EPIC PREVIEW POSTPONED - DUE TO MINOR HAPTIC MALFUNCTION HERE!
CHECK BACK February 5th!!! Spring 8-week course--Wednesday evenings 8~9 p.m. EST.
Here is the link to the course description.
william.acton@twu.ca.
Haptic-integrated Clinical Pronunciation Research and Teaching
EPIC PREVIEW POSTPONED - DUE TO MINOR HAPTIC MALFUNCTION HERE!
CHECK BACK February 5th!!! Spring 8-week course--Wednesday evenings 8~9 p.m. EST.
Here is the link to the course description.
william.acton@twu.ca.
This is an 8-week, weekend version of the regular English Accent and Pronunication Course. (See the description of the full 12-week course here.)
To get your money's worth from the course, $200 USD, you should do the assigned homework, about 30 minutes per day.
The difference between the regular course and this LITE version is that you need to do more homework during the course and follow up, yourself, for about 2 months after the course with regular practice. (This is a good course for an instructor who just wants a good introduction to haptic pronunciation teaching, too. Instructors are also provided with a copy of the full course with teachers notes, etc.)
The course officially begins this coming Thursday February 6th, but you can join it anytime for the next month and still get cuught up! The lesson videos are free; you only need to pay ($200) for the weekly feedback lessons.
All lessons are recorded and available later in day after the lesson.
A Zoom interview is required to enrol for the course. For more info or to sign up for an interview: william.acton@twu.ca.
Keep in touch!
Bill
Haptic work involves the use of a wide variety of "embodied oral readings" where typically there is an MT4 assigned to most, if not all, prominent stressed elements in a word, phrase or clause. To get a good sense of how those work, watch some (or all) of the four videos of lessons from the new Haptic English Accent and Pronunciation Course. That should give you a good introduction to KINETIK method and the new "MT4s."
Introduction (45 minutes)
Lesson 1 Follow up/feedback session (45 minutes)
The complete course will be available on Vimeo later this fall!
Keep in touch!
For all of you whose bodies are just dying to teach pronunciation "whole-bodily" and haptically . . .good news! I'll be offering a special 6-hour KINETIK Method seminar, four saturdays, 12-1:30 EST, October 19th to November 9th. $200 USD. There will be a couple of hours of optional homework assigned and all sessions will be recorded in case you miss one. Here are the topics covered:
This would be especially good for those teaching CLB levels 4~6. The course will follow the first half of the coming 10-week (Haptic) English Accent and Pronunciation Course. Will also be offering courses for CLB 1~3 and 7~9 levels next spring.
Course includes pre-publication draft of "Manual of Haptic Pronunciation Teaching," including access to new v7.0 instructional videos.
For more information, get in touch--soon!
wracton@gmail.com.
More detail shortly!
Have you seen this?
Among other actions taken to cut back on the number of international students coming to Canada, there are new langauge proficiency rules going into effect effective in November to get post graduate work permits (PGWP):
CORRECTION: AN EARLIER VERSION REPORTED THAT GRADS NEED AN IELTS SCORE OF 6 ON ALL BANDS. THAT IS INCORRECT. THE "OFFICIAL' ANNOUNCEMENT INDICATES THAT ONLY AN "AVERAGE" SCORE OF 6 IS REQUIRED, MUCH LESS PROBLEMATIC!
University Graduates: IELTS 6 (CLB 7)In case you missed the course announcement, HERE a quick video guide to it, and THE LINK to the course description! It is a new design, created especially for really busy, disciplined people.
It is a 10-week, online, almost self-study course, WITH THE FIRST TWO LESSONS FREE!
It does require a brief Zoom interview to actually join the course. (Just to make sure it is a good fit for you!)
Enrolment is limited to 30 students. (So sign on soon!)
For more information or to schedule an interview, email: wracton@gmail.com
Check it out!
Better, confident pronunciation in three months
Features of the course:
Weekly (online) schedule:
For additional information or to schedule an enrollment interview email: wracton@gmail.com.
Bill Acton, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in the field of pronunciation teaching. His unique style of teaching pronunciation, developed over the last 40 years, the KINETIK Method, makes leaning and changing pronunciation more efficient, memorable--and fun! For more about Bill's research and publications goto his website: www.actonhaptic.com.
