Monday, March 14, 2011

Felt Sense of a HIPoeces Workshop

Saturday, March 12th, I did a 6 hour workshop with Region 4 in Houston. Participants were a mix of relatively inexperienced instructors and administrators. Focus was on training that would be relevant for instructors w/zero background in pronunciation teaching. What I learned: (a) In working HIP with (larger) groups, distance from the instructor to the students at the back of the room is critical. Maximum distance is probably 40 feet. (b) Instructor modeling must be absolutely unambiguous, that is upper body movement has to be very easy to follow, especially at 40 feet, (c) participants can be brought to a point where they get the "felt sense" of all (8) protocols/techniques--but most will need a video-model to work with in class to take all of the system to their students effectively (What a concept!), and (d) six hours straight of aerobic-like presentation and practice is a workout . . . even for the physically and conceptually "fit!"

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for presenting to us! I feel that these methods will benefit my students. I agree that video would be helpful for teachers to view before class so that they are confident that they are not leaving out some of the movements. Would it be possible to add videos to Youtube of a teacher and small group of students doing each of the activities?

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  2. great idea! i'll do youtuber soon!

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  3. Hello, Bill. This is your Russian student Natalia from that workshop. I agree that it was a really interesting workshop, and I felt very inspired. I started using the vowel clock presenting vocabulary, and the students responded quite well. I came across one sound however that I can't figure out on that clock. How do you show the sound in "First" or "burn"?

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  4. for 2r & 10r, use the "bite the sides of your tongue" technique, and then say the word, brushing the palm of the node hand with the other hand and then continuing back toward your ear. The idea w/r is bring the hand back toward the face, forcing the tongue to "follow" by moving slightly up and back.

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  5. I'll do my best. I wish I had a video of it :-). Thank you very much! Natalia

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  6. video will be available later this month on ehiep.blogspot.com!

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