Ed.Tech.TESOL

http://iainsalatiga.ac.id/the-use-of-speech-recognition-to-improve-pronunciation-accuracy/
 
“I feel the pain on my neck after using speech recognition!” This is a quote from one of my colleagues having used speech recognition in his net-book. He said that talking to a computer is challenging. In daily conversation, he never has a problem in articulating his opinion in English. His pronunciation is fairly acceptable.
However, talking with machine is just the way around. Apparently, he should stress the words and letters so that the computer can recognize and encode his words.
Using speech recognition is an advanced level in talking to a computer. In the former article on ‘Can you talk to a computer online’, you have experienced in talking to a computer online in written form. In this article, you will find a contrastive condition. Speech recognition means how a computer understand human speech. The oral form is the characteristic of speech recognition.
That experience is based on the use of speech recognition for windows. Moreover, there are some other types of speech recognition such as Voice Dialing in BlackBerry, Assistant Apps for Android Operating System, Cleverbot apps, Speaking pal, Pupito and Siri for Ipad etc.
Speech Recognition for window is already installed in our computer. We may find it if our computer uses windows 7 or above as an operating system. In case we use windows XP, then we need some additional installing procedures to complete the speech recognition set up. Please bear in your mind, I never sort out the problem in installing speech recognition in windows XP. Thus I will not recommend you to try it out.
By using Speech Recognition for windows, we can give commands to our computer. The commands covers many things such as open or close a program. Even we can type an article in Ms word with hands free. What a brilliant way!. We just need to pronounce our words. This method give us a new way in learning English.
In order to find out the speech recognition in our net-book, we need to simply follow these steps.

1. Type the keyword ‘speech’ in the windows start browser
2. Click the result of ‘speech recognition’
3. Follow the next steps on the screen

Voice Dialing in BlackBerry is my second attempt to find out the variety of speech recognition software. It has fewer commands than speech recognition in windows. The commands only relates to dialing number in our phone book. Voice Dialing covers relatively small amount of vocabulary to hear such as the words; say, pronounce, try again, yes, no, call and names of your friends. You may think that the practice by using such voice dialing is insignificant. However, it is worth to try for beginners or for whom that want to take the most benefits from any resources we may have.
Assistant Apps for Android Operating System, Cleverbot apps, Speaking pal, Pupito and Siri for Ipad are the most current trial in using speech recognition software. I also believe that they are the most advanced speaking pals. They behave like human beings by giving responses to our shout. Even they provide face expression to show their emotion. By using those kind of speech recognition software, we learn not only to pronounce but also to listen to native expression.
Some of those speech recognition programs are free to use such as speech recognition for windows, voice dialing, assistant apps and Siri. The others offer lite version by giving free program with limited features. We must take our time at first because we may not find ‘what you say is not what computer gets’. There is nothing wrong with the computer because the problem lies on us. In that case, we actually still have a problem with our pronunciation. As long as we get accustom to them, they can be our interactive partners in having conversation.

http://en.stainsalatiga.ac.id/capitalizing-microsoft-word-to-enrich-our-vocabulary/
Nowadays, we vastly use word processors to manage text based data in our daily basis activities. Those programs have eased our cumbersome paperwork which are typed manually by hands, by typewriters or by electronic typewriters. In Indonesia, the most common used programs of word processors is Microsoft Word developed by Microsoft Inc.
Actually, there are still many types of word processors such as word pad, notepad, online word processor, Google doc, word for mac, pbworks etc. Based on my teaching experience, Ms. Word is the most feasible and useful one among the other types because the vendor has already installed the program into the computer and most people use it in their work place. In addition to those strength, we can also capitalize some features within to enrich our vocabulary. Those features are important to discuss because other programs do not have such features. In my opinion, they include key stroke shortcut, spelling & grammar, synonym and thesaurus.
Key stroke shortcut
Key stroke shortcut or normally mentioned as shortcut is a combination of keyboard strokes to give commands to computers in managing documents of Ms. Word. The key strokes can be combinations between or among Ctrl, Shift, Alphabets, Symbols, Arrow, Tab dan Alt. Let us take a look the way in blocking texts. Commonly, we do drop and drag with mouse from left to right or vise versa to create blocks. However, we may combine the key strokes ‘Shift+Arrow or Shift+Ctrl+Arrow’ to create the same blocks.
Another sample is to give command to copy texts or objects. In Ms. Word, there is a copy icon to click or do the right click to give command of copying texts or objects. Alternatively, we can use the shortcut by hitting the key strokes of Ctrl+C. I believe that it is just easy for all of us as this shortcut has been performed millions of times in typing our paperwork.
The latter technique to find the short cuts is to put the mouse pointer onto the related icons. In short, the icon will reveal the short cuts and drop down descriptions.
By memorizing shortcuts and their attributes, we will get through the vocabulary input process repeatedly. New vocabulary will enrich our memory. Whereas, the old one will restore the vocabulary list in our mind. On one hand, we may also take advantage from the drop down message to improve our reading skills. The drop down message are short, grammatical, structural sentences intended to give fast and clear information on the icon. On the other hand, we may even think that those type of sentences will not give any significant improvement in our reading skills. However, Shortcuts and their attributes in Ms. Word can be one of pertinent environment to maintain our vocabulary and reading skills while we are working with our paperwork.
Spelling & grammar checker
To me, spelling & grammar checker is an interesting feature that assists me to revise the errors in my sentences. If the feature is activated, we will get red, blue or green underlines every time we write in Indonesian. It means that the vocabulary is not available in the dictionary and need to be refined. Similarly, it happens when we have typo in our English sentences. We may also have one of those underlines. The red underline represent the errors on vocabulary. Whereas, The green and blue ones explicate the errors in grammar and structure. Soon, you will find the green underline in this sentence ‘I have go to school’ that it should be written as ‘I have gone to school’.