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Some Definitions:
SO . . . how does this work? How can this work?
The key is something close to full-body engagement in the process, very much in the spirit of the Lessac method which featured both embodied speaking and extensive oral reading during homework. This course is primarily focused on "hacks," as opposed to "widgets," which come in only the last couple of lessons. Hacks encourage improvement indirectly, the usual stuff of homework, applied outside of conversational interaction, like rhythm exercises or word lists. Widgets, on the other hand are techniques we can use to alter or enhance our speech, moment by moment, without interfering much with thinking or coherence, like slowing down your rate of speaking or modifiing your posture, etc.
Most of the work in this course involves various types of embodied oral reading, that is text that is synchronized with especially designed. gesture and touch, called Movement, tone and touch techniques (MT3s). MT3s provide an extraordinary quality of ongoing attention and emotional engagement that should strengthen the learner's ability to change articulation of sounds and sound patterns and recall that later, plus integrate change improvement into their spontaneous speech. In addition, most of the readings involve confidence-building routines and and related voice resonance techniques.
*Group, class and school rates available.
Doing a fun, one hour, webinar with CATESOL on Friday at noon PST! :
Embodied Pronunciation Part 2: Haptic Hacks and Widgets
Here is the program description:Clker.com |
The research found "pronounced" differences in the subjects of the study in terms of how quickly they could lock on to (or sync their body with) the rhythm of speech samples. Earlier research by the same team had established the general correlation between rhythmic sense and pronunciation accuracy. This study extends those findings considerably, implying that language learning more broadly considered may hang on perception of rhythm. The nexus of connections of rhythmic processing in the brain and grammatical structure has long been recognized and investigated.
Of course, to quote my favorite Bertrand Russell quip: a difference that doesn't make a difference . . . doesn't make a difference, the critical thresholds on the rhythm perception continuum were not investigated but the existence of such barriers or facilitation points seems obvious. Any experienced language instructor who works with speaking in almost any context "knows" learners who fit both ends of the scale. The question is: what can be done for the naturally "rhythmically challenged?"
A number of studies have demonstrated the benefit of early focus on the rhythm in acquiring an L2, but the direct connection to the underlying process involved has never been clear. In other words, the implications are that working with rhythm just for rhythm's sake for the FUN of it--not directly tied to the structure of the text in the lesson or specific words or lexical constructions . . . may still be highly beneficial. So get out your guitar, raps and books of poetry . . . just for the embodied experience of "getting" the rhythm of the L2. (You knew that!) You now have Neuroscience's permission! Go for it!(and you come join us who do embodied rhythm the haptic pronunciation teaching way, of course!)
One of the joys of teaching is all those times when you stumble on a wonderful technique . . . almost by accident, when the lesson that you designed goes way beyond your objectives for it. The research literature is filled with reports of classroom procedures that inspire/develop confidence, (cf. Cadiz-Gabejan, 2021 . . . but not this one in this field.
One of the techniques, used to create the deep falling tone at the end of a conversational turn, for example, has the learner move one hand from in front of the eyes down to about the level of the solar plexus, with the eyes following. The voice also falls as low as possible, in some creating the "creaky" voice quality. One of the students, in working with the practice dialogs "discovered" that she felt more and more confident by using that move . . . beyond the exercises. Her general demeanor and speaking "presence" made that evident as well from that point on.
I had seen a somewhat analogous technique used about 20 years ago in observing psychologists working with Observed Experiential Integration (OEI) therapy, where the patient basically followed the hand movement of the clinician across the visual field, terminating about the same place, sometimes along with the clinician's voice, sometimes their own, but the effect was the same: a sense of calm and confidence. That location in the visual field, down and to the right, seemed to act as an anchor for a sense of at least temporarily closing down, calm or resting.
Many systems use similar anchoring for a myriad of purposes. In this case, we were working with a basic sentence-final falling tone--that just keeps falling until it "hits bottom." Have been using it for the last two years in various ways, such as short passages or conversational gambits, with pretty striking results Here is a short video clip from the KINETIK training video series. Give it a try and let me know how it works in your class (as I'm CONFIDENT that it will!)
v7.0 will be available sometime later this spring or early summer.
Keep in touch!
