Corporate Programs -
Accent Testing
ALTA's Accent Test is an assessment tool that measures an individual's pronunciation and intonation relative to the Standard American Accent.
ALTA's Accent Test is composed of two scores: Pronunciation and Intonation. Pronunciation and Intonation are two of the three major elements of an individual's accent in English. Word stress is the third element and is not measured in this test. Pronunciation and intonation each are scored on a range of 0 to 100. The Standard American Accent represents a score of 100. The closer an individual's score is to 100, the closer that individual's pronunciation or intonation is to the Standard American Accent.
Test Description
The test consists of a text in English. 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 into the ALTA recording line where the reading is recorded. The candidate's performance is then scored for pronunciation and intonation. Scores are reported to the client's administrative contact the following business day.
Test Design - Pronunciation
ALTA first defined the sounds (phonemes) that are used in American English. These phonemes are well-known and described in the accent literature. The frequency of use of each of these phonemes was identified by analyzing speech that is commonly used in general conversations. Each phoneme is weighted in the scoring based on its frequency of use. For example, the initial "p" sound in the word "peak" is used 1.48 percent of the time in general conversation. The recorded reading of the candidate is next analyzed to determine the severity of each pronunciation problem: none, minor, moderate, severe. The candidate's score on the initial "p" sound is determined 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 scoring for all of the phonemes is totaled to give the pronunciation score.
Test Design - 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.
Use of the Test
The ALTA Accent test is an indicator of a candidate's accent relative to the Standard American accent. The test does not include Word Stress, which is one of the three elements of accent. The test is a good indicator of performance improvement in ALTA's accent reduction programs. Data from a recent group training program indicates the Pronunciation (P) and Intonation (I) improvement:
Training Availability
Once the reading is provided to the client, the test can be done at any time by calling ALTA's automated test recording line.
Test Fees
Test fees are $50 per test with volume discounts available
