Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: Instructor's package

Showing posts with label Instructor's package. Show all posts

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Looking for a way to better integrate pronunciation into your speaking and listening instruction? For $200?

Below is a description of the AH-EPS system and the Introductory Instructor's Package that has just been released with GETONIC (See the "Price tag" at the top of the right column! Click on the 'I' for more information on ordering the package.) Get yourself a copy now!

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AH-EPS, pronounced [e^yps], is a new "haptic" way to teach and learn pronunciation

that uses video, movement and touch.

AH-EPS helps

· Students learn and remember pronunciation better.

· Instructors become more effective at providing feedback on pronunciation.

· Students become better at correcting their own pronunciation.

· Students become better at using improved pronunciation in speaking and conversation.

AH-EPS does that by using touch to

· Bring together the senses for more focused learning

· Enhance attention and concentration by managing emotional and visual distraction

· Make kinesthetic learning more effective and consistent

· Engage more of the entire body and brain in the process

Doing AH-EPS is a little like

· The sign languages used by the deaf or baseball players, and “Tai Chi” moves used in martial arts or boxing

· Doing a computer or “smart phone” game. You learn by doing exercises with special hand movements, sitting or standing in front of a video!

AH-EPS has been used successfully

· In ESL and EFL classes,

· By teachers who have little experience with pronunciation teaching

· In classrooms with students, middle school age and older, and for personal pronunciation improvement by advanced learners

The Format

· AH-EPS has 10 modules, covering essential topics of English pronunciation: vowels, stress, rhythm, intonation, fluency, expressiveness and selected consonants. Each module takes about one week to complete.

· In the 10, 30-minute Video Teaching Lessons, students are trained in using haptic-based techniques that help them learn, remember and recall new and corrected pronunciation.

· After students complete a Teaching Video Lesson (either in class or on their own) instructors can then do one of the following:

· Use the techniques and sounds from that lesson later in class when providing integrated feedback on pronunciation or introducing new vocabulary.

· Follow up by using the 3, 30-minute, Student Practice Video lessons of that module in class or assign them to be done as homework for additional practice.

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Introductory Instructor's package: $200 ($150 + shipping and handling)

1. Instructors Guide and Student Workbook - one free download

2. Teaching and Student Video sets are shipped upon receipt of order.

3. (Optional) 30-minute web-cam consultation

*Hardcopies (loose-leaf, 3-hole punched) of the Instructors Guide ($50) and Student Workbook ($22) are available, plus shipping and handling. (Discounts available on multiple copies. Contact: actonhaptic@gmail.com)

*Additional Teaching DVD sets ($75) and Student Practice DVD sets ($25) are available, plus shipping and handling. (Discounts available on multiple copies.)

* Recommended for classes of up to 30 students, for professional development, and tutoring. Larger classes are possible, but require appropriate (big screen) video and sound projection. To review the content of the Introduction, Modules 1 and 2, go to: http://www.eslenglish.ca/#!actonhaptic/csbz, and try the "TEST RUN!"

The AH-EPS system was developed and is presented by internationally recognized authority on pronunciation teaching, William Acton, PhD, Director of the MATESOL program at Trinity Western University, in British Columbia, Canada. He and his associates are available for AH-EPS teacher training workshops, seminars and webcam consultations.

Contact:

http://www.eslenglish.ca/#!actonhaptic/csbz

http:// http://hipoeces.blogspot.com/

actonhaptic@gmail.com

william.acton@twu.ca

Thursday, April 11, 2013

AH-EPS Instructor's package!

We'll will be selling the preliminary version of the AH-EPS Instructor's Package for the first time on April 25th at the BCTEAL annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conference theme could not be more appropriate, "Brain-compatible language learning." Here is what it will include:

10 Teaching Videos (10 video lessons) on 4 DVDs
2, 1-hour webcam consultations with AH-EPS consultants (You have to pay for it, even if you don't use w/in 60 days.)
1 Instructors Guide (about 70 pages)
1 Student Practice Video set (3 DVDs). That is enough DVDs for 3 students. (It is recommended that students do the homework practice together, in groups of 2 or 3.)
3 Student Workbooks (The workbook is about 120 pages in length. You can pass that out in pieces or all at once.)
14 consonant video mini-modules (on 1 DVD)

Cost is $400 plus shipping.

Additional Student Practice Video sets will cost about $100 (for a DVD set and 3 hard copies of the workbook.) We'll begin shipping orders beginning in June. Ordering information will be available May 1st here and at www.eslenglish.ca.

