Body rhythm: the key to good pronunciation (teaching)

Gradually, neuroscience is catching up with great teachers of speech (e.g., Lessac, 1984, 1997) and pronunciation (e.g., Morley, 1979; Gilbert, 2010). It turns out that it is more than just a phonaesthetic accident that, in English, we list 'Rhythm, Stress and Intonation'--in that order. In Morley (1979) and Gilbert (2010) and most other student texts "stress" (at the word, phrase and sentence level) is dealt with first. Gilbert does not mention rhythm explicitly in the table of contents but slips it in systematically throughout; Morley does rhythm second. Lessac (1984) begins by training the body to move in new ways to the rhythms of speech and only comes back to making sounds later.

(Literally) any experienced teacher who does pronunciation well believes in the centrality of rhythm to fluency, and probably much more, including memory and perceptual processing. The "problem" has always been that the best arguments for rhythm-based practices have been experience or affect (motivating or promoting "flexibility" in some sense). The best evidence today still comes from parallel fields. For example:

Clker.com

A new study examining synchrony in pairs of musicians by Zamm, Wellman and Palmer at McGill University, "Endogenous Rhythms Influence Interpersonal Synchrony"--in a more intelligible press release and in a ScienceDaily summary, "Find a partner who marches to the beat of your own drum: Group coordination is optimized between people with similar movement rates"-- provides a nice perspective on the place of rhythm in language teaching, and learning in general for that matter. In short, what they found was that those who have similar rhythms of speech and movement work better together. (So much for the "opposites attract" hypothesis!) Quoting Palmer in the SD summary:

"We think this could extend to interpersonal synchrony in other fields, such as recreational activities like jogging, where health benefits may be greatest when partners are matched for rates; or in education, when teachers and students are matched in conversational speech rates; and especially in sports, such as tennis doubles, pairs skating or team rowing," (Emphasis, mine.) 

Previous studies reported here and elsewhere have established that ability to move to a beat and perceive rhythm (but not simply tapping it out or clapping hands to it) seem to enhance skill or language engagement and acquisition, especially in children. The question, of course, is if, how and when adult learners (in class) can arrive at that synchrony and whether or not such coordination is more "innate" to individuals or can be taught. Lessac clearly believed and demonstrated the latter. Morley  and Gilbert see L2 rhythm as developing alongside or conforming to the L2 more gradually, or implicitly.

Whichever approach you take--and haptic pronunciation teaching is very much on the Lessac end of the continuum, requiring synchrony of body movement and rhythm continuously in instruction--to quote one of my father's musical icons (Duke Ellington): It don't mean a thing, if you ain't got that swing . . .


Citations:
Gilbert, J. (2010). Clear speech (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lessac, A. (1997). The use and training of the human voice: A bio-dynamic approach to vocal life (3rd ed.). New York: Drama Book Specialists.
Lessac, A. (1984). Body wisdom: The use and training of the human body, New York: Drama Book Specialists.
McGill University. (2016, February 9). Find a partner who marches to the beat of your own drum: Group coordination is optimized between people with similar movement rates. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 25, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160209121726.htm
 Morley, J. (1997). Improving Spoken English: An intensive personalized program in perception, Pronunciation, Practice in Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

New pronunciation teaching videos by Adrian Underhill!

Credit: Youtube.com

Macmillan has just released the first of Adrian Underhill's new pronunciation teaching video series. Here is the announcement from his blog, AdrianPronChart.wordpress.com. Adrian has always been one very tuned in to the visual/physical side of pronunciation teaching. His Pronunciation Chart is excellent. Aspects of that framework were instrumental in the design of the Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) framework.

The complete video series, planned to be 35, 3-minute videos should be a good complement to the Acton Haptic English Pronunciation System (AH-EPS) haptic video program. Knowing Underhill, it will, I'm sure, provide a thorough and entertaining presentation for both teachers and learners. (Once a little more of it is available, I'll review it in depth and link it to our work.)

What he typically does well is provide understanding of key elements of (British) pronunciation for learners and instructors, a wide range of applicable techniques--especially kinaesthetic--and practice opportunities/guidelines following from that. If that is what you are looking for, you probably cannot find a better video-based source. (If you are still more dead-tree-bound, Gilbert's work is my recommendation as a good place to begin.)

By contrast, for a number of reasons, AH-EPS:

• Does not do as much explicit explanation and metacognitive management
• Is haptic-based rather than kinaesthetic
• Presents a more restricted set of formal features to work with
• Uses a vowel chart that is the mirror image of the AdrianPronChart
• Focuses on doing some limited teaching for the instructor, in class
• Sets up impromptu, spontaneous modelling and correction of pronunciation
• Is designed primarily for instructors with little or no background in pronunciation teaching

A most welcome addition. Check it out.

Better looking (and longer) stressed vowels

Linked is a great Linguist list post from 1995 by Laura Koenig that presents just about every way imaginable for getting learners to notice and remember lexical stress (and related vowel lengthening), including several hand clapping variants and using rubber bands. Most are visual/cognitive with no overt use of movement or touch. Judy Gilbert's workshops all come with free kazoo and rubber band. Just in terms of haptic anchoring, stretching a rubber band to anchor vowel length seems to work pretty well. 

Clip art: Clker

One reason that we don't use rubber bands is that the upper torso motion involved, expanding the chest with lateral hand and arm motion as the chin goes up, creates an anchored felt sense that is not generally within the normal range of motion used in spontaneous speaking--unless of course you are at the gym. The anchoring done in the visual field should involve natural, "bobbing-like" torso nods, which serves to coordinate diaphragmatic breathing involved in producing stressed syllables such as in clapping. (In addition, the rubber band touch involved is continuous, often lacking a sharp, defined point of contact for stress anchoring.) 

I do, however, highly recommend the use of chest expanders for general conditioning and developing good upper body strength, breathing and flexibility--and working off stress. 

Pronunciation teaching: from methods to integrative "tool kits" and back again!

I'd characterize today's pronunciation teaching as presenting "integrative tool kits" to instructors, that is providing for instructors a wide range of options in terms of techniques and perspectives on how to work with pronunciation in their classes and programs. For what they are, there are several good ones, including Gilbert's prosodic framework. For instructors of a requisite level of training, that kind of support is potentially adequate. For those less trained, and those who do not have a good sense of how to create optimal sequencing of pronunciation work, that type of informed "recommendations" is often relatively useless--at best.

Clip art: Clker

The approach to working with pronunciation that has been developed on this blog is, in many respects a method, a relative fixed set of procedures, focusing on a limited set of phonological targets, presented to learners in a fixed order and then used in all aspects of language teaching. That such a system could be applicable or capable of being modified for most learners and classrooms is, I realize, quite a claim. In subsequent blog posts, I'll outline the EHIEP system in some detail, not as the "only" way to integrate pronunciation but as a model for how it can be done. In our "post-method" era, it may seem odd to propose one again, but, as always, methods will inevitably emerge from the current often bewildering, chaotic, mix-and-match-ness.