Spring 23 KINETIK Courses!

Spring 2023 KINETIK courses now scheduled. 

KINETIK Method: a full-body/haptic approach to both pronunciation teaching and enhancing memory for course content. (Haptic: employing movement/gesture and touch)

English Fluency and Pronunciation Course

• For nonnative English speaking students, adults of upper intermediate level and above
• For those who need to improve their speaking fluency and pronunciation of English.
• Especially designed for those who do not have the opportunity to speak English often enough, or have pronunciation problems that are difficult to change.

• 11 weeks in length, 75 minutes per week, plus optional, 60-minute review session

 begins on January 26^th, 2023.

Thursdays, 5:00~6:15 p.m. – Live Class--on campus (or by viewing the class video later)

 Homework: 15-20 minutes per day for best results. 

Wednesdays, 5:00-6:00 p.m. -- Optional homework practice review on Zoom (or by viewing the class videos later)

• Instructor: Bill Acton, MATESOL Department, Trinity Western University 
• For additional information: william.acton@twu.ca
• Certificate is awarded for 80% attendance. Books and recorded practice videos are provided.

• Course fee: $500 CAD for on campus course. ($200 CAD for access to the 11 class videos only)

***

KINETIK Method Instructor Certificate Course: 12 weeks, Online, beginning 1/30

• Objectives
• Basics of haptic pronunciation teaching
• Techniques for enhancing memory for course content
• Enhanced (instructor's) classroom speaking model and pedagogical presence 
• Weekly schedule
• 30-minute training (recorded, available Monday)
• ~60 minutes of "homework" (pre-reading and practice)
• 60-minute live seminar on Zoom (arranged according to participants' schedules, usually on Saturday evening, PST)
• $600 USD, materials provided
• Certificate provided upon successful completion
• Full-refund (no questions asked) up to Week 4
• Preliminary Zoom interview required (contact: wracton@gmail.com)

If you are an instructor, considering having your students take EFPC, contact me and I'll be happy to discuss the course with you. With sufficient enrolment, both courses can be offered for just one school.

Ben Bruno's "10 Commandments of physical training" applied to pronunciation teaching!

Ben Bruno, personal trainer to the stars, has a super set of principles for training that could as well be a guide to (haptic) pronunciation teaching. Use the following as something of a test for your method about either: 

Here they are: (the boldfacing and extrapolations are mine!)

1. Thou shalt not train through pain.

    💪 Pronunciation work works when at least you can focus just on it for bit. 

2. Think of strength training as your entrée and cardio as the side dish. Both have their place but divvy your time and energy accordingly. 

    💪 At least for a time, attention to accurate, good form must supersede being fluent. 

3. The hard exercises that you hate doing are generally the ones that work the best. Sorry. 

    💪 Repetition, especially where a new physical patterning is being established, may not be mentally stimulating but it can be key to establishing the anchoring and access for a new sound or word. 

4. You can always make a mistake not to train, but at some point you just have to make time for it. Or be weak and out of shape. 

    💪 For most learners, consistent, relatively long term practice is key. And, like physical training, a new sound or pattern is not acquired unless do, indeed, "use it or lose it" if there is not sufficient consistent practice. 

5. Thou shalt train thy legs. 

    💪 The "legs" of pronunciation work is at least the rest of the body from the neck down, but in haptic work, the entire mind-body nexus. 

6. Mobility work is boring. Do it anyway.

    💪 The analogs here are (a) warming up or stretching, and (b) general fluency exercises where the body moves "fluently," along with speaking, for example. 

7. Remember that outside the gym, no one cares what you did for your workout, or about your diet. Keep it to yourself

    💪 Unless you are working with somebody, like a partner or instructor, your progress and goals are critical and only you can judge how things are going, certainly not a non-informed bystander. 

8. Similarly, nobody cares how much you lift. Drop the ego, drop the weight, and do it right. Form matters. 

    💪 Two principles there, dropping the ego . . . and form (See Principle #2)

9. Train the muscles  you can't see in the mirror (glutes, hamstrings, back, etc.) more than the muscles that you can see (pecs, biceps, etc.). It's good for you, and just because you can't see them, everyone else still can.

    💪 In other words, the rest of the body, especially the quality and resonance of your voice, overall relaxation and breathing techniques

10. Don't overcomplicate things. Always be learning, but at some point you have to put down the books and pick up the weights. 

    💪 The  bottom line: The process requires extensive "performance" without overthink or even conscious processing of the meaning of what is being spoken out loud for success. 

Ben's 10 has improved my approach to both kinds of training already--since both are so interrelated anyway. In fact, it will form something of the foundation for a new project I'm working on. 

Keep in touch!

Bill

Context, AI voice technology, haiku and (pronunciation) teaching

Two studies just published and summarized by ScienceDaily.com together illustrate how critical context is to understanding and (pronunciation) teaching. One is on the impact of voice technology; the other, on AI-assisted or created Haiku. 

In the first, How voice technology influences what we reveal about ourselves, by Melzner, Bonezzi, and Meyvis, published originally in the Journal of Marketing Research, it was revealed that customers, not surprisingly, will reveal more about themselves, directly or indirectly when responding by speaking to automated systems, rather than interacting on the keyboard with text messaging. Some of that "revelation" is actually paralinguistic (voice characteristics such as pitch and pacing) and background sounds. In other words . . . context. 

In the Haiku study, Basho in the machine: Humans find attributes of beauty and discomfort in algorithmic haiku, by Ueda at Kyoto University Institute for the Future of Human and Society, discovered, basically, that subjects rated haiku created by humans collaborating with AI higher, in general, than Haiku created just by AI or humans, but, if they suspected the engagement of AI in the process, the ratings went down. (Exactly how subjects were prompted to check for that is not indicated, but just the very suggestion of possible AI "meddling" had to have a pervasive effect, undermining the validity of the study, potentially skewing the perceptions and expectations of the subjects . . . )

(Full disclosure, having lived in Japan for a decade, I came away with a great appreciation for haiku, such that it gradually became both my preferred genre for reading pleasure and poetic expression.) 

How does this all tie together with pronunciation teaching? In both studies, context is critical. In fact, haiku only works when the context is either provided in advance and often explained in great detail OR where the subjects have grown up in . . . well . . .Japan, where the form is encountered from infancy. Great haiku as an art form, itself, generally recreates context (or possible contexts) in the mind of the devotee/reader. In both cases, comprehension is grounded in context, not in the form, itself. 

So it is with pronunciation teaching as well. It is possible to work with pronunciation out of explicit context and the sounds or patterns be later available in spontaneous language use, but the treatment has to have almost "haiku-like" in salience for the learner. On the other hand, the immediate context of let's say attention to a consonant, as in the AI voice study, is encoded along with the targeted sound, e.g., the voice characteristics, including stress and disruptive performance markers of student and model, the room ambience, and the neurology and biomes of learners and instructors all--and all either enabling or disabling recall later. 

