HICPR: Got the perfect personality style for teaching pronunciation? Probably!

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Got the perfect personality style for teaching pronunciation? Probably!

Have often heard it said (and even remarked, myself) that some people are just natural pronunciation teachers and others are not. There was a time when that might have been true or have actually made a more significant difference in the classroom. It should not be today, for a number of reasons.

One of the "problems" with referring to, or overgeneralizing about, personality in such contexts is that the so-called "classic 5 personality traits" (neuroticism, extraversion, openess, agreeableness and conscientiousness) have long since been supplanted or greatly elaborated by a myriad of more complex and individualized theories, models--and products. In other words, unless you are paying somebody to tell you about yourself, you, as an individual really have no chance of genuine or useful insight.

New study by Gerlach, Farb, Revelle and Amaral, reported by ScienceDaily.com, A robust data-driven approach identifies four personality types across four large data sets. offers a different, and I think very useful, perspective. Taking those 5 classic traits and applying a number of statistical "clustering" procedures, they discovered what appear to be four basic personality clusters derived from the relationship between each of the 5 for that type of individual. Here they are. (The teaching-oriented commentary in the boxes is my rough--but accurate--interpretation of their findings.) Find yourself there?

Classic Personality Traits→ New (Pronunciation teaching) Personality Clusters/Types ↓	Neuroticism	Extraversion	Openness	Agreeableness and Conscientiousness
1. Average (Most of us!) Good teacher, maybe great Outgoing, relatively emotional; responsive, relates well, (more likely to be female)	High	High	Low	Low
2. Reserved Librarian-ish/ Ed tech-ish? Emotionally stable but may be a bit boring, reliable; (more likely to be male.)	Low	Low	Low	Somewhat
3. Role model Team leader, developer, owner? Dependable, in-charge, take-charge type. (More likely to be women than men . . .)	Low	High	High	High
4. Self-centered Show off, new MA? Very high in extra-version; not always fun to be w/ but can sing (cluster style often decreases w/age and experience.)	Somewhat	High	Low	Low

So, which of those styles probably DON'T fit pronunciation teaching as well? Which are you?

My perspective would be that

Styles 2 and 3 certainly have valuable niches in our schools.
Style 4 is always a wild card and can wind up most anyplace. In the past many of them, trained in drama and the arts, wound up in the pronunciation class. Their unique styles and personas are often a great mix and very successfully conducted, but their methodologies and techniques are often well beyond the reach of the "average" rest of us.
Style 1 with perhaps a little more "Openness" looks almost ideal--which is most teachers anyway. More importantly, that "cluster" of skills and dispositions is much easier to enhance, as opposed to attempting to "fix" the other 3 styles.

And what is it that makes Style 1 pretty much ideal today? Ability to comfortably engage in class, work from a consistent empathetic perspective and be relatively animated and "cheerleader-ish", at times. That general skill set is especially important in providing spontaneous feedback on speaking, including the ability to model.

Just did a quick look at the teacher trainees in our program who will be taking applied phonology with me in the spring: about 80% Style 1; 10% Style 2; 5% Style 3; 5% Style 4! (May have them take some kind of inventory questionnaire that provides similar cluster data.) Haptic pronunciation training is very much a Style 1 method--with some required, additional conscientiousness drilled in. Our experience has been that about 5% do find the training very demanding, at best. Will report back in April if our hypothesis was correct!

Perfect!

Clip Art credit: Clker.com

Source:
Northwestern University. (2018, September 17). Scientists determine four personality types based on new data: Comprehensive data analysis dispels established paradigms in psychology. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 24, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180917111612.htm

1 comment:

Angelina Van DykeSeptember 26, 2018 at 8:41 AM
This had me in stitches, cracked me right up! Of course, I work with seven personality types, but you know that already. This is a good base line to generalize about outward teacher behaviour though.
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What is haptic pronunciation teaching?

