Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: TESOL 2019

Showing posts with label TESOL 2019. Show all posts

Monday, March 18, 2019

TESOL 2019 Report - from a haptic perspective!

Every year after attending the TESOL convention, I do a slightly tongue in cheek report back to my program and friends. Here are some excerpts from this year's:

Next year it is in Denver. Denver was snowed in while we were in Atlanta two days. 8 years ago Denver was snowed in during the TESOL convention while we were there . . .

Our haptic workshop went really well. Especially nice doing it with two of TWU MATESOL’s most distinguished and successful grads, Amanda Baker and Mike .Burri! Had about 50 participants. My favorite feedback/comment: “Pronunciation teaching cannot possibly be this much fun.” It can . . .

The Electronic Village, the area where eLearning and software ideas are hatched every year, continues to appear to be something of a bellwetter of where we are going. If we assume that is the case:

The future is in our hand(held)s.
Anyone not highly visual with short attention span need not apply.
Vetting of presentations is really not that critical (caveat emptor . . . )
The “dead tree” textbook is . . . dead.

There were about 6500 at the conference. (Down about 3500 from two years ago in Seattle.) TESOL is beginning to suffer from the maturation of the field. There are probably a dozen specialization, beginning with Applied Linguistics about 20 years ago, that have spun off and have their own conferences annually now.

What that means is if you are more experienced and are looking for more advanced thinking in any skill area—you will probably find less and less of it at TESOL. Heard several reports that what is being presented is (understandably) aimed more and more at beginners in the field. The same thing has happened to every discipline, of course. For some, like MLA or APA, however, the conferences just keep getting bigger to accommodate all interests and strands.

The convention is also getting expensive, too much for many, I’m sure (around $400 US, in addition to special events, etc.) We had ordered the same booth in the exhibition area for what (we thought) was about the same price as two years ago. Different this time, however. Everything else was al a carte, to the tune of about $1000 US. Ouch . . .

(#@&!%) Mac users. One of the tech support people commented to me that the TESOLers, almost exclusively MAC, were amazingly clueless about working with the projection and sound interfaces, compared to the previous “business” conference people who were all PC. The fact that I use a PC and didn’t need hand holding—and probably seemed like one of the really “old” guard, made me something of a celeb . . . “

Some of my TESOL friends my age looked REALLY old and wrinkled . . . They all recognized me but I didn’t recognize many of them. May be time for me to either make new friends or get new glasses!

Put the next Haptic Pronunciation Teaching webinars (May 17th and 18th) on your calendar. To reserve a spot, contact: info@actonhaptic.com.

Keep in touch!

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Dr Bill's Vowel and Consonant Repair Shop at the 2019 TESOL Convention!

If you are going to be in Atlanta for the 2019 Convention next week, stop by the Trinity Western University booth in the exhibition area to at least say "Hi!" In addition to promoting the TWU MATESOL, we'll be offering free, quick, and effective haptic pronunciation teaching "repair" of a vowel or consonant.

In general that only applies to students or student-teachers, but if you speak some English other than North American and would like a minor upgrade, we can probably do that, too. (Limit: one segmental per day, by appointment, so you could, in principle, get three fixed during the conference.) This is, of course a bit "tongue and teeth and lips and vocal apparatus" in cheek, but for minor, relatively easy fixes like "th" or "r" or "l" or "syllable-final voiced consonants", a quick, 10-minute repair is really quite feasible, as long as you follow up with practice for the next 2 weeks or so.

If you want to know HOW to do such quick, haptic repairs, we will also have information on the basic Haptic Pronunciation Teaching workshop on Friday at the conference (with Baker and Burri), the upcoming Haptic Pronunciation Teaching webinars, May 17th and 18th, and the 4-week, online Haptic Pronunciation Teaching course in July in conjunction with the TWU MATESOL program seminar in Applied Phonology. (More on that shortly!)

Keep in Touch!

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Haptic Pronunciation Training Rides Again! (at TESOL 2019)

The first haptic workshop, (Acton, W., Baker, A. and M. Burri. 2008). Haptic approaches to Intonation Instruction, was conducted 10 years ago at the 2008 TESOL Convention in New York.

Credit: Linda Liu

This coming March in Atlanta at TESOL 2019 will be the official roll out of v5.0 (v4.5 is still available) and a new workshop, Basics of haptic pronunciation training -- Acton, W., Baker, A. Hong, S. and M. Burri presenting.

Even if you have attended haptic presentations before, join us for a serious upgrade of your haptic tool kit, both at the workshop and at our annual moving and touching "Haptic-o-logue" over-adult- beverages-get-together of hapticians and friends. (If you have a recommendation for a truly "haptic" venue in Atlanta, please let us know!)

Keep in touch!

Bill

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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.)