In other words, unless context, in several senses, is working for  you or being proactively generated in pronunciation work, the odds are not with you. For that reason, in part, the KINETIK method approach and others like it are designed to consistently embed pronunciation in regular, good course content or personally memorable, engaging narrative of some kind, where the chances of the focus of the work being remembered should be at least better, or at least with less clutter. 

O AI, eh? Aye!
O the story is long but . . . 
The tail is longer

Sources: 

American Marketing Association. (2022, November 30). How voice technology influences what we reveal about ourselves. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 20, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221130114606.htm

Kyoto University. (2022, December 2). Basho in the machine: Humans find attributes of beauty and discomfort in algorithmic haiku. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 20, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221201122920.htm

Bite your chopstick, knave! (How restricting imitation might enhance empathy but not pronunciation teaching!)

This piece from Neurosciencenews.com (or as we tend to call it: New-Old-Science) on empathy and imitation, using chopsticks, is just too much fun to let pass. The study  by Matsuda et al at Hokaido University, titled “Imitation inhibition and facial expression recognition: Imitation-inhibition training inhibits the impact of interference with facial mimicry”, was basically getting at something similar to the "startle reflex," that is responding (sometimes) too fast emotionally. That is a common feature of PTSD, the body processing things way ahead of the conscious mind; you respond, in effect, without thinking. At some level, empathy is also like that. 

In the study, the treatment group was trained to "respond more slowly" to images on a screen by having to perform an action with fingers requiring some processing time. The "pièce de résistance," however, was that in the test phase, both the treatment and control groups were required to bite down on a chopstick which (quote) " . . .  inhibited their ability to mimic facial expressions." With that add on filter, the chopstick, the treatment group was better/faster at recognizing facial expressions than the control group. Now exactly why the chopstick was necessary is not explained, but it was apparently needed to cancel out initial, unconscious facial/physical imitation that would have complicated things. 

The conclusion: "These results suggest that imitation-inhibition training increases self-reported empathy and allows for a similar level of recognition of others’ emotional states, regardless of discrepancies between the condition of self and others."

Wow . . . 

So . . . suppressing initial emotional response, in this case realized in facial imitation, enhances empathy partially defined as being able to recognize emotions in others. That is certainly an aspect of the metacognitive dimension of empathy, or maybe empathy, Japanese style? I have lived there; could be, in fact!

But what might that same suppression of imitative "mirroring" do during learning, of pronunciation, let's say . . . I can tell you, actually. 

That is a near perfect metaphor or analogy for instruction that either formally or informally restricts body response and engagement, which is far too often the case. Imitation today has a bad name in the field, in part, seen as being essentially simplistic, noncognitive. Consequently, that is how it is treated or applied, dismissed as being not meaningful enough or superficial. And without holistic body engagement in the first place, that is . . . well . . . accurate. 

The implicit restrictions today on spontaneous body response, to a large extent the result of  conscious/cognitive bias and media (versus face-to-face interaction) involvement in the field--at least in  adult education--work against us, the learner and learning. 

The "chopstick chomp" at least has entertainment value . . . and being able to read other's emotions, detached from your body and your own has got to be a good thing, occasionally.  

So try the "Chopstick Chomp" with your friends playing a game that normally involves some emotional juice, or with your class sometime. I have. The effect is sometimes "dramatic;" sometimes, not. 

There, of course, is a better way to do pronunciation!

Keep in touch!

Bill

Original Research: Closed access.
“Imitation inhibition and facial expression recognition: Imitation-inhibition training inhibits the impact of interference with facial mimicry” by Naoyoshi Matsuda et al. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society

More than a touch less stress in pronunciation teaching!

Maybe the biggest problem with pronunciation teaching (other than time, training and "bokoos" of counter-productive techniques) is  . . . well . . .  stress, one of the most, if nor THE most consistently reported factors affecting instruction from both teachers and students. Likewise, approaches to "de-stressing" the classroom almost always entail doing something with body, such as in "mindfulness," which is essentially, consciously focusing on something other than the brain in achieving relaxation and various kinds of attention. 

A just recently published study by Lu and ten other researchers at MIT, Somatosensory cortical signature of facial nociception and vibrotactile touch–induced analgesia, "touches on" the potentially powerful role of touch in mediating the effect of stress. (Let me translate that!) Touching, the face in this instance--by mice, moderates the impact of stress, touch-mediated analgesia. 

Now granted, generalizing from a study done on mice to the potential role of touch in pronunciation teaching is a bit of a stretch. Not so much actually. All pronunciation work involves touch, albeit generally without conscious, systematic attention, for example, clapping hands to holding objects used to

• embody phonological concepts, such as rubber bands with vowel lengthening 
• fingers touching the larynx for vowel voicing 
• focusing learners attention of touch between articulators in the mouth

Haptic pronunciation teaching in its latest iteration, The KINETIK Method, involves extensive use of gesture-plus-touch in all phases of the system. Research has long established the stress reducing nature of body movement and breathing, in general, but the contribution of touch, either in conjunction with gesture or in isolation, has not been researched in this field. In haptic work we have know for decades that touch contributes substantially to the process but it has been almost impossible to set up or successively carry out a study to exploring just to what extent that is the case. 

This study makes a fundamental contribution to our understanding of the underlying "wiring" between touch and emotion and stress. In particular, it confirms the importance of use of touch with gesture in anchoring rhythm and stress in instruction. For more on that see these recent blog posts: 

• This one on touch and link to sounds
• This one on the PTSD parallel .  . . 
• Your standard KINETIK course

As we always say: Keep in touch!!!

Source:

SCIENCE ADVANCES 16 Nov 2022, Vol 8, Issue 46
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn6530

Mi Coursa; Su Coursa! (NEW KINETIK "GE-T-UP" course!)

GE-T-UP - Gesture-enhanced-teaching-up-take (pronounced: Get-T-up! as in "Giddup!") Custom-made, "memorable" pronunciation course, using your course content. 

• Enhanced memory for course content, especially vocabulary and story. 
• Improved speaking clarity and pronunciation

Here's how it works. Basically, you share with us one or more brief excerpts in the form of stories or written dialogues from any speaking, listening or reading course that you'll be teaching. We'll provide you with a video-recorded KINETIK lesson for your students. There are potentially 10 possible lessons, presented (basically) in this order, but it can be further customized for your class: 

• Rhythm 1 (syllables and stress)
• Fluency 1 (basic)
• Vowels 1 and 2 (tailored to your students' L1s)
• Consonants 1 and 2 (tailored to your students' L1s)
• Intonation 1 and 2
• Rhythm 2 (spontaneous speaking)
• Fluency 2 (spontaneous speaking)

Here's what those lessons look like:

• Students view and move along with a 15 to 20-minute training video
• Video begins with brief training in a GE-T-UP haptic movement, tone and touch technique (MT3)
• That technique is then used in an augmented embodied oral reading (AEOR) of the text from "Su coursa" that you provided. (We may have to add some additional text, along with annotation as to how to gesture along with the text as it is spoken.)
• The homework assignment is explained and practiced.
• Students practice the 5-minute haptic exercises in the homework assignment (ideally) 4 times per week
• Student work with the lesson is always better if they have earlier already been engaged with the text from your class earlier. The lesson also helps students remember that content as well! 
• (Ideally) teachers also use the GETUP MT3 in class anytime from then on to:
• Help students remember vocabulary or new terms or phrases
• Help students improve their pronunciation (and remember it!)

