The posture of (haptic pronunciation) teaching and learning

Especially if you are new to language learning--or a robot, here is fascinating study by Morse, Benitez, Belpaeme, Cangelosi, and Smith of Indiana university, "Posture Affects How Robots and Infants Map Words to Objects," summarized by ScienceDaily (See full citation below).

Basically what the research demonstrates is the role of body attitude (or orientation) in space in name and concept learning. From the summary:

"Using both robots and infants, researchers examined the role bodily position played in the brain's ability to "map" names to objects. They found that consistency of the body's posture and spatial relationship to an object as an object's name was shown and spoken aloud were critical to successfully connecting the name to the object."

And a quote from the lead author as to the implications of this line of research: 

"These experiments may provide a new way to investigate the way cognition is connected to the body, as well as new evidence that mental entities, such as thoughts, words and representations of objects, which seem to have no spatial or bodily components, first take shape through spatial relationship of the body within the surrounding world," . . .

In haptic pronunciation teaching (Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation, EHIEP) we basically associate the sounds, words and patterns of language (English in this case) with specially designed gestures across the visual field, what we call 'pedagogical movement patterns' (PMPs).  We realized almost a decade ago that, at least for some learners (those that are more visually eidetic), the precision with which those models are presented and practiced initially is critical.

Studies in any number of "physical" disciplines, such as athletic training, rehabilitation psychotherapy have long established that principle, that where the new learning occurs in the visual field--and in the body--is integral to efficiency and effectiveness of learning. 

Of course the relevance of those studies goes far beyond learning pronunciation. Depending on your agenda and method, the "context of learning" extends out from the body to the concepts to the words, to the social milieu--even to the room. 

Sit up and take notice! (And join us at the TESOL Convention in Toronto this week on the 28th!)

Full citation:
Indiana University. "Robot model for infant learning shows bodily posture may affect memory and learning." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 March 2015. .