KINETIK Webinar #3: Consonants Supreme 1 (The Best, most moving way to teach the pronunciation of 'th' and beyond!)

Duh best, most moving and efficient technique for duh 'th' sound and den some! One reason dat many metodologists advise not making 'th' a priority is dat dey don't know how to teach it well or teach others how to teach it well. Duh Haptic Pronunciation Teaching "Movement, tone and touch technique" (MT3) for 'th', inspired by a close encounter wit a popsicle stick in Japan two decades ago, is wort duh (free) price of admission for next week's webinar!

Seriously, the Haptic MT# for θ/ð is amazing . . we'll also do f/v, and y & w onglides. Don't believe me; come and try it on yourself next Tuesday, July 29th. 

Almost forgot. Bring along a coffee stirrer or popsicle stick. (Most MT3s use one!) 

Go to www.actonhaptic.com, to sign up!

KINETIK (Haptic Pronunciation Teaching) Method Certification Course

 Three ways to take the course!

1. (FREE) Attend the weekly Haptic(web)inars, Tuesdays at 6 p.m. PST. Learn one technique per week. Tomorrow is Week 2. The technique this week is the "TaiChi - Finger-flow-fluency,," a great procedure for encouraging overall fluency and integrating new or changed sounds into spontaneous speaking. To join, go to www.actonhaptic.com and sign up! 

2. Attend the webinars and also get the student training videos and teaching handouts. (at very minimal cost!) 

3. Take the Certification Course (available beginning August 1st!) Here are the details:

KINƐTIK METHOD™applies the basic Movement, Tone and Touch Techniques (MT3 - gesture plus touch routines) of HaPT to enhancing learning and memory for any class content and language, not just specifically pronunciation. It also promotes general intelligibility, using more pronunciation-oriented techniques. The haptic gestures serve to “complement” instruction in all skill areas, speaking, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar . . . and even pronunciation!

The course contains four modules, three lessons each. (Each lesson takes about a week to complete)

• Module 1

• Lesson One - Syllable Butterfly and rhythm

• Lesson Two - Finger-flow Fluency

• Lesson Three – Haptic phonetics: th/th, f/v, p/b, y, w, consonant clusters

• Module 2

• Lesson One - Single vowels, word stress, and word-final consonants

• Lesson Two - Double vowels and phrasal and sentence stress.

• Lesson Three – Haptic phonetics: n/ng, l, r, s/z/sh/zh, tsh/dzh

• Module 3

• Lesson One - Basic intonation

• Lesson Two - Advanced intonation

• Lesson Three - Baton integration and linking

• Module 4

• Lesson One - Advanced rhythm and fluency

• Lesson Two - Tense, unstressed vowels and secondary stress,

• Lesson Three – KINƐTIC review, advanced integration, and Certification test

The structure of a typical lesson is something like this:

(A) Attend the weekly Hapticanar on that lesson or do the video of it. (About 30 minutes),

(B) Do the training video for that lesson, the same one you would use to train you students (5-10 minutes, but you might want to do it two or three times),

(C) You identify a short section of a text of some kind from your current course content or a previous course, and figure out how you could use the MT3 of that leson with in a short embodied oral reading, usually about 25-50 words.

(D) At the end of the week, you meet for an hour or so with 3 or 4 other instructors like yourself, hopefully who are teaching the same type of students, and ME (or another experienced Haptician) to go over the Embodied Oral Readings that the four of you have come up with.

After Module 4, you take a REALLY easy little certification test where you create a video showing that you can do some of the MT3s and write up a couple of pages telling me how you would sell your KINETIK MT3s to your students, your colleagues and your boss!

The cost will vary, depending on how many students there are in a course. If there are 6 students, the cost will be about $300 per student. (There are a maximum of 6 students per course,) If there are 2 students, the cost will be $800 per student. Special programs are available for schools and larger groups.

For more information, contact info@actonhaptic.com.

The course will be rolled out in Auguet 1, 2021. It will be featured and discussed in Acton Haptic Community on Locals.com. Stay tuned here for more information as it is released!

Haptic Webinar #2: How can a little "TaiChi" enhance uptake and speaking fluency?

Come to the next Haptic(web)inar and find out! To get there, go to the website and register. While you are there, check out videos of the Introduction to KINETIK Method and Webinar #1: The Syllable Butterfly technique!  (And, of course, Keep in Touch!

Where does really great pronunciation teaching begin? "GrammaRhythm-ing!"

Note: This is definitely NOT your "grandma's way" of teaching pronunciation or grammar!

Classroom work using the KINETIK Method of Haptic Pronunciation Teaching always begins with a  grammar and rhythm process, what we call "GrammaRhythm-ing."

1. Breaking up a written text / of some kind / into rhythm groups / of up to seven syllables, / based primarily on grammatical structure./ In other words, /you pause at places / where one grammar structure begins / and another leaves off. 
1. You also identify / what is probably the syllable / in the word with the strongest energy / or stress, usually the one off to the right. 
2. Reading the text together, once through, with hands touching in some way on each stressed syllable--to get the rhythm of the text.

THEN: You work on something in there using gesture and touch, maybe some vowels or consonants, intonation, expressiveness, or maybe just so that the text is remembered better. 

