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✨ From my personal experience and recent work with Vietnamese students, I've noticed that certain syllables and consonant clusters are particularly challenging for Vietnamese speakers. This is also evident in the fact that Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems frequently misinterpret them in Vietnamese learners’ speeches.

Although fluency is only one of the scoring criteria, its importance is worth highlighting because research shows it is the strongest predictor of overall proficiency. Fluency is usually measured by speaking rate (in English, a good rate is typically around 120–140 words per minute), mean run (sentence) length, and the number of long pauses.

Our conference experience began with a five-hour road trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Oxford, Ohio. We arrived just in time for the opening reception, where it was wonderful to reconnect with longtime colleagues including Greg Kessler, who just joined our Language Innovators podcast.