Bill
For anybody serious about pronunciation teaching, Nigel Ward's excellent 2019 book, Prosodic patterns of English conversation, is a must. (Full disclosure: I just "rediscovered" the book myself last year, having incorporated aspects of Ward's work for years but had not connected much to his overall framework!) I'm doing a workshop on February 24th at the BCTEAL Regional Conference using Ward's work, "Nine "touching" conversational pronunciation patterns your students should not be without!
The book gets a little technical in places but the pedagogical applications are very clear and immediately applicable. Here are some examples of the "patterns." The first six are from Ward; the other four are relatively "standard" intonation patterns taught by most methods in some form. The haptic application of Ward's prosodic patterns includes accompanying gesture and touch, hence the "touching" term in the workshop title.
What makes Ward's approach somewhat unique is that the context for using "prosodic conversational patterns" is, of course, in conversation, not taught in isolation. Haptic uses that as a point of departure and embodies the patterns as well. Join us at the University of Victoria in February, or check back for the recording in early April!
New favorite terms: viscoelastic and deformation. Recent research by Hannes, Ingvars and Roland, "Memory at your fingertips: how viscoelasticity affects tactile neuron signaling," helps explain the power of touch, especially as it relates to interpretation of intensity (from several perspectives) and memory--in haptic pronunciation teaching (HaPT)--and elsewhere.
Just heard of a great technique from a fiend, a professional vocal artist and instructor. While attending a clinic held by a renowned opera singer and instructor, herself, was required sing a brief piece, in part, to demonstrate her professional "voice" to the seminar. The mentor, although apparently impressed with what she had heard, could see (and hear) that there was much more there. She asked my friend to sing some of the piece again, but this time to engage her fingers on the table as if she were playing the piano, accompanying herself. The result was . . . astounding . . . her expressiveness, engagement, projection of the piece and her persona were almost overpowering, even for the other members of the seminar. How did that work? (Watch the hands of a great opera singer sometime!)
In the Saal et al study, in essence what they found was that the "history" of previous touch on a location of the skin, described as a "deformation," carried a great deal of information in interpreting current touch, and that past touch was generally as perceptually salient as the current tactile event, as critical to the brain being able to interpret it accurately. In other words, memory for touch is highly complex and dynamic in sensing whether a current impact event has "the same meaning" or different--and in what way.
In principle, in haptic pronunciation work, any sound or sound pattern can be anchored with movement and touch, touch landing on the stressed syllable of a word or word of a phrase or clause. As developed in an earlier post, there are about a dozen types of touch in the system, each location on the hands or upper body in the visual field target for one or more touch types--and sounds. What the Hannes et al study clarifies is how, for example, three vowel sounds in HaPT such as [i]. [I] and[iy] which are located in the same place in the visual field (as high, front vowels) can still have very different somatic (feeling-based) identities based on distinct types of touch. (See demonstrations.)
In the same way, the potentially "tactemic" finger touch points around the upper body and visual field provide strong, memorable anchors for varied sounds, words and sound patterns or processes. The tactile memory and touch differentiation in the hands is striking. If you'd like to learn more about the KINETIK system, we'd be happy to "give you a hand," of course!
Source: Saal Hannes P., Birznieks I,, Johansson Roland S. (2023) Memory at your fingertips: how viscoelasticity affects tactile neuron signaling eLife 12:RP89616 https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.89616.1
Clker.com |
Still time to sign up for the next British Columbia Teachers of English as an Additional Language (BCTEAL) seminar (See description below!)
9/23/2023 - 10/28/2023
9:30 AM - 11:30 AM Pacific
$100 for members and $150 for non-members
To enroll: https://www.bcteal.org/
Here's the official description:
"Attending skills training, as developed initially by psychologists about 70 years ago, in essence, teaches learners (or counselors) to be good listeners while keeping a conversation going. This version of the training, a seminar for teachers of nonnative speakers, developed originally by Acton & Cope (1999), provides the skills and classroom procedures for
The system can be done either face to face or online with students. Each session includes small breakout rooms and (modest) homework assignment, along with an optional reading list. All sessions will be recorded, so if the Saturday morning schedule doesn't work for you, you can still watch the videos!