FINALLY: Use a different fluency and integration-oriented gesture as you read the passage together one last time to help encourage uptake of the haptic work. 

To get a good idea of how this done, join us at Hapticanar #1, Tuesday, June 15th at 6 p.m. (PST). Click HERE to reserve a spot for that!  

In case you missed the Introductory Hapticanar this week, check HERE or earlier the Haptic Story Promo, check HERE.

Introductory (Free) Haptic Webinar Tonight!

 6 p.m. PST (1800)! The first of the (free) weekly, one-hour "Hapticanars." Here is the link to tonight's! Just click and you are in!

 The format is (usually) something like this: 

• 30 minutes of "embodied" training on 1 or 2 haptic pronunciation teaching techniques
• 30 minutes of Q&A

Tonight's will involve a little more talk on my part as I introduce haptic to those new to it, but there will be the usual "embodied" engagement and fun that will alway be the case! 

Follow up on the Hapticanar happens at actonhaptic@locals.com. That is free to sign up for to receive updates follow the discussions. (f you decide to support the Acton Haptic Community on Locals.com, you get to join the conversation, post your thoughts and questions and get free swag, like student training videos and Haptic Pronunciation Teaching posters and charts. 

See you tonight!

Bill 

Greatest Hapticanar Ever! Tomorrow!

 Well . . . first one, actually! Just a little over 24 hours before the  Introductory free Hapticanar. No need to register in advance for this one, just go to the Acton Haptic website, and click the button! You can also view the new KINETIC Method video while you are there. 

The weekly free Hapticanars (Haptic Webinar) go live every Tuesday at 6 p.m. (PST). 

The format of the Hapticanar is generally:

• 6-6:30 - Training workshop on one or two haptic pronunciation teaching techniques
• 6:30 - Q&A until 7 or when we are done, whichever comes first!

If you can't make it, email me at wracton@gmail.com and I'll put you on the list to have access to the recording later this week. 

The Thrill of the Drill in Pronunciation Teaching! (The First Hapticanar is coming!)

 Here is the full "Hai(ptic)ku" (And here is the link to the June 8th Hapticanar: www.actonhaptic.com)

• The thrill of the drill
• Springs up in sound instruction
• Instead of the shrill!

The "Godfather" of language teaching, Jack Richards, consigned the poor, hapless practice of drill in language teaching to the category of "mechanical and meaningless" forever with notes such as this:

"Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using. Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed to practice use of particular grammatical or other items. Activities of this kind are of limited value in developing communicative language use."

(Just in case you have forgotten or never been really taught the types of drill, Juicy English has a concise of what drill is.)

Actually, I'd have to agree with Richards if drill is done in the context of " . . . without necessarily understanding the language." In haptic pronunciation teaching, drill is used but with language that is part of the course content, generally pulled out temporarily from a story or text or dialogue, not just a random list of words or grammar structures. 

However, what we have learned over the years from our student-teachers who are "trapped" in systems that allow no leeway in what is done in class is this:  Even if your textbook and your curriculum demands  "decontextualized" drill of the type Richards is describing, just performing those activities "haptically" with gesture and touch can make a real difference in student engagement and ability to remember at least more of the words and patterns being, and impact the mood and energy of the class. In one of the upcoming hapticanars I'll have an interview with a teacher who demonstrates just how that works!

Join us Tuesday!

KINETIK (Pronunciation Teaching) Method: Embodied cognition-centered, the way kid's learn . . . math!

One of the most intriguing parallels to haptic pronunciation teaching is with embodied math instruction with children. In a 2021piece in Frontiers in Psychology by Berman and Ramani, Integrating Embodied Cognition and Information Processing: A Combined Model of the Role of Gesture in Children's Mathematical Environments, of University of Maryland, propose a comprehensive model that also applies in very interesting ways to the new KINETIK Method. Beginning from an embodied cognition perspective (that is the learning experience must be understood as anchored in both the body and the "outside" milieu, the social context,) it connects more explicitly the critical role and function played by the hands-on methodology in that problem-based context, to math concept learning. 

The contribution of the haptic (gesture, plus touch) techniques of the KINETIK method, especially the several ways in which the hand engagement defines what an object is and how it relates other objects and the focus of the task "at hand," provides a framework for interpreting the place of the various components of the gesture and touch based techniques. 

To see more about just how that framework connects to classroom instruction in pronunciation with children and adults, join us at the weekly haptic webinars (Hapticanars) beginning on June 8th! For more information on the (free) Hapticanars and sign up, go to www.actonhaptic.com. 

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.650286/full

Haptic: The future of Pronunciation Teaching (and technology!)

Nice piece on some of the areas of new development in virtual and augmented reality using haptic technology, Touching the air may be possible with new research on haptics, by Verris at Youris.com. From the beginnings of our work in haptic pronunciation teaching, the obvious "embodiment" of the gesturing and TOUCHING hands at multiple points across the visual field connected to sounds and sound processes would one day be in virtual/augmented reality. To get a glimpse of the haptic "future" of pronunciation teaching, join us at our first FREE weekly Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Webinar, this coming Tuesday, June 8th at 6 p.m. (PST). For details and to sign up, got to the Acton Haptic website until June 6th!

Source: 

https://www.youris.com/society/future-tech/touching-the-air-may-be-possible-with-new-research-on-haptics.kl