Wednesday, February 19, 2020

RHYTHM FIRST (new) pronunciation teaching technique: Haptic Side Step!

Full disclosure: the following post includes explicit, dance and intrapersonal touching, something of a
follow up to two recent posts:
Clker.com
What is new here is the active, simultaneous use of feet, literally and figuratively. The idea is that much of the basics of English pronunciation and practice can (and should) be taught to the beat of the rhythmic feet of the text being spoken. The tempo will vary but the “dance step” is essentially the same.
  • All text used at the beginning should be staged/indicated on paper or expressed or broken up into rhythmic feet (groups of 1~9 syllables in this system, although in the classical sense, a "foot" is usually limited to 3 or 4 syllables). For example: 
    • The stressed syllable / in the word or phrase / should, in general, / be highlighted / (underlined or boldfaced / for example.) 
  • The body is moving gently from side to side, to the rhythm of the designated rhythmic feet, using what we call a "haptic side step, where the forefoot comes down on the stressed element. 
  • See short video of me "DEMONSPLAINING" how the basic procedure works in a clip from a recent presentation at UBC. (It is especially clear in the second part of the 15 minute video.) Password: HaPT-Demo3
  • As noted in the video, in haptic pronunciation work the upper body may also be simultaneously executing various touch-based pedagogical (gesture) movement patterns related to a targeted pronunciation feature, such as a vowel sound or key word, a rhythm or intonation pattern, etc.  
The "side step" has been developed over the last five years as an optional feature of more advanced, accent modification work.The rest of the full, full-body version of the haptic system, Haptic Pronunciation Teaching, v5.0: RHYTHM FIRST! will be rolled out later this fall.

In the meantime, try some form of that basic technique in class with any simple dialogue, or word list, or dialogue or even spontaneous chat (as I do on the video) and, as usual, report back!

The technique will be featured at the next webinar, March 27th and 28th. (Contact: info@actonhaptic.com for further information.)

Caveat emptor: This looks easy.