Vocab Express, the award-winning online learning application for foreign language vocabulary, has announced new and updated native speaker audio support for Key Stage 2-5 vocabulary resources.
Seven different voice artists were used to record 35,532 new individual lexical items in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Urdu and Arabic. This latest batch takes the total library of audio on Vocab Express to over 51,000 lexical items.
Native speaker audio files support the learning process, generally offering a stronger grasp of pronunciation than a non-native speaker or synthesised voice recordings which do not always accurately express the intonation of words crucial for many languages.
The audio is repeatedly played to learners during the learning process on Vocab Express to reinforce the vocabulary acquisition process. In addition, an optional listening-only mode asks students to complete the learning process using only auditory skills, exposing them to the subtleties of a language that are not apparent by reading or by just studying grammar/vocabulary.
Justin Sycamore, managing director at Vocab Express comments: “As language teachers are not always native speakers, allowing students access to native speaker audio and pronunciation in class or at home is incredibly important, especially for tonal languages such as Mandarin. This significant expansion of our audio library is one of several steps on the path to the release of Vocab Express Version 2 in September.”
May 2013