What's New
- Audio Looping - On full size audio players, audio playback can be looped by long-pressing the button for one second. This feature is available in ALL courses including inside term lists.
What Even is Choral Practice?
Choral practice is a learning technique where language learners speak in unison with a teacher or as a group and attempt to model an example phrase. This decidedly old-school technique has been making a resurgence recently because of its effectiveness.
Researchers like Dr. Olle Kjellin have written about it in detail. Hearing the model and repeating it train the audio-motor links needed when learning a second language. Choral Practice also helps train prosody, rhythm, pitch and intonation. Kjellin uses the example of a choir and notes it would be difficult to sing a different tune than the choir.
Suggested Usage in Emurse:
Repeat the phrase 10-20 times, then record yourself using the dual graph and inspect the pitch contour and waveform and compare it to that of the reference recording.
Other Benefits
Besides pronunciation, choral practice will help with grammar and vocabulary retention. Additionally, Kjellin points out in another paper that by using this method in conjunction with visual data like pitch contours and waveform visualization, it's possible to develop near-native level accent. The method pointed out in the previous research paper can be accomplished effortlessly in Emurse. Indeed, similar methods were used by Dogen on his path to developing a Japanese accent that's nearly indistinguishable from that of a native.
To try it out, enroll in an Emurse course today!