The CDROM

The Streaming Speech CDROM was published in 2002 by Speechinaction, Birmingham, UK (www.speechinaction.com) .

The CDROM is an electronic publication written by Richard Cauldwell that introduces listening and pronunciation for advanced learners of English. The CDROM uses recordings of spontaneous speech to help upper-intermediate/advanced students master the challenges of listening to fast speech, and speaking with natural accurate fluency.

There are ten chapters. The first eight chapters each focus on a group of speech sounds and on a speaking strategy as it can be identified from the voice of a native speaker.

In the ninth chapter six of the speakers act as models for pronouncing the vowels and consonants of British English, and the tenth chapter, which is appropriate for teachers, contains the more technical aspects of identifying and characterising speech units spoken by native speakers

The multimedia CDROM was produced by Mike Beilby (of CBLProjects) using the Fabris system.

There is a separate web location which contains a demonstration (accessible from an Internet Explorer browser version 5.5 onwards)

This project has seen an implementation of Richard Cauldwell's teaching method using the Fabris authoring system. Each chapter comprises a sequence of pages containing text, images and graphics.

The individual pages can be read from a CDROM or from a Fabris web site, and they are displayed directly in an Internet Explorer browser.

Much use is made of Flash movies (version 5 onwards) and they provide animations accompanying the voices of the speakers.

Flash movies also form the basis for exercsies. Individual movies interact with the Fabris system and provide feedback and monitoring of student progress. Correct answers are identified and appropriate comments are given.

For more on the Fabris system go to the web site