Accent Reduction Assessment
Accent Reduction Assessment
ALTA’s Accent Reduction Assessment is a tool designed to measure an individual’s pronunciation and intonation in relation to the Standard American Accent. The assessment will provide the client with a detailed report showing whether pronunciation issues exist and, if so, the severity of those issues for each of the 88 English-American sounds or phonemes.
The report also includes an evaluation of intonation, speech speed, and a final score that indicates the percentage of American English sounds or phonemes the client pronounces correctly when speaking. The Standard American Accent represents a score of 100. The closer an individual’s score is to 100, the closer that person’s pronunciation and intonation are to the Standard American Accent.
Test Description
The text contains all of the possible sounds (phonemes) of English and all of the different ways that intonation is used. The candidate reads the text and gives a speech sample into the ALTA recording line where the reading is recorded. The candidate’s performance is then scored. The results are reported to the client within three business days. See a sample of our Assessment report.
Test Design
Pronunciation
ALTA first identified the sounds (phonemes), used in American English. These phonemes are well-known and documented in accent literature. The frequency of use of each of these phonemes was identified by analyzing speech that is commonly used in everyday conversation. Each phoneme is weighted in the scoring process according to how often it appears in general speech. For example, the initial “p” sound in the word “peak” is used 1.48 percent of the time in general conversation. The candidate’s recorded reading is then analyzed to determine the severity of each pronunciation issue: none, minor, moderate, or severe. The candidate’s score for the initial “p” sound is calculated as 1.48 for no problem, 0.99 for a minor problem, 0.50 for a moderate problem, and 0.0 for a severe problem. The scores for all phonemes are then added together to produce the final pronunciation score.
Intonation
ALTA first defined the frequency of use of the three major types of sentences used in general conversation: declarative, interrogative beginning with a question word, and interrogative not beginning with a question word. Each of these types is weighted according to the frequency of use. The recording of the candidate is analyzed for each sentence type considering the appropriate ending intonation and the tonal emphasis on nouns or verbs. In a process similar to the Pronunciation test described above, the intonation problems are determined as none, minor, moderate or severe. The scoring for all intonation types is totaled to give the intonation score.
Speech Speed
Speech speed is the rate at which American English is spoken. The speech speed is measured in words per minute (wpm). The recording of the candidate is analyzed to evaluate whether the wpm interferes with comprehension by American-English speakers. A candidate’s speech speed can be too fast for native speakers to understand when pronunciation and intonation problems exist. Alternatively, it can be too slow, causing the speaker to sound not proficient in English.
Use of the Test
The ALTA voice accent test is an indicator of a candidate’s accent relative to the Standard American accent. The test is a good indicator of performance improvement in ALTA’s accent reduction programs.
Training Availability
Upon enrollment, the reading is provided to the client, and the voice accent test can be done at any time by calling ALTA’s automated test recording line.
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