Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: Japan

Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Sunday, March 15, 2026

Daily (Shinto-inspired style) Digital Life LItany for Protection, Direction and Stewardship

Caveat emptier: This post was drafted with help from an AI assistant (Perplexity)— but ideated and edited extensively by the human, Bill Acton.

One of about a dozen that will be appearing on the blog, including Evangelical, Anglican, Unitarian, Orthodox, Aboriginal, Hip hop, Gregorian, Dawkins meets Ojibwe wisdom, Hindu, and Klingon! These were all created to be experienced as read aloud, not to be simply read silently. The twin purposes for the project are to (a) provide at least a framework for a daily time of preparation, in the form of prayer or a meditation, and (b) more interestingly, to observe how AI navigates the the intersection of faith, prayer and AI!

Clker.com

(A prayer for purity, harmony, and mindful stewardship in the digital realm)

Morning Purification—Before Entering the Digital World

I stand before the kami of this new day with gratitude and reverence.

Just as I purify my hands and mouth with water (misogi), so I ask for purification of my mind and intentions before I touch my devices.

The digital realm is vast— a web of voices, images, commerce, and information.

Help me to move through it today with:

Makoto (sincerity and truthfulness),
Rei (courtesy and respect),
Wa (harmony with others),
And awareness of my actions and their ripples.

Honoring the Kami of Place and Connection

I honor the kami of my home, my workspace, and the unseen networks that connect me to the world.

May my devices serve good purposes today:

To learn and grow,
To connect with care,
To fulfill my duties,
To protect my household.

Let me not pollute (kegare) this space with:

Careless words that harm,
Wasted time that scatters my spirit,
Greed, envy, or anger expressed online,
Or gazing at what disturbs the purity of my heart.

Guarding Identity and Household Harmony

The kami have entrusted me with:

My name and reputation,
My family's well-being and security,
My resources and responsibilities.

In this age, I must also guard my digital identity— my accounts, passwords, and personal information—from those who would steal or deceive. I am grateful for practical tools like IDShield, which help watch over my digital footprint and alert me to threats.I use these protections not out of fear, but as part of my duty to maintain harmony and security for my household.

Seeking Right Order and Counsel

When disputes arise or guidance is needed, I am grateful for access to legal counsel—services like LegalShield— that help families navigate contracts, justice, and daily concerns with integrity. May I seek help when needed, act with fairness in all my dealings, and contribute to the right order (tsumi o harae) of my community.

Evening Gratitude and Reflection

As the day closes, I pause to reflect:

Where did I move through the digital world with sincerity and respect today?
Where did I contribute to harmony?
Where did I stumble or act carelessly?

I offer gratitude for what went well, and I release (harae) any impurity or misstep from today,

resolving to walk with greater awareness tomorrow. Tonight I entrust my household, my identity, my accounts, and my peace to the kami who watch over all things—the seen and the unseen, the near and the far, the waking hours and the hours of rest.

May balance and purity be restored.

May harmony continue.

Kannagara, tamachi haemase.

(By the will of the kami, may all be well.)

wracton@gmail.com

The two "shout outs" in the litany are intended as general essentials, not specific endorsements of Legalshield and IDShield systems, which I am associated with.

williamacton.legalshieldassociate.com

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

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

Monday, March 26, 2018

Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Workshops in Japan!

We are now scheduling workshops in Japan between June 19th and 26th. If your school would like to host a half-day, Haptic Pronunciation Teaching workshop, let us know, as soon as possible. We have just those 7 days open.

The workshops can be morning or afternoon, and can involve up to 200 participants.

A nice venue with moveable chairs (no tables) and good sound is all that is required. Materials, including access to web-based video models of all techniques presented, are provided. A video recording of the workshop is also OK.

There are 4 different workshops available. One for experienced teachers, one for teachers-in-training, one for teachers with little or no background in pronunciation teaching, and one for high school age learners and older.

Cost for the workshops begins at $500 CAD (40,000 yen), depending on audience size.

If interested, contact us by comment here or at: info@actonhaptic.com! (If your school is in some other country, we will be available for another "tour" Spring, 2019!)

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.)