<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>When: </b> Wednesday, March 6th <span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-il">at</span> <b style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)"><font size="4">3:00 pm</font></b></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-weight:bold"><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Where:<span style="font-weight:400"> </span><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-m_8421504075585210435gmail-m_3262824545120381495gmail-m_-1141671822915777344gmail-m_-7219251726624328345gmail-m_-8588148075564318222gmail-m_-8767966813928691312gmail-m_-1542318334608687154gmail-m_5717104778280916634gmail-m_4845490158781220632gmail-m_5124567205141626540gmail-m_3209361100497750746gmail-m_2953668934074478317gmail-m_-3155518689668024534m_9067904842688472155gmail-m_3071693547520408192gmail-il" style="font-weight:400"><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-il"><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-il">TTIC</span></span></span><span style="font-weight:400">, 6045 S Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor, Room 530</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-weight:bold;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Who:</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>Nobuaki Minematsu, The University of Tokyo</font></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;line-height:12pt;font-family:"Yu Mincho",serif"><span style="font-family:Times"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;line-height:12pt;font-family:"Yu Mincho",serif"><span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p></div><br class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div class="gmail_default"><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Title: </b></font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">How can speech technologies support learners to improve their skills of speaking</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> listening</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> conversation and more?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Abstract: </b></font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">In the globalization era</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> not only students but also immigrant workers have to learn new languages for smooth oral communication in those languages. In this talk</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> the lecturer illustrates how speech technologies</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> i.e. speech synthesis</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> speech recognition</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> voice conversion</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> etc can support learners to improve their skills of speaking</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> listening</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> conversation</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and more. Text does not show any prosodic structure explicitly and native speakers use their implicit knowledge on prosodic control to read aloud that text naturally. Implicit knowledge is difficult for teachers to explain explicitly and therefore prosody training is rare in classrooms. Text-to-speech systems often use a text-based prosody prediction module and this module is used effectively to teach prosodic control required to read given texts aloud explicitly to learners. In High Variability Phonetic Training </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">(</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">HVPT</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">),</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> teachers use speech stimuli with different ages</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">genders</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> accents</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> background noises, etc. Being exposed to those variabilities</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> learners can obtain robust listening skills. However</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> teachers prepare those stimuli manually. By introducing speech analysis and voice conversion techniques</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> those variabilities are easily enhanced. In the talk</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> an interesting example of adversarial training</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> which was originally used for machine learners and is newly introduced to human learners</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and its effectiveness for acquiring robust listening skills are explained. Further</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> use of speech recognition technologies for shadowing assessment to improve parallel processing skills for conversation is described. In the lecturer’s laboratory, a new project has started to realize a novel speech assessment framework</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> where not native-likeness but comprehensibility of learners</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">’</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> speech is mainly focused on for assessment. The lecturer shows recently obtained results of objective measurement of comprehensibility of learners’ speech.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Bio:</b></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Nobuaki MINEMATSU was born in Hyogo, Japan in 1966. He earned the doctor of Engineering in 1995 from The University of Tokyo and now is a full professor at Graduate School of Engineering there. When he was a high school boy, he wanted to become a language teacher, but finally became a professor of Engineering. He has a very wide interest in speech communication covering the areas of speech science and speech engineering, especially he has a good and practical knowledge on Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL) and has applied a variety of speech technologies for CALL. He received paper awards from RISP, JSAI, ICIST, O-COCOSDA, IEICE in 2005, 2007, 2011, 2014, and 2016 and received an encouragement award from PSJ in 2014. He gave tutorial talks on CALL at APSIPA2011, INTERSPEECH2012, and CASTEL/J2017. He was a distinguished lecturer of APSIPA from 2015 to 2016. He has made remarkable contributions to technical and scientific societies. He served as editorial chair of IEICE from 2014 to 2016 and chair of SIG-SLP of IPSJ from 2016 to 2017, and has been serving as member of the PSJ council from 2016. He also served as secretary of Speech Prosody 2004, secretary of INTERSPEECH2010, co-organizer of SLaTE2010 (L2 workshop 2010), and program chair of O-CCOSDA2018. He will serve as general chair of Speech Prosody 2020. He is a member of IEEE, ISCA, SLaTE, IPA, APSIPA, IEICE, IPSJ, ASJ, PSJ, JSAI, LET, etc.