The cost per custom-made module begins at about $200, depending on how many we do together.  If you'd like a (free) estimate and demonstration video made with your material from "Su Coursa," get in touch: wracton@gmail.com

(If you are new into the impact of gesture on memory, check out this piece from the Scientific American last year.)

Spring 2023 we will also be again offering the online 12-week haptic basic pronunciation course through Trinity Western University, and along with that, a 12-week KINETIK Teacher Training course. If you'd like to offer either one of those through your school or some other venue . . . get in touch, of course!

Content with your pronunciation teaching? Au contraire!

"con-'tent or 'con-tent?" take your pick there! (The correct answer is the latter; however, if you are not really the former, then maybe the latter is the answer!) Upcoming presentation at the JALT 2022 Conference (online) with Steve Caine. "Content-based pronunciation instruction: embodied oral reading." 

Oral reading, in some venues and classrooms, still gets a bad rap. Unreservedly so. It is widely used successfully in language learning and beyond. Especially in Japan. When(Japanese) students, for example, are trained to be super memorizers and practiced oral readers in their educational culture almost from birth, despite some of the obvious, potential drawbacks of the practice, remembering the content of an oral reading for most should be a piece of cake , relatively speaking. I have still been unable to find a good comparative study from that perspective, but, after a decade or so teaching in Japan, the relative advantage is quite striking. (If you know of one, please get in touch so I can touch this up!)

The presentation, on the 13th experientially explores the centerpiece of the KINETIK Method: the embodied oral reading, using gesture and touch to enhance memory for content, expressiveness and clarity (pronunciation). The basic idea: All pronunciation work, although important as a secondary objective, should emerge from course content work where memory encoding and access, and expressiveness are the priority. 

See you online or in Fukuoka on the 13th!

Bill

"Breathtaking" running and (haptic pronunciation) teaching!

Caveat emptor: Being a runner, I tend to find research "on the run" first which I "test" during my morning 5k and then often gets applied to (haptic) pronunciation teaching and beyond. Here is a great piece unpacking the role of breathing from several perspectives: Breath Tools: A Synthesis of Evidence-Based Breathing Strategies to Enhance Human Running, by Harbour et al.,published in Frontiers in Physiology summarized by Neurosciencenews.com. If your running or teaching needs an immediate boost, there is a great place to  . . . run to! 

息 Breathing, in many species, including us, has been shown to have a myriad of functions and potential benefits, one of them, the coordination of breathing with gesture related to utterance of sounds as in stressed or emphasized words. In principle, anytime we require a gesture to be synchronized with a sound, taking a breath either fully or in shallow manner prior to the gesture is almost inevitable and unavoidable. 

息 In Pouw and Fuchs (2022).“Origins of vocal-entangled gesture,” we see the inseparable linkage and 
"co-development" over time evident between language, thought and gesture. From a functional perspective their perspective that at any moment in time when a thought, word or gesture is realized, all three had in effect emanated from the same point of origin in the brain and remain very much connected neurophysiologically (and conceptually.) In other words, to affect one dimension is to touch or move the other two (including breathing)--our human, ad hoc analytic systems and intuitions not withstanding. 

息 In KINETIK and haptic pronunciation teaching, in many contexts, we focus learners attention on the breath and general upper torso movement accompanying the breath, as the diaphragm drops, drawing the air in and chest up toward the shoulders, expands. (The shoulders do NOT rise, but remain relaxed.) One purpose is, of course, to capture the learners attention and focus on the task, but, of course, other systems are affected and engaged accordingly. Memory for what is in focus improves, gestures become better defined and synchronized with the words or processes involved, and, consistently, learners become better at alternating between high focus and "relaxed alertness." It is almost, well . . . breathtaking, moment by moment. 

Source: 

Harbour E, Stöggl T, Schwameder H and Finkenzeller T (2022) Breath Tools: A Synthesis of Evidence-Based Breathing Strategies to Enhance Human Running. Front. Physiol. 13:813243. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.813243

Pouw. W. and Fuchs, S. (2022).“Origins of vocal-entangled gesture” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Volume 141, October 2022, 104836 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104836

Flicking off unstressed (and less stressed) vowels in English!

Some vowels just get no respect (or much attention in teaching!)--but they should! 

If you are in Des Moines, Washington this Saturday, come to the 2022 WAESOL conference for our workshop, "Stressing and teaching unstressed and secondarily-stressed vowels in English." This is something of an update and reprise of a workshop I did in 2014. Since then the relevance of working with "backgrounded" vowels has become much more evident in the field, e.g., Szigetvár (2021).

There are many occasions when having students work on an unstressed vowel briefly, such as the 'e' in the word 'the' as in the noun phrase, 'in the circus.' Although for some, just being able to hear the vowel quality in that vowel is sufficient for their purposes--many can almost immediately begin using it in speaking. For others, especially those who are highly "auditory-kinesthetic" (such as myself) experience actually producing the sound may be enormously helpful if not essential. 

The "flicking off" refers to the near-haptic, dismissal-like gesture used in anchoring unstressed vowels, something of quick thumb "flick" in the direction of the vowel in a version of the IPA chart used in the KINETIK Method. It is termed "near-haptic" in that the thumb does not actually touch the other hand, as is case in all the usual "Movement, tone and touch techniques" (MT3s) in the KINETIK method. 

If you can't join us, the video will be available on the other side. 

Keep in touch!

Bill

PTSD: Pronunciation Teaching Somatically (Experienced and) Delivered

Learning and teaching pronunciation does not have to be traumatic, although for some it just may be! There is, however, a great deal to be learned from body-based treatments of PTSD and related traumas that apply to our field--especially in terms of directionality, what comes first, methodologically, in therapy or teaching. 

Not sure how I missed this extraordinary (and extensive) review last year, (2021) "Somatic experiencing – effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: a scoping literature review, " by Kuhfuss, Maldei, Hetmanek and Baumann of University of Tier. 

Excerpts from the abstract and conclusion: 

• "The body-oriented therapeutic approach Somatic Experiencing® (SE) treats post-traumatic symptoms by changing the interoceptive and proprioceptive sensations associated with the traumatic experience. Findings provide preliminary evidence for positive effects of SE on PTSD-related symptoms."
• "Moreover, initial evidence suggests that SE has a positive impact on affective and somatic symptoms and measures of well-being in both traumatized and non-traumatized samples. Practitioners and clients identified resource-orientation and use of touch as method-specific key factors of SE."
• "It provides promising findings indicating that SE might be effective in reducing traumatic stress, affective disorders, and somatic symptoms and in improving life quality . . . SE seems to be characterized in particular by its cross-cultural applicability and its combinability with other therapeutic procedures."