Basically, it is using gesture, touch and movement to teach pronunciation of English (or any language). What makes this method unique is that it is based on controlled and systematic use of gesture in doing that. (Often the problem with gesture use in language learning is that it can be "crazy" or random or intimidating or inconsistent, or not well-developed and tied to clear outcomes.)

The earlier "Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) approach," now KINETIK, does a better job of enhancing presentation, modelling, feedback and correction. The method is simple and easy to follow. Once a 30-minute module is finished, teacher and students have a set of techniques to use in class anytime a pronunciation problem or opportunity comes up!

Haptic Preliminaries

I often begin workshops or papers with the comment that in about 40 years in the field I have had just one idea: that the systematic use of body movement is essential to effective and efficient pronunciation instruction. That has never been more relevant than today, with the general deemphasis on pronunciation and introduction of technology into the field. From both perspectives, the "haptic" perspective approach developed here offers great promise. I can at least promise you a "moving" experience!

What is the KINETIK Method?

KINETIK is the name of the new v6.0 haptic pronunciation teaching system. About six years earlier we were using the acronym, "Haptic Integrated Pronunciation for Other/Extended Circle English Speakers" (HIPOECES)--still there in the url of this blog!

Haptic-integrated clinical pronunciation is:

A different way to learn pronunciation, based in part on Arthur Lessac’s notion of “Training the body first.” It is also based on research in the use of movement and touch in learning and training. It:

Looks somewhat like a combination of aerobics, sign language and Taichi

Provides a basic foundation for continued, self-directed pronunciation learning and classroom instruction

Designed for use by relatively untrained teachers but appropriate for all teachers (and learners) of all levels

Focuses on pronunciation used in conversation (not all words in English)

Is a highly “brain-and-body-friendly” system that promotes efficient learning of integrated tasks in general

Designed to promote integrated classroom pronunciation instruction and enable integration of conscious pronunciation work into spontaneous speaking.

Introduction

This blog was formerly named: HIPoeces (pronounced 'hI-pƏ-cIs), basically an approach to teaching English pronunciation to speakers of "outer and expanding" circle Englishes (including that population commonly termed: non-native speakers) but also compatible with the use of local models other than simply Standard" American" or RP. Using Kachru's "Inner, expanding and outer circles" model to characterize the breadth of Englishes and speakers of those, HIPoeces (now HICP) systems focus on developing haptically-centered pedagogical models and methods which can be adapted for teaching the pronunciation of various Englishes as they are spoken and taught by "owners" of those varieties.

In theory, the underlying principles can be applied to teaching the sound system of any language. Most language instructors intuitively use a great deal of movement and tactile anchoring in the classroom. The essential question is how to use that resource systematically, especially so that those learners who are less "haptic" in nature are also "moved" by the method.

Simply put, the HICP model/method is based on the idea of speaking along with arm and hand movement, not all that different from that used in sign languages. Most movement patterns are taken from either typical classroom pronunciation instruction practice or from related fields, such as psychotherapy or sports.

Most blog posts link to research that relates to the general HICP model, that is studies dealing with the role of gesture, touch, movement, learning modalities, learning in output, use of the visual field in learning, and experiential learning.

DEFINITIONS:

"Haptic" techniques- procedures that involve both movement and touch (Obvious examples include clapping hands, tapping feet, or holding an object and shaking it to the rhythm of a poem.)

"HICP techniques" - procedures that are haptic and also explicitly coordinated with phonological structures and/or discourse prosody (For example, clapping hands on primary stressed syllables in multi-syllable words, or doing a dance step on key words in conversational turns.)

"Haptic integration"- The haptic dimension probably functions as much to anchor visual and auditory material as it does to assist the learner in getting the "felt sense" of the sound or sound process. Lack of integration into spontaneous speech being such a serious potential shortcoming of instruction, haptic engagement seems a promising bridge to more accurate fluency.

"Visual field" - in HICP extensive use is made of the visual field in front of the learner. (For example, a modified version of the IPA vowel chart is anchored haptically in the imagination of the learner, directly in front of the upper body, and used for several purposes throughout the program.)