O n f e r e n c e

Globalvoice CALL
How can Japanese EFL learners learn to speak more intelligible English for international 
communication? There exist many various factors in evaluating non-native speakers of 
English. Previous research has shown that rhythmic accent and pauses are more 
important than segmental features in English utterances to make speech intelligible. In 
this regard, prosodic features such as the intonation and rhythm of the language are 
crucial to comprehensible speech.
One of the main goals of English education in Japan is to help students speak English 
intelligibly so they can be more clearly understood while taking part in international 
communication. Several parameters such as speech duration, speech power, F0 (pitch), 
and the ratio of vowel and consonant length are all introduced and practiced using the 
Globalvoice CALL software to determine how much Japanese students can improve their 
English pronunciation and overall proficiency by using the software. Globalvoice 
CALL[Figure 2] is an excellent software into which students can input any words or 
sentences for practicing pronunciation and prosody for speech training [11].

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2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
Figure 2: Screen of Globalvoice CALL 
Assessment of the Blended Learning Activities
For assessment purposes, we present a sampling of the data results below, including the 
results from TOEIC, which revealed that the 
students’ 
overall English proficiency had 
improved after their exposure to the BL activities. Also included are some of the results 
of the survey administered to students for the purpose of attaining feedback on how they 
felt about the BL activities.
TOEIC
The TOEIC results revealed that the mean scores significantly increased from 570 
(SD=102) in the pretest to 687 (SD=108) 
in
the posttest for the 3
rd
year students and 
increased from 382 (SD=102) to 573 (SD=120) for the 1
st
year students. The TOEIC 
pre- and post-test results were analysed using a t-test, indicating that the difference 
between pre- and post-test scores of both classes were statistically significant at a 1% 
level. This improvement in scores would seem to indicate that the utilization of a BL 
environment integrating m-learning and e-learning helped the students to improve their 
overall English proficiency.
Questionnaire
A survey was administered to the participants after being exposed to the blended-
learning program incorporating TED Talks and the use of emerging technologies. In 
response to the survey question “did you find the TED Talks (1) useful in improving your 
English proficiency,” 91% of 90 students felt that the online lectures were very useful. In 
response to the following survey questions “did you find the ATR
CALL Brix program (2); 
Newton m-learning program (3); Globalvoice CALL software (4) useful in improving your 
English proficiency and pronunciation,” (2) 89%, (3) 76%, and (4) 91%, respectively, 
felt that they are very effective and useful. And in response 
to the question “to what 
extent did you use mobile technologies to learn online TED talks and Newton m-learning 
program,” 30% of students responded that they had used their mobile devices to study 
the online English.