English (Pronunciation) for the Academically Privileged and "hypo-mentalizers"

Clipart: Ciker

Following up on the previous post, in pondering why so much of contemporary pronunciation research, methodology and materials seems to be increasingly "hyper-mentalized," it occurred to me that we should perhaps just follow the money . . .  So where, for the most part, are the learners with the resources to pay for extensive--or even, any--pronunciation instruction? You got it: higher education. (Linked is an interesting, but probably not representative, EPAP "strawman" of a syllabus. Would love to see the list of tongue twisters!) Nearly as important, however, is the nature of academic study and materials in that context: hyper-mental and hyper-textual. That group thrives (or survives) on hypothetical, metacognitive challenges, but in terms of intelligibility their needs may bear little or no resemblance to those of the immigrant or guest arbiter. It may be time to create a new pedagogical category or two: English Pronunciation instruction for the privileged academically (EPIPA!) and English Pronunciation Instruction for the "not so" (EPINS!). The irony is that, at least from our perspective, a good, less cognitive-deductive (and, of course, haptically-integrated) EPINS!-type program (for the hypo-mentalizer) which focused primarily on integrating new pronunciation, rather than understanding it and decontextualized practice, would almost certainly be more effective and efficient for most EPIPA!'s as well. If you have regular work doing EPIPA!, Congratulations! If not, no need to hyper-mentalize . . .

Disembodied Pronunciation done well--by Rosetta Stone

Although there appears to be no readily accessible published research as to the efficacy of the widely promoted language teaching program, Rosetta Stone, if the testimonials on the website are to be believed,  it certainly works for at least some learners.  Having reviewed the Korean and ESL programs, I am struck by how well it does a little--a good business model.

Image: Rosetta stone.com

For the visual-auditory, literate learner (See previous posts on the myth of learning styles, however!)  for whom pronunciation will not be much of an issue, it offers reasonably good, low cost, individualized access to at least functional vocabulary and structure. In fact, that it does not do active pronunciation instruction (other than repetition with some feedback) may almost be a plus, as opposed to presenting it even more "disembodied," as is the case with many current, computer-based systems.

A haptic interface could certainly be developed to use with it. I suggested that when I talked to one of the designers a couple of years ago. Basically, he confidently informed me that according to Krashen and most experts in the field, comprehensible input and aural comprehension were generally sufficient for developing acceptable pronunciation--and selling the product. Well . . . duh. He was at least half right. And besides, recall that the pronunciation of the original Rosetta Stone took over three decades to figure out . . .