Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Vivid, emotionally-enhanced pronunciation instruction?


Clip art: Clker
Clip art: Clker
Here's another one for the "Well-duh . . . " file. Researchers at the University of Toronto have just: " . . . discovered that we see things that are emotionally arousing with greater clarity than those that are more mundane," Furthermore, " . . . how vividly we perceive something in the first place predicts how vividly we will remember it later on . . . " They even have a term for it: emotionally enhanced vividness. There is a new acronym for us: Emotionally-enhanced, vivid pronunciation! (EVP) That topic has been addressed on the blog from several different perspectives. Now we have "empirical" evidence. Wow. Actually, there is something there worth mention, the use of the word "clarity" in that context--as long as you keep the terms "arousing" and "clarity" together. In other words, conceptual clarity must always be coupled with controlled emotional engagement--and even enthusiasm! Research has also repeatedly established that arousal, by itself, can also serve just as well to encode in memory all sorts of baggage that later interferes with efficient recall of specific targets in instruction--or life, in general. Emotion and attention management are key to our work, and pronunciation instruction, in general. For more memorable (and arousing!) lessons, try a little more (haptic-integrated) EVP.

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