24-28_Kuo-Yi Chen, Wen-Jie, Cai_The Design and implementation of the English pronunciation education device-converted_edited International Journal of Emerging Issues in Early Childhood Education (IJEIECE) Vol. 1, No. 1, May 2019, pp. 28-32 DOI: https://doi.org/10.31098/ijeiece.v1i1.16 p- I SSN 2 6 5 5- 9 98 6 Article History: Received March 1st, 2019; Accepted May 29th, 2019; Published May 29th, 2019. The Design and Implementation of the English Pronunciation Education Device Kuo-Yi Chen a, 1, Wen-Jie a, Cai a, 2 a Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Formosa University, Taiwan 1 kuoyichen@nfu.edu.tw; 2 40443142@gm.nfu.edu.tw Abstract The English learning issue is always a problem for students who are not coming from native English countries. Among the problems of English learning, such as spelling, reading, writing, the most significant barrier could be English pronunciation. To improve this issue, we design and implement the English pronunciation education device. This device could help students to improve their English pronunciation with 3D printed blocks and real person voice. Keywords English Learning; English Pronunciation; Phonetic Symbols; Teaching Device This is an open access article under the CC–BY-NC license. INTRODUCTION In the modern world, the ability to use multiple languages could be essential. Among all languages, English could be the primary language across the globe. However, English learning could be a struggle process. Due to the learning student might not live and grow in native- English countries, the environment of English using is hard to be created. Moreover, the nonstandard accent leads to more problem in English pronunciation. For the issue of English pronunciation, the most common approach is the use of phonetics. There are many phonetics systems used, such as International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), Kenyon and Knott Phonetic, Daniel Jones Phonetic Symbol. These phonetics systems are a least long time from English learning. However, these phonetic symbol systems are different from each other. Students have to choose one or try to correspond them with the table 1 and lead to more confusedness and trouble. Recent studies already show that the use of phonics approach could be a better way to learn English pronunciation than traditional phonetics systems (Diaz-Plaza, 1995). To increase the performance Chen, Jie & Cai / The Design and Implementation of the English Pronunciation Education Device 29 phonics learning for younger students, an English pronunciation education device is designed and implemented in this paper. LITERATURE REVIEW The issue of English pronunciation is a trendy study area, especially in non-native English countries. Such as in Asia, Huang, Guimin give his study in Chinese students learning English pronunciation (Huang et al., 2017). Jayapalan, Kamalashine also has the study of teaching and learning English pronunciation in Malaysia (Jayapalan & Pillai, 2016). These studies both indicate the problems of the using of phonetic symbols (Hameed & Aslam, 2015). On the other hand, some researches show the mobile app might help students to learn English pronunciation (Cavus, 2016; James, 2017). However, the use of mobile apps might lead to bad eyesight since there are already a lot of mobile devices around students (Schaefer, 2015). Therefore, the requestions of the teaching device to improve the ability of English pronunciation still existed (Huang et al., 2017; Black et al. 2015). METHODOLOGY To avoid the modern 3C devices interference, such as iPad, mobile phones, and then reduce the learning performance of English teaching, the English pronunciation education device should be designed without apps and mobile devices. Therefore, the education device is designed as follows. Table 1. The vowels and diphthongs with IPA, John, and K.K. Source: http://sparkandshine.net (2014). International Journal of Emerging Issues in Early Childhood Education (IJEIECE) Vol. 1, No. 1, May 2019, pp. 28-32 30 Figure 1. The outlook of the English pronunciation education device. There are two major parts for this device, the alpha buttons, and the central station. Students put the alpha buttons which could spell a word on the central station, and then the main station will read this word with phonics. With this approach, any word could be read by each pronunciation to reach the goal of learning. To recognize 26 different letters of the alphabet, we design the letters buttons of the alphabet with 3D printing technology. Each letters buttons is including an electrical resistor. With the measurement of the particular value of each electrical resistor, the alphabet could be recognized. Figure 2. The electric resistor and alphabet buttons With 3D printing technology, all alphabet buttons could be printed as follows. Each alphabet button contains various electric resistors from one Ohm to 10K Ohm. With the measurement approach, the values of electrical resistors could be detected when the alphabet button is attached to the teaching device. Therefore, various amounts of electrical resistors could be considered as a tag, and let teaching device have the sequence of alphabet sequence as a word. With the use of electrical resistors, 26 alphabet buttons could be easily detected. The cost of electric resistors is better than other approaches such as RFID, IR sensors, bar codes. Therefore, the value of the proposed teaching device could be reduced significantly. Figure 3. The alphabet buttons RESULT AND DISCUSSION Chen, Jie & Cai / The Design and Implementation of the English Pronunciation Education Device 31 The English pronunciation education device is designed by 3D modeling technology; we created the shape as a school bus to indicate the learning goal. The windows of the school bus for ready for alphabet buttons placing. Figure 4. The English pronunciation education device 3D model The students could place the word, for example, CAT, with the alphabet buttons. The order of alphabet buttons could be used to present the word as follows. Figure 5. The sequence of alphabet buttons on the pronunciation education device Since the sequence of alphabet buttons could be detected by the device, therefore, the sound of phonics could be played by a microcontroller. Thus students could hear the sound of phonics and learn pronunciation as well. CONCLUSION In this paper, we propose a design of English pronunciation education device. This device is presented as two major parts, the equipment, and alphabet buttons. With the use of electrical resistors, the cost of the device could be reduced significantly. Without the LCD, the students could focus on more on learning and reach the goal of English pronunciation learning with fun. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) under Grant No. MOST-104-2221- E-150-014-, Grant No. MOST 105-2221-E- 150-052 - and Grant No. MOST 106-2221- E-150-006. REFERENCES Black, M.P., et al. (2015). Automated evaluation of non-native English pronunciation quality: combining knowledge-and data-driven features at multiple time scales. in Sixteenth Annual Conference of the International Journal of Emerging Issues in Early Childhood Education (IJEIECE) Vol. 1, No. 1, May 2019, pp. 28-32 32 International Speech Communication Association. Cavus, N. (2016). Development of an intellegent mobile application for teaching English pronunciation. Procedia Computer Science, 102 p. 365-369. Diaz-Plaza, R. R. (1995). Interactive teaching apparatus and method for teaching graphemes, grapheme names, phonemes, and phonetics, Google Patents. Hameed, P.F.M., Aslam, M.S. (2015). Pronunciation as a stumbling Block for the Saudi English learners: An analysis of the problems and some remedies. Theory and practice in language studies, 5(8) p. 1578. Huang, G., et al. (2017). A evaluating model of english pronunciation for Chinese students. in Communication Software and Networks (ICCSN), IEEE 9th International Conference on 2017. IEEE. James, I. (2017). The Use of Web-Based Text-to-Speech Tool in Improving English Pronunciation and Changing Perception of Error Correction among Young Learners. International Journal on E- Learning Practices (IJELP). Jayapalan, K., Pillai, S. (2016). The state of teaching and learning English pronunciation in Malaysia: A preliminary study. Malaysian Journal of ELT Research, 7(2): p. 19. Schaefer, S. (2015). A Fresh Look at English “Combining Forms”: Structure, identification and pronunciation. in Book of Abstracts. The vowels and diphthongs with IPA, John and K.K. (2014). http://sparkandshine.net/internation al-kk-dj-phonetic-symbols-and-the- corresponding-figure/.