Note: Each week a set of strategies will be introduced that, ideally, participants take to their classrooms and then report back the following week. This is the first time for me to do this seminar online (hence the nominal fee), something of a "Beta test." The plan is to offer it three or four times annually to the public and also make it available to individual schools and institutions. Join us! Bill
Acton, W. & Cope, C. (1999). Cooperative attending skills training for ESL students, in JALT Applied Materials volume, Kluge, D. and S. McGuire (Eds.), Cooperative language teaching in Japan, pp. 50-66.COURSE closed! But we are opening another soon! Keep in touch!
I know what you are thinking . . .well, actually,"solipsistically" speaking, I probably don't, of course! But, anyway, this is a remarkable new course offering, one designed for learners in a somewhat unique but actually very common niche:
The 9-week online course, Acton Haptic English Fluency Training (HFT), is designed especially for non-native English-speaking adults who
· Embodied Oral Reading is done out loud, in private, using stories that are accompanied by special gestures which use concepts and vocabulary that students are already familiar with, essentially, what they can understand, but perhaps may not be able to talk about fluently.
· HFT provides the student with a set of skills which once learned they can continue improving with beyond the course. It is especially recommended, for example, for students who do not have access to conversational English currently, such as
o Undergraduate and graduate students in programs not taught primarily in English
o Parents whose spoken English is not strong and whose children are in public schools in North America
o New immigrants and family members who cannot currently access English instruction
o Students who are in religious studies where they will serve in a language other than English, but where being able to read Scripture in English in public is essential,
o Retired “senior” English L2 speakers who may be “home alone” in some sense much of the time but would value spending 3-4 hours weekly to develop the clarity of their spoken English.
· It is based on extensive research (and decades of teaching experience) in oral reading methodology and the well-known "Lectio Divina" tradition in meditation practice, using extensive oral reading as homework—not in a class.
· The key neuroscience-based innovation of HFT is the precise use of gestures and touch in the visual field. Synchronized with speech, these multimodality gestures create optimal conditions for attention, learning, retention and recall.
· Course work is done individually, with four or five, 30-minute homework assignments and a live 75-minute zoom feedback meeting weekly, usually on Friday evening. (which is also recorded for later access, if necessary.)
The teaching technique demonstrated, the "walkabout," is based on two other techniques: CAST (Collaborative Attending Skills Training) and the "walkabout," a feature of Australian culture made popular by the movie, Crocodile Dundee, when the leading actor, reported having had his marriage come apart some time back . . . because he had gone out for one in the "outback" . . . for three months! (Have reported on that technique earlier on the blog, as well.)
The CAST system, also described on the blog earlier, focuses on teaching ELLs of almost any proficiency level to carry on conversations in groups of three or four, using "attending skills," where one student tells a good story, a second facilitates the conversation, and a third takes notes on the conversation. After three or four minutes, the conversations stop and the instructor then goes around to each group and elicits examples of effective conversational discourse strategies.
In this case, students and teacher walk through the forest for about 5 minutes as students, in the small groups, walk and talk, attending to their mutually constructed stories. They pause for about 10 minutes, reflecting on the strategies used by the attender in supporting the story teller's story, and then set off again, with three other students taking on the CAST roles. The effect is dramatic, even in the relatively short 60-minute session. (The Walkabout - Talkabout works best when carried out for about 90 minutes--or more!)
(Note: Come prepared with a good little personal story to share, one known only to you that you can share in about 3 or 4 minutes!)
I like this study. One of the biggest obstacles in effective teaching (of anything) are sudden distractions, when what should have "popped in" easily in a lesson . . . doesn't . . . because of what just "popped out or up." Interesting piece of research by Klink et al, on visual distraction--and a potential strategy for dealing with it, summarized by Neurosciencenews.com, Trained Brains Rapidly Suppress Visual Distractions. Title of the original study, published on PNAS: Inversion of pop-out for a distracting feature dimension in monkey visual cortex, (Ignore that term "monkey" in the original there!)
In essence the "subjects" were trained as followed (from the summary):
"The researchers trained monkeys to play a video game in which they searched for a unique shape among multiple items, while a uniquely colored item tried to distract them. As soon as the monkeys found the unique shape, they made an eye movement to it to indicate their choice. After some training, monkeys became very good at this game and almost never made eye movements to the distractor."Source: Klink, P., Teeuwen, R., Lorteije, J. and P. Roelfsema. (2023). Inversion of pop-out for a distracting feature dimension in monkey visual cortex. PNAS February 22, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2210839120