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Host:</b> <a href="mailto:furui@ttic.edu" target="_blank">Dr. Sadaoki Furui</a></font></p><br class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Mary C. Marre</font><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Administrative Assistant</font></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6"><b>Toyota Technological Institute</b></font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">6045 S. Kenwood Avenue</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">Room 517</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">Chicago, IL 60637</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">p:(773) 834-1757</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">f: (773) 357-6970</font></i></div><div><b><i><a href="mailto:mmarre@ttic.edu" target="_blank"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">mmarre@ttic.edu</font></a></i></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:43 PM Mary Marre <<a href="mailto:mmarre@ttic.edu">mmarre@ttic.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small"><div><div><div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>When: </b> Wednesday, March 6th <span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-il">at</span> <b style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)"><font size="4">3:00 pm</font></b></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="font-weight:bold"><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Where:<span style="font-weight:400"> </span><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-m_8421504075585210435gmail-m_3262824545120381495gmail-m_-1141671822915777344gmail-m_-7219251726624328345gmail-m_-8588148075564318222gmail-m_-8767966813928691312gmail-m_-1542318334608687154gmail-m_5717104778280916634gmail-m_4845490158781220632gmail-m_5124567205141626540gmail-m_3209361100497750746gmail-m_2953668934074478317gmail-m_-3155518689668024534m_9067904842688472155gmail-m_3071693547520408192gmail-il" style="font-weight:400"><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-il"><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-il">TTIC</span></span></span><span style="font-weight:400">, 6045 S Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor, Room 530</span></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-weight:bold;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Who:</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>Nobuaki Minematsu, The University of Tokyo</font></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;line-height:12pt;font-family:"Yu Mincho",serif"><span style="font-family:Times"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;line-height:12pt;font-family:"Yu Mincho",serif"><span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p></div><br class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Title: </b></font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">How can speech technologies support learners to improve their skills of speaking</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> listening</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> conversation and more?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Abstract: </b></font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">In the globalization era</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> not only students but also immigrant workers have to learn new languages for smooth oral communication in those languages. In this talk</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> the lecturer illustrates how speech technologies</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> i.e. speech synthesis</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> speech recognition</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> voice conversion</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> etc can support learners to improve their skills of speaking</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> listening</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> conversation</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and more. Text does not show any prosodic structure explicitly and native speakers use their implicit knowledge on prosodic control to read aloud that text naturally. Implicit knowledge is difficult for teachers to explain explicitly and therefore prosody training is rare in classrooms. Text-to-speech systems often use a text-based prosody prediction module and this module is used effectively to teach prosodic control required to read given texts aloud explicitly to learners. In High Variability Phonetic Training </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">(</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">HVPT</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">),</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> teachers use speech stimuli with different ages</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">genders</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> accents</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> background noises, etc. Being exposed to those variabilities</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> learners can obtain robust listening skills. However</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> teachers prepare those stimuli manually. By introducing speech analysis and voice conversion techniques</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> those variabilities are easily enhanced. In the talk</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> an interesting example of adversarial training</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> which was originally used for machine learners and is newly introduced to human learners</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and its effectiveness for acquiring robust listening skills are explained. Further</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> use of speech recognition technologies for shadowing assessment to improve parallel processing skills for conversation is described. In the lecturer’s laboratory, a new project has started to realize a novel speech assessment framework</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> where not native-likeness but comprehensibility of learners</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">’</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> speech is mainly focused on for assessment. The lecturer shows recently obtained results of objective measurement of comprehensibility of learners’ speech.