SE therapy, in essence, targets the specific body sensations associated with trauma, "from the body up," so to speak. For example, past trauma may be triggered, experienced throughout the (See the matrix at somatictherapy.com) body, e.g., eyes, hands, feet arms, skin tone, blood pressure, breathing muscles, all of which can be managed and moderated consciously with training. The effect, in part, is to change the emotional loading of the past experience and ultimately its ongoing impact on spontaneous, real time functioning. 

So how does that translate into pronunciation teaching? One obvious connection is that if the learner is provided with a rich, physically engaging experience in the body synchronized with a sound or a sound pattern, the chance of the sound being remembered should be enhanced greatly. (Wow . . . all that earlier "physicality" in teaching sounds may have been on to something, when it came to anchoring a sound in memory!) 

The KINETIK method, like many other highly somatic or kinesthetic approaches is based on 

• Lessac's notion of "training the body first," early attention to and emphasis on body engagement
• Observed Experiential Integration therapy (especially effective in treating PTSD)
• and extensive use of haptic techniques (gesture + touch) from Haptic Pronunciation Teaching

What is the relatively radical key here is that the method, itself, places great importance on the directionality overcoming barriers to learning by using body awareness, in some sense like Mindfulness training, while directly connecting the "feeling" to the concept or event--rather than the converse. 

Are you headed in the right direction as well? 

Source;

Kuhfuß M, Maldei T, Hetmanek A, Baumann N. Somatic experiencing - effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: a scoping literature review. Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2021 Jul 12;12(1):1929023. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023. PMID: 34290845; PMCID: PMC8276649.

What comes next in pronunciation teaching! (Why being in touch is so important!)

An intriguing new study by researchers at East Anglia University, Aix-Marseille University and Maastricht University, summarized by Neurosciencenews.com: How the Sounds We Hear Help Us Predict How Things Feel,  (title and actual empirical findings to be revealed later, with no link to the actual study, itself, other than a note that it will appear in Cerebral Cortex)

I am, nonetheless, delighted to take their word for it since I LOVE the conclusions and find them "touching!" Apparently they have uncovered yet another "new" type of connection between sound and touch or tactile processing. The key finding from the summary:  

“ . . . research shows that parts of our brains, which were thought to only respond when we touch objects, are also involved when we listen to specific sounds associated with touching objects. (Italics, mine.) This supports the idea that a key role of these brain areas is to predict what we might experience next, from whatever sensory stream is currently available.”

Across this unique, recently discovered circuit, for example, when we hear a sound, like that of a single consonant, the brain in principle simultaneously connects it with the physical sensations (touch, vocal resonance, micro-movements involved in producing it) associated with articulating it. If the focus is a word, on the other hand, we assume that other multiple, analogous circuits come into play that link to other dimensions. But the "touch" circuit has those unique properties. 

So what might that mean in the classroom, especially pronunciation and effectiveness? (I'll get to haptic pronunciation later, of course!) For one thing, (NO SURPRISE HERE!) a sound may be associated with the somatic (body) sensations in the vocal tract but not necessarily with a the concept, or phoneme, the phonological complex/nexus and the graphemic representation, itself. It is as if the sound points at the body, not the "brain" as a whole. 

 

On the other "hand," any number of other words could have have virtually identical "points of impact" on the body, associated with the same vowel "sound." The same may apply to a word articulated simultaneously with a gesture, or any experience associated with a sound, one heard or self-generated. That circuit connects the auditory image to at least the "body," but not necessarily one concept. 

Then what is the "workaround" for bringing together the multisensory event termed a "word," or for  example, assuming that it has been learned truly "multi-sensorialy," that is with as many senses as possible, or at least a "quorum level," vividly or intensely engaged as possible? 

In a sense, the "answer" is in the question: consistent, rich multisensory engagement. There are an almost infinite number of ways to accomplish that, of course, but haptic pronunciation teaching, based on touch-anchored speech-synchronized gesture attempts to do that, systematically. In principle, any sound, word or sound process can be experienced as a nexus involving: 

• the physical sensation of articulating the sound/process
• the auditory features of the sound (acoustic)
• a concept (in the case of a word or, in come cases, patterns of pitch movement)
• a gesture that involves hands touching with each other or the body, in some manner that mimics either the nature of the sensations involved in articulation or the "shape" of the concept itself, such as hands rising on a rising pitch or intonation, or hands positioned high in the visual field to represent a "high" vowel.  

According to the study, the use of haptic, touch-anchored gesture should strengthen considerably the connection between the concept associated with the gesture and the sound by "pointing" to the body-sensations involved in articulating the sound.

 And, of course, from our perspective, KINETIK (method) is what is coming next! 

 Source: https://neurosciencenews.com/auditory-tactile-processing-21279/

Killing (Pronunciation) Learning 16*: Move (with) it or Lose it!

Cilker.com

Fascinating new research--with intriguing implications: "Hand constraint reduces brain activity and affects the speed of verbal responses on semantic tasks,“ by Onishi, Tobita and Makioka of Osaka Metropolitan University, one that gives the metaphor to "sit on your hands," neuroscientific validation . . .almost!

In the study, subjects sat at computers and had to make judgments as to the relative size of different objects on the screen. In one condition, subjects viewing objects that entailed the use of the hands, such as a broom, were not allowed move their hands as they responded. That significantly slowed down brain processing, compared to responding to objects, such as a house, which do not involve as direct hand engagement or learning experience, where the restraint on their hand movement had no discernable effect. 

From the perspective of embodied cognition theory that makes sense, where, in principle, all learning . . and thought is inexorably bound together with the entire body in multiple dimensions. Some of that interconnectedness derives from when something is learned; some, from the primal notion that all experience is embodied, that is grounded in what the body is doing either in saving to memory or memory access. 

Assuming that general principle holds--and I am absolutely convinced that it does from about 50 years in the field of pronunciation teaching--how does impact our understanding of the function of body movement in the classroom? For one, requiring students to sit near motionless, especially in language learning, let alone elementary school classrooms, is a killer, best case. Just being able to move around a little, keeping loose and responding easily and with all your body (and being) means something, literally. That is something we all know intuitively, of course, but what the study shows is that at some level a body constraint is a "thought" constraint as well. 

In (haptic) pronunciation teaching, virtually all basic instruction is based on gesture-synchronized speech, where all speech production can be accompanied by gesture, and body awareness of constant motion and synchrony between body and speech rhythm develop throughout the process. The hands and arms play prominently in the method. For more on that: www.actonhaptic.com

Do a video of your class (any class) sometime. Is it moving? It should be . . . 

*This is number 16 in the series of blogposts highlighting factors or variables that can seriously interfere with learning and teaching pronunciation. 

Source:
Onishi, S., Tobita, K. & Makioka, S. Hand constraint reduces brain activity and affects the speed of verbal responses on semantic tasks. Sci Rep 12, 13545 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17702-1

A "Scanpath" down Memory (for pronunciation) Lane: The Eyes have it!

