There is simply tons of different software packages available for ESL students and teachers to use for pronunciation practice.  As with all things, some is good and some is simply junk that shouldn't even be on the market.  But hey…who am I to say something can't be sold!

I'm going to be focusing on English pronunciation software here, not because there isn't stuff available for other languages, it is simply that I'm not too familiar with other software.  At any rate, here are a few things to keep in mind when you are looking for pronunciation software for you or your ESL students.  Much of it will hold true for other languages too.

Some things to look for in pronunciation software

• provides content across many topic areas
• provides practice on phoneme/morpheme, individual words/phrases and sentence levels
• includes multiple voice examples, not a single person making all the samples
• allows for students to record directly within the software
• allows for some visualization of sounds (can see voice wave forms)
• uses natural English speech and content
• lets you add in new/original content (quite rare unfortunately)
• is simple to understand and use

Avoid pronunciation software that:

• is forced/fake or made for ESL content
• is really complicated and hard to use
• has poor/confusing user interface
• requires lots of 'extra' add-ons to work (browser plugins, recording software, etc.)
• requires hyper-specific hardware configurations (e.g. MUST HAVE XXX soundcard and YYY CPU)
• doesn't provide you a demo to try out
• is older than 4 years or so (There's nothing wrong with old software, but audio technology has really improved in the last few years and can make a huge difference)
• is designed for computer set-ups that are different from yours.  Check to see if there are network, standalone, or workstation versions of the software, and don't be shy about asking the software publisher for more information on the lab envirionments it will work in.  If you need to, get your tech people in on the conversation to explain your setup.

In the end you need to choose pronunciation software that bests suits the needs of your students and teachers and your budget.  You will need to evaluate a variety of different applications to find the ones that best suit your needs.  That is what should ALWAYS determine you eventual choices, not some marketing message or popularity contest.  Also remember that you can use other software as well for practicing pronunciation.  It does not need to be designed specifically for ESL or langauge classes.

First think about what it is you're hoping to accomplish with the software, and then ask yourself if the particular software (whatever it is) can be used for that purpose.  The most popular pronunciation software in our lab was designed for music production, not pronunciation practice.  But it works really well.

Here are a couple of commercial pronunciation programs I'd suggest checking out:

• Pronunciation Power I & II - this is very well laid out and simple to use.  Very good value in of these packages for both individual and class use.
• Eyespeak English (We use the premium edition - it has some quirks, but is quite good and students seem to really like it)
• Connected Speech: Perhaps the content is a little forced at the lower content levels, but there is a TON of content that covers a good selection of topics at a variety of difficulty levels.  Focus is on sentence level pronunciation.

FREE Software that can be used for pronunciation practice

• PRAAT - we've discussed this in other posts
• Audacity - a great, simple to use, yet very powerful recording software.  It is great for working on longer passages, self-created materials, stories, retells etc.

 This is only a partial list of what we use and have reviewed, but it ought to get you started.  If you've had experience with other software, drop a note as a comment.

Cheers.

Eric

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