27. A non-transitory computer-readable memory comprising computer-readable instructions, which when executed cause a processor to perform steps comprising: performing speech recognition on digitized speech using a non-native acoustic model trained with non-native speech to generate word hypotheses for the digitized speech; performing time alignment between the digitized speech and the word hypotheses utilizing a reference acoustic model trained with native-quality speech; calculating statistics regarding individual words and phonemes of the word hypotheses based on said alignment; calculating a plurality of features for use in assessing pronunciation of the speech based on the statistics; calculating an assessment score based on one or more of the calculated features; and storing the assessment score in a computer-readable memory.
27. A non-transitory computer-readable memory comprising computer-readable instructions, which when executed cause a processor to perform steps comprising: performing speech recognition on digitized speech using a non-native acoustic model trained with non-native speech to generate word hypotheses for the digitized speech; performing time alignment between the digitized speech and the word hypotheses utilizing a reference acoustic model trained with native-quality speech; calculating statistics regarding individual words and phonemes of the word hypotheses based on said alignment; calculating a plurality of features for use in assessing pronunciation of the speech based on the statistics; calculating an assessment score based on one or more of the calculated features; and storing the assessment score in a computer-readable memory. 42. The non-transitory computer-readable memory of claim 27 , wherein the digitized speech is spontaneous, non-native speech of a non-native language speaker.