"Eye catching" new study on the function of eye scanning movements in memory creation and access, Eye-movement replay supports episodic remembering, by Johansson, Nystrom, Dewhurst and Johansson in the recent Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences. (Also summarized informally in Neurosciencenews.com). The general concept is that eye movement patterns ("scanpaths") that accompany creation of a memory are virtually the same as those used in recalling features of the memory later. 

From the abstract:

Our findings provide direct evidence that such scanpaths are replayed to assemble and reconstruct spatio-temporal relations as we remember and further suggest that distinct scanpath properties differentially contribute depending on the nature of the goal-relevant memory.

In other words, at some level the eyes, at least in episodic memory creation, as part of the overall visuo-spatial processing system of the brain, move in minute scan patterns of millisecond duration, which are not only accessible in recall of that event/episode, but are integral to it. How that relates to internal "events" inside the brain is not entirely clear, of course, but the research again confirms the correlation between path and event-in-time. As the research literature review in the research report relates, those eye movements and related phenomena have been the object of research and various therapeutic applications for over 70 years. 

And how does this relate to remembering or learning pronunciation? The key idea is what constitutes an "episode" in this context " . . . that the sequential replay of eye movements serves to facilitate pure episodic reconstruction in the absence of visual input." (from the article) According to that model, when a gesture is used, for example, associated with a new sound or perhaps an intonation contour, the two are "stored" together in a sense. Either may, in principle, then prompt recall of the other. If the pair are practiced together, the components of the two, the sound, itself, the kinesthetic "track" of the gesture, the "trail" in the visual field can be further joined and strengthened. 

That is, in effect, the basis of the KINETIK Method, as well having gotten its early inspiration from what is known as Observed Experiential Integration Therapy.  

From about 30 years of experience in working with gesture and sound change, the connection between what we call the "movement, tone and touch technique," the MT3, the complex of sound and gesture (and touch), when mapped onto a sound or word or phrase or clause or passage, is incredibly powerful. At times the eyes are actually tracking a gesture across the visual field; at others, the MT3 is out of direct line of sight, but, as the research reveals the "episode" is still embodied, in part, by one or more eye movements that are associated with it. How to exploit those complexes effectively is the question, of course. To learn more about how that works, go to www.actonhaptic.com/kinetik. 

Source: 
Eye-movement replay supports episodic remembering
Roger Johansson, Marcus Nyström,Richard Dewhurst and
Mikael Johansson
Published:15 June 2022 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0964

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences

Now we are REALLY talking (with students about pragmatics with meta-pragmatics!)

More big news! Our latest research report, our second, "Role-play and dialogic meta-pragmatics in developing and assessing pragmatic competence," is now officially in press with Pedagogical Linguistics, coming out later this fall, hopefully! Here is the abstract: 

Role-play as a bridging and integrating practice in language teaching and development of pragmatic competence in learners is well-established. In an EAP classroom (Van Dyke & Acton, 2021) explored the impact of one fluency protocol, Cooperative Attending Skills Training, by which students were trained to listen attentively to shared personal stories, working toward more sophisticated strategies of conversational interaction. That system included dialogic, pragmatics-focused, spontaneous analysis and instructor-student discussion of interactional discourse features. With that experience, further modeling and conceptual input, participants in this study engaged in six role-plays, each involving a problem requiring pragmatic accommodation. The data from transcribed role-plays were analyzed in terms of pragmatic discourse functions and NVivo-based thematic threads. The generally successful application of the targeted skills and concepts by course end most likely resulted from the engaging meta-pragmatic interactions preceding the role-plays, and the formal and informal instructor feedback related to implicature, prosody, implicit understandings, direct conversation strategies, grammar, and vocabulary.

This is a follow on to the previous piece, probably the second of three or four: 

Van Dyke, A. & Acton, W. (2022). Spontaneous classroom engagement facilitating development of L2 pragmatic competence: A naturalistic study. Pedagogical Linguistics 3(1) 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.20011.van

As reported in a previous blogpost, we'll be doing a pre-convention institute at the 2023 TESOL convention next March in Portland, based on our research. By then the next phase of the analysis, centering on prosodics and pragmatics should be in "presentable form." See you there! 

Upcoming KINETIK Courses, beginning September, 2022!

As promised, two or three great KINETIK courses now scheduled: 

(For students, adults, lower intermediate and above) Embodied English Fluency and Pronunciation Course: 10 weeks, beginning 9/19, offered through Trinity Western University (for more details, see earlier blogpost)

• Objectives:
• Good uptake - attention to and memory for course content, meaning, emotion, concepts and vocabulary
• Improved clarity - greater emphasis, expressiveness, fluency and intelligibility
• Greater confidence in speaking and ability to "use what you know already!"

• Weekly schedule
• 30 - minute training (recorded), available Thursdays
• 60 - minute, (recorded or live), homework feedback Zoom class, the following week on Wednesdays (6 p.m. PST)
• Homework: 30 minutes per day, minimum 4 days per week
• Cost: $500 CAD, materials provided
• Preliminary Zoom interview required (contact: william.acton@twu.ca)
• Can also be customized for individual classes or schools.

Instructor Training Certificate Course (KMICC): 12 weeks, beginning 9/22, offered through ActonHaptic.com (for more details, see course description)

• Objectives
• Basics of haptic pronunciation teaching
• Techniques for enhancing memory for course content
• Enhanced (instructor's) classroom speaking model and pedagogical presence 
• Weekly schedule
• 30-minute training (recorded, available Monday)
• ~90 minutes of homework
• 75-minute live seminar on Zoom (arranged according to participants' schedules, usually on Saturday, PST)
• $600 USD, materials provided
• Certificate provided upon successful completion
• Full-refund (no questions asked) up to Week 4
• Preliminary Zoom interview required (contact: wracton@gmail.com)

In all humility, these are terrific courses. If you are an instructor considering having your students take EFPC, contact me and I'll be happy to discuss the course with you. Both courses can be offered for just one school, beginning in January 2023. 

Talking (and analyzing) Pragmatics with Students: Meta-pragmatics and Embodied Prosody!

Great news! Just approved! That is the title of our upcoming half-day, 4-hour Pre-convention Institute at that the 2023 TESOL Convention in Portland (probably) March 20, 2023. Here is the current program summary:

This PCI focuses on "dialogic” meta-pragmatic analysis, where instructor and students together, analyze pragmatic aspects of conversations that students have just participated in. That is done by first producing rich, conversational interaction which is then analyzed and embodied to be remembered using, in part, haptic pronunciation teaching prosodic techniques.

Here is original proposal that Angelina Van Dyke and myself submitted that unpacks more of what it is about:

There is no shortage of "talk" about pragmatics in research and pedagogy. This PCI explores ways of working “meta-pragmatically” in the classroom with students, examining pragmatic features of discourse. That is done utilizing several techniques that produce rich, conversational interaction which is then analyzed and embodied to be used later.

In terms of methodology of teaching pragmatics, currently most involves (a) explaining what pragmatics, basically awareness and performance in context-appropriate conversational interaction, (b) exploring examples of interaction with model pragmatic features, or classroom practices such as roleplay, and identifying effective strategies and (c) reflecting on classroom exercises or personal experiences in various ways, (Hennessy, Calcagni, Leung & Mercer, 2021).