Once the final version comes out by the end of the summer, the cost will go up by about $100. Sometime in the fall also the downloadable (and possibly streaming) versions of the package will be available as well.

If you'd like to get your name on the list now for a set, email me at: wracton@gmail.com.

Keep in touch!

What is haptic pronunciation teaching?

Basically, it is using gesture, touch and movement to teach pronunciation of English (or any language). What makes this method unique is that it is based on controlled and systematic use of gesture in doing that. (Often the problem with gesture use in language learning is that it can be "crazy" or random or intimidating or inconsistent, or not well-developed and tied to clear outcomes.)

The earlier "Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) approach," now KINETIK, does a better job of enhancing presentation, modelling, feedback and correction. The method is simple and easy to follow. Once a 30-minute module is finished, teacher and students have a set of techniques to use in class anytime a pronunciation problem or opportunity comes up!

Haptic Preliminaries

I often begin workshops or papers with the comment that in about 40 years in the field I have had just one idea: that the systematic use of body movement is essential to effective and efficient pronunciation instruction. That has never been more relevant than today, with the general deemphasis on pronunciation and introduction of technology into the field. From both perspectives, the "haptic" perspective approach developed here offers great promise. I can at least promise you a "moving" experience!

What is the KINETIK Method?

KINETIK is the name of the new v6.0 haptic pronunciation teaching system. About six years earlier we were using the acronym, "Haptic Integrated Pronunciation for Other/Extended Circle English Speakers" (HIPOECES)--still there in the url of this blog!

Haptic-integrated clinical pronunciation is:

A different way to learn pronunciation, based in part on Arthur Lessac’s notion of “Training the body first.” It is also based on research in the use of movement and touch in learning and training. It:

Looks somewhat like a combination of aerobics, sign language and Taichi

Provides a basic foundation for continued, self-directed pronunciation learning and classroom instruction

Designed for use by relatively untrained teachers but appropriate for all teachers (and learners) of all levels

Focuses on pronunciation used in conversation (not all words in English)

Is a highly “brain-and-body-friendly” system that promotes efficient learning of integrated tasks in general

Designed to promote integrated classroom pronunciation instruction and enable integration of conscious pronunciation work into spontaneous speaking.

Introduction

This blog was formerly named: HIPoeces (pronounced 'hI-pƏ-cIs), basically an approach to teaching English pronunciation to speakers of "outer and expanding" circle Englishes (including that population commonly termed: non-native speakers) but also compatible with the use of local models other than simply Standard" American" or RP. Using Kachru's "Inner, expanding and outer circles" model to characterize the breadth of Englishes and speakers of those, HIPoeces (now HICP) systems focus on developing haptically-centered pedagogical models and methods which can be adapted for teaching the pronunciation of various Englishes as they are spoken and taught by "owners" of those varieties.

In theory, the underlying principles can be applied to teaching the sound system of any language. Most language instructors intuitively use a great deal of movement and tactile anchoring in the classroom. The essential question is how to use that resource systematically, especially so that those learners who are less "haptic" in nature are also "moved" by the method.

Simply put, the HICP model/method is based on the idea of speaking along with arm and hand movement, not all that different from that used in sign languages. Most movement patterns are taken from either typical classroom pronunciation instruction practice or from related fields, such as psychotherapy or sports.

Most blog posts link to research that relates to the general HICP model, that is studies dealing with the role of gesture, touch, movement, learning modalities, learning in output, use of the visual field in learning, and experiential learning.

DEFINITIONS:

"Haptic" techniques- procedures that involve both movement and touch (Obvious examples include clapping hands, tapping feet, or holding an object and shaking it to the rhythm of a poem.)

"HICP techniques" - procedures that are haptic and also explicitly coordinated with phonological structures and/or discourse prosody (For example, clapping hands on primary stressed syllables in multi-syllable words, or doing a dance step on key words in conversational turns.)

"Haptic integration"- The haptic dimension probably functions as much to anchor visual and auditory material as it does to assist the learner in getting the "felt sense" of the sound or sound process. Lack of integration into spontaneous speech being such a serious potential shortcoming of instruction, haptic engagement seems a promising bridge to more accurate fluency.

"Visual field" - in HICP extensive use is made of the visual field in front of the learner. (For example, a modified version of the IPA vowel chart is anchored haptically in the imagination of the learner, directly in front of the upper body, and used for several purposes throughout the program.)