Monday, October 3, 2011

Reflecting on "deliberate practice" vs rote repetition in pronunciation teaching

Clip art: Clker
Here is a nice presentation by Brabeck and Jeffrey (2007) on what they term "Practice for knowledge acquisition" that uses the term, deliberate practice, in summarizing the research literature on potentially repetitive classroom practice. The key to deliberative practice is said to be: ". . . goal-directed rehearsal paired with reflection on problem-solving processes." For example, the "goal" of practicing the "th" sound is not to pronounce it correctly but the words in which it happens, in the contexts in which the word occurs. More important, however, is the place or quality of reflection in HICP/EHIEP, as opposed to the usual pronunciation class approach.

Typically, reflection, that is conscious attention to goal of practice, happens primarily before the repetition exercises and after, as follow up. In EHIEP, the critical role of attention occurs during articulation and oral practice, in the form of the "felt sense" of the sound being anchored. As discussed exhaustively in earlier posts, that is possible due to the nature of haptic anchoring and how that anchoring is available for recall without inordinately interfering with spontaneous speech and meaning creation.

We need a new term, one that captures the function of reflection in making practice relevant (deliberate) but from a haptic perspective. How about "hapticulation" or "hapticoflection" or "hapticonation?" Anyway. Reflect on that and post your haptical-somatic impressions here!

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