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Bio:</b></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Nobuaki MINEMATSU was born in Hyogo, Japan in 1966. He earned the doctor of Engineering in 1995 from The University of Tokyo and now is a full professor at Graduate School of Engineering there. When he was a high school boy, he wanted to become a language teacher, but finally became a professor of Engineering. He has a very wide interest in speech communication covering the areas of speech science and speech engineering, especially he has a good and practical knowledge on Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL) and has applied a variety of speech technologies for CALL. He received paper awards from RISP, JSAI, ICIST, O-COCOSDA, IEICE in 2005, 2007, 2011, 2014, and 2016 and received an encouragement award from PSJ in 2014. He gave tutorial talks on CALL at APSIPA2011, INTERSPEECH2012, and CASTEL/J2017. He was a distinguished lecturer of APSIPA from 2015 to 2016. He has made remarkable contributions to technical and scientific societies. He served as editorial chair of IEICE from 2014 to 2016 and chair of SIG-SLP of IPSJ from 2016 to 2017, and has been serving as member of the PSJ council from 2016. He also served as secretary of Speech Prosody 2004, secretary of INTERSPEECH2010, co-organizer of SLaTE2010 (L2 workshop 2010), and program chair of O-CCOSDA2018. He will serve as general chair of Speech Prosody 2020. He is a member of IEEE, ISCA, SLaTE, IPA, APSIPA, IEICE, IPSJ, ASJ, PSJ, JSAI, LET, etc.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Host:</b> <a href="mailto:furui@ttic.edu" target="_blank">Dr. Sadaoki Furui</a></font></p><br class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Mary C. Marre</font><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Administrative Assistant</font></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6"><b>Toyota Technological Institute</b></font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">6045 S. Kenwood Avenue</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">Room 517</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">Chicago, IL 60637</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">p:(773) 834-1757</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">f: (773) 357-6970</font></i></div><div><b><i><a href="mailto:mmarre@ttic.edu" target="_blank"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">mmarre@ttic.edu</font></a></i></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 2:11 PM Mary Marre <<a href="mailto:mmarre@ttic.edu" target="_blank">mmarre@ttic.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b style="font-size:small">When: </b><span style="font-size:small;font-weight:400"> Wednesday, March 6th </span><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-il" style="font-size:small;font-weight:400">at</span><span style="font-size:small;font-weight:400"> </span><b style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)"><font size="4">3:00 pm</font></b></font></div><div style="font-size:small"><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="font-size:small;font-weight:bold"><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Where:<span style="font-weight:400"> </span><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-m_8421504075585210435gmail-m_3262824545120381495gmail-m_-1141671822915777344gmail-m_-7219251726624328345gmail-m_-8588148075564318222gmail-m_-8767966813928691312gmail-m_-1542318334608687154gmail-m_5717104778280916634gmail-m_4845490158781220632gmail-m_5124567205141626540gmail-m_3209361100497750746gmail-m_2953668934074478317gmail-m_-3155518689668024534m_9067904842688472155gmail-m_3071693547520408192gmail-il" style="font-weight:400"><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-m_8517121454174849988gmail-m_-6691959996525573090gmail-m_1517372298344856049gmail-m_491069367152086750gmail-m_-8327640324523575189gmail-m_2420618808463760418gmail-m_7960197898027616883gmail-m_8692226636264124041gmail-m_2794822896869921223gmail-m_7508998950622620526gmail-m_-7153355664495542534gmail-il"><span class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-m_7479671177549005053gmail-m_-1006581271670861484gmail-m_-3789046984517165451gmail-m_6280573200025755333gmail-m_5159318120685850543gmail-m_1790959466673216095gmail-m_-5333227643664982572m_2625127627517695854m_2683896348608817813gmail-m_7672563966056633266gmail-m_-6461243813863673855gmail-m_-742000311328020925gmail-m_7559459027998801583gmail-m_4801029585485711767gmail-il">TTIC</span></span></span><span style="font-weight:400">, 6045 S Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor, Room 530</span></font></div><div style="font-size:small"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:small;font-weight:bold;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Who:</span><span style="font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>Nobuaki Minematsu, The University of Tokyo</font></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="font-size:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt;font-family:"Yu Mincho",serif"><span style="font-family:Times"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="font-size:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:12pt;font-family:"Yu Mincho",serif"><span style="font-family:Times"> </span></p></div><br class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Title: </b></font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">How can speech
technologies support learners to improve their skills of speaking</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> listening</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> conversation and
more?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Abstract: </b></font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">In the
globalization era</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> not only students but also immigrant workers have to
learn new languages for smooth oral communication in those languages. In this
talk</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> the lecturer
illustrates how speech technologies</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> i.e. speech
synthesis</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> speech
recognition</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> voice conversion</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> etc can support
learners to improve their skills of speaking</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> listening</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> conversation</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and more. Text
does not show any prosodic structure explicitly and native speakers use their
implicit knowledge on prosodic control to read aloud that text naturally.