What is often missing are two elements: an effective framework for setting up student-produced conversational narrative (for context and analysis) and strategies for helping learners remember what they have worked with. In part in response to that key “bridging” gap or function between classroom pedagogy and spontaneous speaking, an especially adapted version of “cooperative attending skills training” (CAST) (Acton and Cope, 1999) is used to produce “pragmatically-rich,” short conversations with potential for metapragmatic analysis by instructor and students. Additionally, complementing the meta-pragmatic dialogic analyses, in order to enhance memory and clarity of expression, entails embodiment of new, alternative or corrected forms and expressions, using movement, tone and touch techniques (MT3s) based on the KINETIK Method of haptic pronunciation teaching. (Acton et al., 2013).

The PCI uses as a point of departure a recent study, "Spontaneous classroom conversational analysis supporting development L2 pragmatic competence" (Van Dyke & Acton, 2022). A key feature of the classroom discourse examined in that research was "dialogic” meta-pragmatic analysis, where instructor and students together, analyze, post hoc, aspects of conversations that students have just participated in.

Join us!!!

References:
Acton, W. & Cope, C. (1999). Cooperative attending skills training for ESL students, in JALT Applied Materials volume, Kluge, D. and S. McGuire (Eds.), Cooperative language teaching in Japan, pp. 50-66.
Burri, M., Baker, A., & Acton, W. (2019). Proposing a haptic approach to facilitating L2 learners' pragmatic competence. Humanising Language Teaching, 3. Available at http://hltmag.ng3.devwebsite.co.uk/june19/proposing-a-haptic-approach
Hennessy, S., Calcagni, E., Leung, A. & Mercer, N. (2021) An analysis of the forms of teacher-student dialogue that are most productive for learning, Language and Education, DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2021.1956943
Van Dyke, A. & Acton, W. (2022). Spontaneous classroom engagement facilitating development of L2 pragmatic competence: A naturalistic study. Pedagogical Linguistics 3(1) 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.20011.van

Giving the nod to good pronunciation teaching: the "Coconut Cheeseburger" effect

Many in the field "look down on" using gesture and body movement extensively in pronunciation teaching; some of it is deserved, of course. But a new study adds an interesting new twist: upper torso "nodding" (at least in English), often observable when a native speaker is speaking rhythmically or stressing words in speech. (Note: This is a bit of stretch--literally, of the neck--but hang with me. My "discovery" of the upper torso nod early on was simply a game changer.)

In a study by Fumiaki Sato of Toyohashi Institute of Technology and colleagues (Summarized by Neurosciencenews.com) titled, Backward and forward neck tilt affects perceptual bias when interpreting ambiguous figures, subjects were shown three-dimensional cubes in their visual field where they had to either look up to focus on it, or look down to identify which of two or three others they were looking at. Basically, when nodding their head down slightly they were able to identify the cube more quickly than if they were looking up at it. (Moving to the left or right did not evoke an analogous difference in perception.) Fascinating study . . .  The researchers' discussion focuses on the role of that postural adjustment in affecting perception, without speculating further as to the implications of that finding. Allow me!

In 1987, on my way to a convention, I observed two strikingly different upper torso nods associated with the words, Coconut Cheeseburger. (For the full story, see the blog post on it from 2015.) One person, trying to explain why his friend had mistakenly received a 'coconut cheeseburger,' was claiming that what had been said was "coconut cheeseburger," used one torso nod, culminating on 'cheese.' The other person, argued that what she had actually said was, "Coke and a cheeseburger," using two torso nods, one on 'coke' and one on 'cheeseburger." You see the problem. Said with one torso nod--given that there was a sandwich of that description at time in the Florida Keys--the misunderstanding is  . . .well . .  understandable. 

In haptic pronunciation teaching--and perhaps all teaching in some sense in English, that basic pendulum-like motion of the body rhythm in speaking is fundamental, reflecting the muscles of the upper and lower chest, and diaphragm, coming together to expel air up and out through the vocal cords. At the "bottom" of each nod is where there should be, according to the research, at least some greater clarity and focus. If you "think" about, that downward motion of upper torso can have meaning in interpersonal communication from several perspectives. 

Some it, of course, is just visual marking of stress assignment, similar to the "baton" gesture. It can also, however, signify other concepts externally, such resignation or confidence or, depending on the speed of the gesture, varying degrees of engagement or energy involved. Regular, uncluttered rhythmic torso nods can imply semantic coherence in the speaker, that what is being said is thoroughly integrated at that point in time. Any highly accomplished public speaker generally has near total control and expressive use of upper torso "nodding" as well. 

In haptic work, almost every one of the three dozen or so designed gestures may be accompanied by an upper torso nod, depending on whether the stretch of speech is being articulated in "pieces" for some pedagogical purpose or fluently, approaching natural speech. In effect, the torso, not the head and arms is where the "action" is. How's yours?

See what I mean? If not, set up a video camera off to your left or right as you teach. Note when your speech is generally synced with your upper torso nods, and when it is not. If it is, well . . . take a bow! Then join us at www.actonhaptic.com!

And, of course, keep in touch!

Bill

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10985-4

Looking, sounding and feeling confident in front of your (English language teaching) class!

Something of a radical idea . . . You can substantially improve your "Classroom English teaching presence" by talking pretty much to yourself . . . without much talking with anybody else in the process. For some, unfortunately, that is their only option. Have a course for them.

Well . .  more technically: Enhanced (virtual and physical) English-teaching classroom presence (EECP) --for anybody who needs it! Another of the new v6.0 KINETIK Pro-D courses! This one is designed especially for those non-native English-speaking instructors who have not been fortunate enough to do a training program where they had the opportunity to develop their "classroom English" skill set under supervision, as in a good internship or practicum. It is all done on Zoom or a comparable platform:

• Can be either 10 or 20 weeks in length, with one or two meetings per week.
• Cost varies, just based on number of participants. For example, the 10-week course for a class of 10, meeting once per week, would be about $500 USD per student; for 25 students, $200 USD each--and anything in between, even 50, at $100 each.
• Works best if all the instructors are teaching in the same school, or at least with the same type of students. 

As with all KINETIK courses, it makes use of content from the instructor's current (or favorite) course and:

• Develops improved general speech rhythm and clarity (including pronunciation)
• Features innovative "embodied oral reading" and "embodied. spontaneous oral recasting" as a basic homework/practice format. (using the student/instructor's own course content.) 
• Identifies and helps moderate both visual and speaking mannerisms that can be effectively "upgraded"-- particularly in the "Zoom Room!"
• Provides a powerful, embodied set of strategies for enhancing memory for content and expressiveness (primarily haptic in nature, using gesture and touch), most of which are directly applicable to any classroom or student population. 

Courses can be offered through a school or you can sign up independently. New classes commence when there is a group of at least 10 students--in compatible time zones!!! 

Look good? Contact us for more info, go to www.actonhaptic/eecp or wracton@gmail.com.

