Improving literacy in developing countries using speech recognition-supported games on mobile devices

Anuj Kumar, Pooja Reddy, Anuj Tewari, Rajat Agrawal, Matthew Kam
2012 Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '12  
Learning to read in a second language is challenging, but highly rewarding. For low-income children in developing countries, this task can be significantly more challenging because of lack of access to high-quality schooling, but can potentially improve economic prospects at the same time. A synthesis of research findings suggests that practicing recalling and vocalizing words for expressing an intended meaning could improve word reading skillsincluding reading in a second languagemore than
more » ... nt recognition of what the given words mean. Unfortunately, many language learning software do not support this instructional approach, owing to the technical challenges of incorporating speech recognition support to check that the learner is vocalizing the correct word. In this paper, we present results from a usability test and two subsequent experiments that explore the use of two speech recognitionenabled mobile games to help rural children in India read words with understanding. Through a working speech recognition prototype, we discuss two major contributions of this work: first, we give empirical evidence that shows the extent to which productive training (i.e. vocalizing words) is superior to receptive vocabulary training, and discuss the use of scaffolding hints to "unpack" factors in the learner"s linguistic knowledge that may impact reading. Second, we discuss what our results suggest for future research in HCI.
doi:10.1145/2207676.2208564 dblp:conf/chi/KumarRTAK12 fatcat:vjrye5vhcza6vkgjzd7zmbqjoi