Mr. Tongue Twister is an educational skill created to help young learners (8-12 year olds) as well as non-native English speakers improve their listening and speaking skills. The created skill consists of three sections: introduction, the actual game, and the calculation of results.
At the beginning, Alexa asks a child for his/her name and then greets a player using the same name to establish a warm and welcoming contact. This feature was achieved by using an Amazon intent of the list of popular GB names. Then, the child listens to the description of the skill. For example, Alexa: "Welcome to Mr. Tongue Twister. What is your name?" Child: "Hi! I’m John!" Alexa: ""Hi John. Repeat each tongue twister after me. Remember that I can slow down and repeat each phrase if you ask me. Are you ready to start now?" Child: "Yes!"
In the following section, Alexa randomly chooses and reads a tongue twister from the list of kid-friendly tongue twisters. A child can ask Alexa to repeat the phrase slower using a variety of words or phrases such as "slower," "slow down," "repeat," "what," etc. Alexa will kindly pronounce the same tongue twister in a slower pace to make sure the player understood every word. An important feature of this game is that Alexa will carefully listen to the speaker and let him/her know whether all the words are pronounced correctly. To achieve this, Alexa will repeat exactly what the player said and match it to the built in phrases. The next round of tongue twisters will be pronounced again at a faster pace until the child asks specifically to slow down again. If the tongue twister is pronounced correctly, Alexa will iterate through several possible praising responses to make sure a child knows he/she is doing great. However, if the phrase is mispronounced, Alexa will follow the same structure — repeat what a child said and then say it in the correct way, and move on to a new phrase.
For example, Alexa: "she sees cheese" Child: "she sees cheese" Alexa: "She sees cheese is correct! Good job." Next, "Penny paid a penny for a pumpkin" Child: "Slower" Alexa: "P-e-n-n-y p-a-i-d-a-p-e-n-n-y f-o-r-a-p-u-m-p-k-i-n" Child: "Penny paid a penny pumpkin" Alexa: "Penny paid a penny pumpkin is unfortunately incorrect. The phrase was, "Penny paid a penny for a pumpkin." Next "Upper roller, lower roller"
If a child completes all tongue twisters, Alexa calculates the number of correctly pronounced ones, and asks if he/she wants to continue the game. By saying "yes", Alexa starts it again, "no" or "stop" exit the game.
Mr. Tongue Twister is a great skill for children or ESL learners to sharpen their ear, improve speech defects, and learn how to pronounce phrases at a faster speed. It would be a good exercise to practice both in class or at home.
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