Embodied (and great) learning of pronunciation: Exploring Arthur Lessac!

Once in a while, we should go back to the source, what inspired us to be in this field, just to understand better where are at the moment. Two months ago, I recommended to you a new book, Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning, edited by Macrine, S. & Fugate, J., which represents some extraordinary progress is getting the body systematically back into instruction. Lessac had it figured out over 75 years ago. 

His work is not widely known outside of the fields of speech and drama, in part, because it is so "body-centered," requiring students to learn to explore themselves, their place in the world--and their voice through something similar to what we now know as "mindfulness" but also in persona of an actor to inhabit any number of other agents . . . or even musical instruments and animals, let alone metaphor upon metaphor. In other words, in theater, he had found a path back to fully engaged--and joyful use of the body and voice. 

What is so evident in Macrine & Fugate (2022) is that embodiment is key, but how you get there may vary widely . . . and neuroscience has explored a myriad ways in which that can happen effectively, many of them seem straight out of Lessac's work. 

From my perspective, in terms of a complete system, an accompanied, experiential guide to embodied "learning (through constant) exploration" (as he would characterize it), his two classics, Body Wisdom, and The Use and Training of the Human Voice, are almost without peer. 

Of course, to follow Lessac through the system, or through the courses available through the Lessac Institute, takes time, maybe six months or so before you get there, where you and your body have become wonderfully "reintegrated," as you were when you were a child. To the post-modern mind, from the "outside," it appears as though you have simply given yourself over to the whims of body, but in fact, what as happened is you and your body are just communicating together as a team. 

But to get there, generally requires going back to square one, exploring the experience of speaking and moving again, setting aside temporarily the layer upon layer of words and experience that determine what we are allowed to sense and understand. To Lessac, it was all about "exploration," being perpetually in that state of discovery with the body as the "territory," and the mind as being the map being constantly created out of experience-- not the reverse. 

In other words, to quote Lessac, train the body first. KINETIK does that. Join us this fall. (www.actonhaptic.com) or email me directly: wracton@gmail.com for custom programs, etc. 

It's good to be back. More on the KINETIK project, "KINETIK (embodied speaking and teaching) Method" soon! 

Why haptic pronunciation teaching should be seen as more "memorable!"

(Eye) moving study by Johansson, Nystrom, Dewhurst and Johansson of Lund University, entitled, 
"Eye-movement replay supports episodic remembering." The idea that our eyes may move in the same or similar pattern or path in recalling an event that they experienced earlier when the even occurred has been recognized for several decades, used in various therapeutic applications and has been reported in several earlier blog posts over the last decade. 

This research study provides new, strong empirical confirmation of that underlying process. Subjects' eye tracking was recorded as they were shown various configurations of objects and asked to search out specific features. When later asked to recall details from that earlier phase, the eyes in effect closely "retraced" the paths used initially.  The implications are striking, even for haptic pronunciation work (KINETIK), which, itself, was inspired by the work of Bradshaw and colleagues in developing Observed Experiential Observation (OEI) therapy.

In the KINETIK English Fluency and Pronunciation System, sounds and words or phrases to be remembered are introduced and later recalled, associated with dynamic gestural patterns, accompanied by touch across that are performed in various locations in the visual field of the learner--either by the instructor, the learner or by both, simultaneously. (See examples of what are termed: movement, tone and touch techniques, from an earlier, version 4.5, of haptic pronunciation teaching.) After about 15 years of work, developing and teaching with the KINETIK Method, clearly the "eyes have it!" There are many well-established techniques and methods in various fields that involve synchronization of movement and speech and prompted recall, such as the Total Physical Response Method of language teaching. This research provides further justification for such embodied approaches. 

Speaking of, KINETIK v6.0 will be available for classroom use beginning this fall. More details will be available shortly, but if you would like to check out the general format of the courses, go here!

And, of course, Keep in Touch!

Published:15 June 2022https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0964

A near perfect pronunciation course! (Fun, efficient, effective, memorable. . . and almost . . . free!)

If your students need help with basic pronunciation work--and remembering it--and you don't have the time or training or cash on hand to afford it . . .  I may have a solution for you: the new KINETIK "Feed-forward" Project (KFP), beginning on September 14, 2022. It is both a course and an ongoing celebration of haptic pronunciation teaching. (A new introductory video on the project will be available shortly!) 

There is a course for students, a regular, bi-weekly recorded, 30 minutes to 1-hour lesson, with an optional live follow up the following week. The recorded lesson with chat follow up will be free. The optional, live "Feed-forward" follow up the next week will probably be about $5 per session or $10 per month! For great results, students do the homework, too, about 3 hours per week. 

There is also an ongoing seminar on haptic pronunciation teaching and an optional teacher certification course that accompanies the student course. 

How does it work?

• Students are trained in specially designed haptic movement, tone and touch techniques (MT3) that both teach and are used to practice aspects of course content and pronunciation. 
• The use of MT3s make the training and course content very memorable
• Later they can be used for enhancing recall of any content or vocabulary, correction and feedback. 
• Students are trained to do the 2 weeks of homework for that module, using a special kind of oral reading, a haptic-embodied oral reading that keeps active learning and exploration going.  
• The next week, students have the option of just doing the homework or also attending a live, 75-minute practice and feedback session on Zoom with Bill Acton.
• The entire KFP curriculum cycle is completed in about 8 months.

More about KFP

• Teaches the basics of rhythm, stress, intonation, vowels, consonants, and other key features of English pronunciation in 2-week modules
• Bill Acton is the instructor, with support from other "Hapticians"
• For any student, upper beginner and above, almost any age (7+), and any place! 
• Fits in with or complements almost any English course
• Based on the idea of developing rhythm first and regular, instructor support during the learning process
• Uses the new KINETIK "Feed forward" system (using gesture and touch, plus innovative haptic feedback learning and self-monitoring techniques on Zoom or f2f to keep active learning going!)
• Each module is 2 weeks long, one hour (recorded) available on Monday in Week One and 75 minutes (live) on Wednesday in Week 2 (Done twice, 6 a.m. PST and 6 p.m., PST)
• Trains students to self correct and develop disciplined practice routines. 
• Recommended minimum 2~3 hours of (active, movement-based, haptic) homework per week
• Materials and video models provided
• KINETIK METHOD teacher training certificate course can be taken along with student course (You basically do the student course work along with your students, and also do some additional reading and attend the weekly KFP seminars.)
• Other custom-made student courses also available.

Introductory video, more details and curriculum coming soon! 

For more information: wracton@gmail.com 

Keep in touch!

Bill

Required reading! (New book on Embodied Cognition in Teaching and Learning)

Put this one on your list:  Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning, edited by Macrine, S. & Fugate, J., MIT Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.001.0001

From the promo: "Experts translate {at least some of} the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy." (Braces, mine!) There are "only" 18 chapters, 330 pages, and the topics covered are not exhaustive, of course, but several, including the opening section on theories of embodied cognition are well worth a careful read. That is especially the case since it is FREE, open access!