Implicit knowledge is difficult for teachers to explain explicitly and
therefore prosody training is rare in classrooms. Text-to-speech systems often
use a text-based prosody prediction module and this module is used effectively to
teach prosodic control required to read given texts aloud explicitly to
learners. In High Variability Phonetic Training </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">(</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">HVPT</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">),</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> teachers use
speech stimuli with different ages</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> genders</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> accents</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> background
noises, etc. Being exposed to those variabilities</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> learners can
obtain robust listening skills. However</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> teachers prepare
those stimuli manually. By introducing speech analysis and voice conversion
techniques</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> those
variabilities are easily enhanced. In the talk</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> an interesting
example of adversarial training</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> which was
originally used for machine learners and is newly introduced to human learners</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and its
effectiveness for acquiring robust listening skills are explained. Further</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> use of speech
recognition technologies for shadowing assessment to improve parallel
processing skills for conversation is described. In the lecturer’s laboratory, a
new project has started to realize a novel speech assessment framework</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> where not
native-likeness but comprehensibility of learners</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">’</span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> speech is mainly
focused on for assessment. The lecturer shows recently obtained results of objective
measurement of comprehensibility of learners’ speech.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Bio:</b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Nobuaki MINEMATSU
was born in Hyogo, Japan in 1966. He earned the doctor of Engineering in 1995
from The University of Tokyo and now is a full professor at Graduate School of
Engineering there. When he was a high school boy, he wanted to become a
language teacher, but finally became a professor of Engineering. He has a very
wide interest in speech communication covering the areas of speech science and
speech engineering, especially he has a good and practical knowledge on
Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL) and has applied a variety of speech
technologies for CALL. He received paper awards from RISP, JSAI, ICIST, O-COCOSDA,
IEICE in 2005, 2007, 2011, 2014, and 2016 and received an encouragement award
from PSJ in 2014. He gave tutorial talks on CALL at APSIPA2011,
INTERSPEECH2012, and CASTEL/J2017. He was a distinguished lecturer of APSIPA
from 2015 to 2016. He has made remarkable contributions to technical and
scientific societies. He served as editorial chair of IEICE from 2014 to 2016
and chair of SIG-SLP of IPSJ from 2016 to 2017, and has been serving as member
of the PSJ council from 2016. He also served as secretary of Speech Prosody
2004, secretary of INTERSPEECH2010, co-organizer of SLaTE2010 (L2 workshop
2010), and program chair of O-CCOSDA2018. He will serve as general chair of
Speech Prosody 2020. He is a member of IEEE, ISCA, SLaTE, IPA, APSIPA, IEICE,
IPSJ, ASJ, PSJ, JSAI, LET, etc.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Host:</b> Dr. Sadaoki Furui</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:12pt;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></p></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail-m_-3709925275814967866gmail-m_7442232181507550516gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Mary C. Marre</font><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Administrative Assistant</font></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6"><b>Toyota Technological Institute</b></font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">6045 S. Kenwood Avenue</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">Room 517</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#3d85c6">Chicago, IL 60637</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">p:(773) 834-1757</font></i></div><div><i><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">f: (773) 357-6970</font></i></div><div><b><i><a href="mailto:mmarre@ttic.edu" target="_blank"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">mmarre@ttic.edu</font></a></i></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div></div>
</blockquote></div></div>