the difference between his spelling and the correct one.) This option can be disabled in case of group test(explained further).
• There would be an option to repeat the word and also for the hint.
• The hint option will either give user the meaning of the word or its usage in the sentence or image if possible. E.g. for Ocean it can either speak out its usage "The ocean is full of water" or can print its definition on screen i.e. "One of the five large bodies of water separating the continents".
• User can quit or change the level any time during the game.

Level Description

Level of a word is decided primarily on the basis of the number of letters in it. Most of the words would be nouns which can be easily understand by children.

• Initial level would include three to four letter words
  • e.g. cat, dog, tree, cup, bear etc

• Medium level would contain five to six letters words
  • e.g. monkey, mouse, earth, plane, toffee etc

• Hard level: Seven or more letters
  • e.g. computer, Mississippi, dictionary etc
• professional level (If included) would have complete sentences.

Proposed features

Following are the proposed features for the activity

1. Word source:- The word source would be a expandable custom dictionary which would be using word list from Words activity. Words currently support French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish and of course English. An option would be provided to update dictionary which would search on the network for the dictionary server and update itself.
2. Implementation of "Hint" :- This would be using http://en.wiktionary.org. I have explained this further in following sections.
3. Speech-dispatcher: - The voicing would be done using speech dispatcher which would eventually be using espeak for synthesis. Espeak supports more than 30 international languages.
4. User defined word list: - This would facilitate users to add their own word list which can help in conducting a small group test. Option to add words through mesh network would be help in large group/class test.
5. Multiplayer game over mesh network: - Users can challenge each other over the network. One XO will then act as a server which would generate the word list for all the clients. All the users would receive same word list with limited retry option for each word after which next word would be given to user. The one who spelled most correct words in limited time wins. Option to speak each letter aloud would be disabled in this case.
6. Memory tool (A possible extension) :- A tutor mode in which activity repeats the word again and again until the spelling is absorbed into child's mind.

Other supportive features

1. Voice configuration: Option to edit voice configuration like volume, pitch, rate, language of the words and voice, gender of the voice etc.
2. Preferences to choose level of “Hint”: i.e. to select from word usage or word definition or images if possible.
3. Option to save the score as well as game also (in Journal) and retrieve later.

Resources

1. TalknType
2. Speech Dispatcher
3. Words Activity
4. Speech Synthesis
5. Screen Reader
6. Speak & Spell