In addition to the excellent concluding section, my favorite chapter thus far, one that connects very directly to the KINETIK Method and haptic pronunciation teaching is: "Embodied Classroom Activities for Vocabulary Acquisition," by Gomez, L. and Glenberg, A. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.003.0011

Enjoy! Embody it all! 

Bill

Let's talk (and analyze) pragmatics . . . with students!

There is no shortage of "talk" about pragmatics in research and pedagogy. In terms of methodology of teaching, most of it boils down to (a) explaining to students what pragmatics is, basically awareness and performance in context-appropriate conversational interaction, (b) either listening to examples or some kind of classroom practice such as roleplay, identification of good response language techniques and (c) after the fact reflection of various kinds on B, (Hennessy, Calcagni, Leung & Mercer, 2021).

In an earlier post, I reported on a TESOL 2022 presentation that I did with Angelina VanDyke, "Spontaneous classroom conversational analysis supporting development L2 pragmatic competence." (Published in Educational Pragmatics.)  A key feature of the classroom discourse in that study was "dialogic meta-pragmatic analysis," where instructor and students together, analyze, post hoc (after the fact), aspects of conversations that students have just participated in. 

The second phase of analysis focuses on evidence of student uptake of the instruction in pragmatics related to coursework they had just completed and features of the instructor's spontaneous feedback, supporting that development. We have submitted a manuscript based on that analysis which, if you are interested, we'll be happy to share in the interim. Only one condition on that . . . in return, you "dialogue" with us on it! 

Now I'm sure you are asking "Where is the usual connection to haptic pronunciation teaching and the KINETIK method?" The answer is in the anchoring and embodiment in memory of new or corrected forms and expressions that students go on to practice in context and as homework. For more on that, see upcoming blogpost unpacking that and announcing an exiting, new all-day workshop concept we will be offering focusing on "pragmatics and prosody!" 

Source: 

Hennessy, S., and  Calcagni, E., Leung, A., & Mercer, N. (2021). An analysis of the forms of teacher-student dialogue that are most productive for learning, Language and Education, DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2021.1956943

Clker.com

Pronunciation teaching: RIP (requiescat in pace--or not)

An earlier, 2018 study, summarized by ScienceDaily.com as Even mild physical activity immediately improves memory function, by researchers at the University of California-Irvine and Tsukuba University in Japan, points to a fascinating (and commonsensical) concept: movement for movement's sake in learning. Children (of all ages) know that you have to be moving constantly to learn anything. Neuroscience tells us basically the same thing: that Descartes was wrong: I MOVE therefore, I am--in apart because at some level in the brain, thought is movement. (Some argue very convincingly that movement comes first!) In the study, participants did 10 minutes of light exercise, yoga, walking, etc., before doing a memory test. The results were striking, due in part to " . . .better connectivity between the hippocampal dentate gyrus and cortical areas linked to detailed memory processing." Details, details . . . 

In case you haven't noticed, pronunciation teaching is generally not a high priority with most teachers, for a number of reasons, from the KINETIK Method perspective, lack of systematic movement being one of them: 

• Just not enough time, too much other stuff to deal with--even if I do have some training in it.  
• Although research in second language pronunciation has made enormous gains in the last decade, methodology of pronunciation teaching is still pretty much where it was several decades ago: explanation, repetition, reflection and communicative practice . . . then leave the rest to the individual student to figure things out
• Internationally, with media and cultural integration and engagement--and the post-colonial milieu we are in, acceptance of far less than perfect British or American pronunciation has changed attitudes enormously. The demand, at least in some contexts, is just no longer there. 
• With the availability and accessibility of English on the web and technology, learners can be exposed to so much more meaningful input and interaction that their pronunciation has a better chance to evolve, naturally or with a little help, far more effectively than in the past.
• Even during in-class face-to-face instruction, there are also a myriad of factors that can undermine attention to pronunciation. The Zoom experience for the last couple of years has foregrounded a key element of pronunciation teaching and learning: engagement of the body, the impact of lack of physical engagement in various modes of instruction at a distance. In other words, resting peacefully (requiescat in pace) as you do (pronunciation) may really work against you . .  especially if you want to remember what you are studying. 

Recall that back in the 1980s one of the "boutique" teaching methods, Suggestopedia, actually used a number of procedures based on deep, hypnotic-like relaxation techniques accompanied by little or no motion involved, claiming to enhance speed of acquisition and memory. The method turned out to at least lack generalizability, and is no longer  . . . remembered! The Suwabe et al 2018 study looked at light exercise followed by the memory test. 

Perhaps what makes learning pronunciation most problematic is, in fact, the level of physical or somatic engagement. In the KINETIK Method, body engagement is managed or required extensively, both when speaking and when not. Turns out, you can get at least some enhancement of memory for what comes next just by doing a little "body work" in preparation. So . . . do it!

Source article:

Kazuya Suwabe, Kyeongho Byun, Kazuki Hyodo, Zachariah M. Reagh, Jared M. Roberts, Akira Matsushita, Kousaku Saotome, Genta Ochi, Takemune Fukuie, Kenji Suzuki, Yoshiyuki Sankai, Michael A. Yassa, Hideaki Soya. Rapid stimulation of human dentate gyrus function with acute mild exercise. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 201805668 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1805668115

KINETIK English Fluency and Pronunciation Course (5/26~8/9)!

The course is being offered to the public for the first time by the Trinity Western University MATESOL (LIVE on Zoom or by viewing the class video later.) It has a somewhat unorthodox time format: 

• Instructor: Bill Acton
• May 26 – August 9, 2022 (12 weeks), 3-4 hours per week
• Thursday: 7 – 8 p.m. PST 
• And Wednesday, the following week: 7 - 8 p.m. PST
•  Homework: 15-20 minutes per day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Specifics: 
This course is for those who want to improve their speaking fluency and pronunciation of English. It is especially helpful for students who have IELTS level of 4.5+ and do not have time or opportunity to practice speaking English outside of class, themselves, but have reasonably good listening skills.

The KINETIK teaching method includes neuroscience-based haptic techniques (using special gestures and touch) to improve memory for new vocabulary, pronunciation and and confidence in speaking.

In addition to one hour of class each week and one hour of homework review every week on Zoom, for best results students should practice their homework exercises at least 15-30 minutes per day, 4~5 days a week. Book and practice video recordings are provided.

A brief, preliminary interview on Zoom is required to be admitted into the course. If interested, contact Professor Bill Acton (William.acton@twu.ca) in the MATESOL Department at Trinity Western University. Classes are recorded. If a class is missed, it can be watched later. Certificate is awarded for 80% attendance.

Course fee: $500 CAD ($400 USD) Group discounts available. 

Also: The 4-week version of the instructor certificate course is also available this summer, on campus, in Langley, BC, July 18th ~ August 12th. One hour of class, 4 days a week and approximately 6 additional hours  per week of preparation and practice. Cost: $800, all materials included. (A zoom hybrid of the course may be available as well.) Contact me, if interested: william.acton@twu.ca. 

Keep in touch!

Bill