The secret to sticking 3-second pronunciation anchoring: timing

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

A favorite quote from another of my heroes, Robert Reed, former forward for the Houston Rockets pro basketball team: "There are 3 secrets to success in basketball: Timing, timing and timing." In a comment to the previous post on visual anchoring, Smith points to the critical role of timing in multiple-modality instruction. To get the perfect picture of timing, leave it to a pro--like Reed! What could be a better source than a 1.25 minute Youtube training video on learning how to "stick" a free throw? (If due to lack of experiential grounding on the court your mirror neurons don't instantly get the analogy, try reliving an intricate, "Wowee!" Texas 2-step move with your BFF, effortlessly driving a ball 10 yards further than ever previously off the first tee, or sliding an absolutely perfect omelet into the middle a romantic breakfast made in heaven . . . ) Timing. Notice the principles laid out in the video: (a) "physical mechanics, mental mechanics, rhythm and timing" (b) minimizing movement--which minimizes the chance of error, and (c) timing to maximize consistency. Next, the steps: (a) Complete pre-shot routine, (b) Take a deep breath, (c) Do the shot in 3-seconds (See blogpost before last!), which involves three distinct movements (elbow positioning, knee bend and follow through.) That basic framework "works" for almost any HICP pedagogical movement pattern as well: Focus (mental and eye fixation)--Breathe in--Hand positioning--Breathe out and Move one hand across the visual field--and Touch and follow through, in 3 seconds! Put that on your Swish! list!

"Fontastic" anchoring of sound!

Clip art: Clker

Credit: Science/AAAS

Taken a close look at a learner pronunciation book lately? (I have some insider information here . . . ) The assumption is that, other than the usual selection of boldface, italics and underlining, the character of the visual display presented in working with sound is essentially no different than any other subject matter. The best analogy might be teenage middle school social science texts--the book making one last effort to mimic the web. Even if the text has brilliant color, artistic images and other text manipulation as a few do, to paraphrase a recent pop song far too often: What happens in student books . . . stays in student books! INTEGRATED pronunciation instruction? Now that is another matter. Sorry, that's about all the special effects blogger will allow: boldface, italics, underlining, all caps, font color and background color. The research on those text features in marketing and advertising is extensive, all of which seem to come to the same conclusion: Try to hold the eyes hostage for a bit. A recent study (using fMRI, of course) summarized by ScienceShots looked at the relationship between font size and emotional response " . . . emotional signals [in the brain] elicited by the larger font size lasted a total of 180 milliseconds longer. The results are similar to emotional responses to large and small versions of pictures with fearful, disgusting, or sex-related content. Pictures hold biological relevance for people, since a big photo of a predator probably signals proximity to you." And then comes a classic "Well . . . Duh . . . ": "Similar emotional effects on font sizes probably reflect the importance language holds in our society, the authors speculate. " (Italics, mine.) So what is the bottom line here in creating classroom-visual materials in haptic-integrated anchoring of pronunciation change, especially in terms of prominence? More and more teacher-based publishers are going to e-Materials, where you can adjust font and visual display characteristics yourself. For the time being, however, --after the Pedagogical MOVEment Pattern is anchored, of course--stick on a few extra milliseconds of visual processing whenever you can--anyway you can. And may your FONTs be with you! 

Why "haptic-integration" should enhance pronunciation work

Junko Kimura/Getty Images

Linked is a good, readable nontechnical summary of what computer haptics (and haptic) is about. (This one nicely complements the 2007 AERA review of research to that date by Minogue and Jones, discussed in an earlier post that reported on the application of haptics in education as well.) This blog post is titled why haptic-integration SHOULD work in our work, in part, because the hard, research-based evidence is, generally  speaking, only indirect, coming from five areas:

(a) Basic research on the neurophysiology of movement and touch, including its close relationship to visual and auditory modalities,
(b) Developments/recent successes in computer haptics-applications such as virtual reality training, gaming and prosthetics,
(c) Practice in several related fields such as sports, dance, rehabilitation and the arts
(d) A few relevant empirical studies examining the effectiveness of haptic enhancement in approaches to helping children learn to connect up orthography and sound, and
(e) About five years of explicit application of haptic pedagogical movement patterns in the EHIEP system and its early predecessors.

I have designed two or three, small scale empirical Stick!-based studies of haptic-integration techniques that I hope to carry out in the next few months. It is a problem inherent to most experiential educational methods. In the meantime, we'll continue to focus primarily on the how . . . and Wow!

Stick! (How to make pronunciation work stick!)

