Towards Personalised, Synthesis-based Content in Irish (Gaelic) Language Education

Abstract

We present a web-based TTS facility, which will eventually provide for the major dialects of Irish. It, along with an ancillary toolkit of language resources, is increasingly being exploited in diverse teaching/learning environments. Further synthesis-based interactive educational platforms are described which are geared to specific learning tasks. These educational applications facilitate a degree of personalisation and can be adapted to the needs and proficiency levels of different types of learners. They further enable learner autonomy. It is emphasised that speech technology applications, such as those illustrated here, may have a particular impact in addressing many of the particular challenges that face teachers/learners of a minority language, such as Irish.