Improved pronunciation "in the blink of any eye!"

How important is general/not directly task-based body movement, especially the lack of it, to learning pronunciation, creativity or just learning? In haptic pronunciation teaching learners are encouraged or required to move almost constantly, primarily through speech-synchronized gesture, but also through "Mindfulness-like" practices that monitor the state of the muscles and posture of the body, along with breathing patterns. 

But what about the impact on learning when students' bodies are held more in check, with restricted motor engagement? A new study by Murali and Händel of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting, summarized by ScienceDaily.com, not only affirms our intuitions about the central role of embodiment in thought and learning, but suggests something more: even while seated, a little movement appears to go a long way in maintaining creativity and attention. (What a shocker, eh? Hope you were sitting down when you read that!)

Ciker.com

The actual protocols of the research, which involved measurement of eye "blinking" responses as indices of degree of engagement, are not described in the summary, but the title of the original piece is interesting. To quote from the summary of the study: "Our research shows that it is not movement per se that helps us to think more flexibly," says neuroscientist Dr Barbara Händel from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany. Instead, the freedom to make self-determined movements (emphasis, mine there) is responsible for it." 

In other words, messing with the body's incredible range of what appear to be random movements, apparently unassociated with the task being consciously in focus, may have dramatic consequences. An extreme analogy might even be talking with friends who are somewhere on the autism or ADHD spectrums. Their body and eye movements seem to suggest that they are not pay sufficient attention when in fact that is not the case at all. 

Now I am not saying that "thinking more flexibly" at any moment in instructional time is necessarily a good thing, of course, but the principle of allowing the body to also think and create on its own on an ongoing basis, in some sense "non or extra-verbally," if  you will, certainly is. On behalf of all elementary school boys on the planet who have had to sit in/through years of class to learn with girls when we should, instead, have been outside learning with our hands and whole bodies, I can only say, AMEN! 

Think about it. While you were reading this blogpost, what "else" was your body doing? If you can't remember . . . Q.E.D (quod erat demonstrandum)

Keep in touch!

Bill

Original source: 

Supriya Murali, Barbara Händel. Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting. Psychological Research, 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01636-w

ADHD and good pronunciation teaching: Move it or lose it?

Have had this "intuition" for decades that most (if not all) great conversation and pronunciation teachers are basically ADHD or close to it. Conversely, great reading and writing instructors (and all tenured researchers in the field) tend to go in the opposite direction.

During my decade in Japan I was fascinated by one of the tenets of the Aikido school of martial arts: Do not block the thrust of your opponent but redirect the energy and movement for your purposes. That is also a first principle of early elementary education, especially in dealing with boys . . .

Now comes a study by Shaver and colleagues at Central Florida University, summarized by Science Daily - full citation below) demonstrating how leaners with ADHD function and learn. In effect, they learn better on cognitive tasks when they "squirm" as they do, to quote the researchers. Apparently what is happening is that the movement is activating areas of the brain controlling executive/control functions to maintain alertness. But here is the more interesting finding:

"By contrast, the children in the study without ADHD also moved more during the cognitive tests, but it had the opposite effect: They performed worse."

That must apply to adult learners as well. The delicate balance between the  facilitative role of movement and gesture in pronunciation teaching and the potentially disruptive effects is key. Pronunciation teaching is, of course, somewhat unique in that regard, some aspects are more motor-training-centered; others are more cognitive in nature, such as rules and explanations. 

This study helps in understanding more about how movement affects or interferes with some kinds of  cognitive processing--and the obvious aversion to kinaesthetic work by some on the other end of the ADHD scale.  We know that most cannot learn better pronunciation just by talking or thinking about it--or by simple, mindless repetition. It does suggest what an optimal instructional model may look like, however . . .

A modest example: Haptic pronunciation work is based on the idea of managing extraneous, random movement so common in unsystematic (but enthusiastic) use of gesture in the classroom, while at the same time still keeping both mind and body engaged. Try it or something like it. (It is impossible to sit still while you do!)

Full citation:
University of Central Florida. (2015, April 17). Kids with ADHD must squirm to learn, study says. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 22, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.htm