The 2007 Best Seller, Made to Stick, by Heath and Heath, presents a good model for not only selling products and ideas--it is at least as useful as a template for what we do when we do it well. (Three earlier posts have referred to the use of the term "stick" in various fields, including Haptics. For each of H and H's six categories I have added a note elaborating what means for haptic-integrated instruction.

• Simplicity - For both instructor and student. Tasks, objectives and scaffolding must be transparent. Attention should be managed consistently and effectively. 
• Unexpectedness - Lessons should be engaging and "surprising", involving extensive experiential learning not normally associated with traditional pronunciation instruction. 
• Concreteness - Tasks should be somatically grounded, body-based, with clear criterion and resonant "felt sense."
• Credibility - Learners must experience rapid initial achievement and should be provided with a minimal, reasonable theoretical framework.
• Emotion - Learners should be both very much at ease with the work while, at the same time, emotionally in control--with just the right balance of enthusiasm and composure.
• Stories - The focus of the work is on pronunciation in context, conversational narratives, either 12-line dialogues or materials used in "regular" classes--along with a good collection of success stories and relevant analogies. 

Stick!  That is a not a bad term (or metaphor) for what happens when we do it well as well. (More on that in an upcoming post on the EHIEP theoretical framework and methodology.) As a possible new brand identity for the general HICP model--with accompanying textural logo, how well would Stick! stick? 

Haptic TH (vs. THe THousands of sooTHing meTHods for smooTH front teeTH)

Clip art:
Clker

There must be at least that many videos out there that try to teach pronunciation of TH. Here is one of the more popular (and pretty good 11-minute) ones that does most everything that can be done with that media--except show the inside of the mouth. (Here is one that nearly does that in 31 seconds!) Just for entertainment value, wander around through some of the Youtube TH videos. What "virtually" all of them miss is some way to control tongue position or extension during articulation of TH. The model in the second video on a couple of instances sticks his tongue out "excessively" on some examples.

The model in the first video makes a point of telling the audience to just enjoy the act; not to worry about looking strange! Any experienced pronunciation instructor will tell you that "tongue exposure" for many learners from many cultures is very bad form, to put it mildly. Some advise sticking the tongue way out and then drawing it in as the TH is spoken, scraping off the tongue and teeth. Others recommend just "putting the tongue on the upper teeth," etc. As in working with vowels or rhythm or intonation contours, precise haptic anchoring is the key to most efficient consonant repair as well.

The TH haptic protocol includes one unique element: (a) Sensitize the tip of the tongue--See earlier post on the "Starbucks" technique for that. (b) Place a coffee stirrer stick up against the lips, with the narrow side (.25 cm) touching both lips lightly. (c) When the TH is articulated the tongue should push forward and only lightly touch the stick but go out no further. (d) if the TH is voiced, the forefinger of the other hand also touches the vocal cords, as in the s/z/sh/zh protocol described in an earlier post. This is one case where you can, indeed, "beat that (the problematic TH sound)--with a stick!"

On the tip of the tongue:Tip/top hapticulation

I have given up on finding a Youtube/video that works effectively with directing learners to the felt sense of the tip of the tongue, as opposed to the "top" of the tongue just behind the tip--or for that matter, the top/middle (the blade) or the sides of the tongue. (I was tempted just to include a list of exemplary worst offenders, but decided to keep my tongue/fingers in check . . . )

The exact contact point of the tongue with the teeth, lips, alveolar ridge (just behind the teeth) is essential for efficient consonant repair (e.g., th/th, f/v, s/z, sh/zh, r, l, n, ng, t/d.)  Most learners, with a few exceptions, without the aid of an instructor and mirror, are not able to accurately anchor to those points. That does not mean that by trial and error--and brute force-- many problematic sounds cannot be eventually approximated, particularly for those who are better wired to extrapolate sound into movement. I will be posting some "hapticulation guidelines" (articulating sounds with haptic anchoring) for use in the classroom. The basic, haptic-integrated classroom teaching requirement: if you can't fix a consonant sound in 2 minutes or less, don't. Schedule an office visit.

Clip art: Clker (stick with marshmallow)

In preparation for that series of protocols, go to Starbucks--not to stir up trouble here--order a coffee and walk off with about a dozen wood coffee stirs. Take one or two, and practice breaking off 1/3 so that you end up with a rather jagged edge. Discard the resultant short piece. (The marshmallow is optional!) See if you can figure out how to establish the appropriate haptic anchor points on the upper body for the settings of the "World Englishes" that you teach. Until you can get your hands on the new EHIEP consonant protocols (March, 2013), however, I take no responsibility whatsoever for any collateral damage that you accidentally inflict on yourself or your students.