English Pronunciation Training and Custom-Made Speaking Site for Training and Testing

Abstract

Okayama Prefectural University introduced a new project for the improvement of students' English proficiency in 2015. The project has been established based on three concepts: (1) English pronunciation training, (2) English conversation practice, and (3) extensive reading. This paper reports mainly on the English pronunciation training with the use of an e-learning software, as well as the English conversation practice which uses a custom-made online speaking site for training and testing. The online speaking site “Open Voice” was designed by a group of native English speaking ESL instructors and technology specialists based in Japan. It has been tailored to Japanese university-level students of English. This report aims to explain the objectives of the project and introduce examples of practical use for information technology in English education.