What to do for falling student confidence!

One of the joys of teaching is all those times when you stumble on a wonderful technique . . . almost by accident, when the lesson that you designed goes way beyond your objectives for it. The research literature is filled with reports of classroom procedures that inspire/develop confidence, (cf. Cadiz-Gabejan, 2021 . . . but not this one in this field.

For you to be able to do this technique with your students tomorrow, I need to give you little primers on haptic pronunciation teaching (HPT) and Observed Experiential Integration (OEI) therapy.

HPT, basically, uses gesture and touch to enhance memory and expressiveness by generally having a gesture terminate on a stressed syllable where the hands touch. The gesture can have several functions such as rhythmic or intonation patterns, or specific vowels or consonants. (For examples of some of the Movement, tone and touch techniques, goto: www.actonhaptic.com/HaPT.)

One of the techniques, used to create the deep falling tone at the end of a conversational turn, for example, has the learner move one hand from in front of the eyes down to about the level of the solar plexus, with the eyes following. The voice also falls as low as possible, in some creating the "creaky" voice quality. One of the students, in working with the practice dialogs "discovered" that she felt more and more confident by using that move . . . beyond the exercises. Her general demeanor and speaking "presence" made that evident as well from that point on. 

I had seen a somewhat analogous technique used about 20 years ago in observing psychologists working with Observed Experiential Integration (OEI) therapy, where the patient basically followed the hand movement of the clinician across the visual field, terminating about the same place, sometimes along with the clinician's voice, sometimes their own, but the effect was the same: a sense of calm and confidence. That location in the visual field, down and to the right, seemed to act as an anchor for a sense of at least temporarily closing down, calm or resting. 

Many systems use similar anchoring for a myriad of purposes. In this case, we were working with a basic sentence-final falling tone--that just keeps falling until it "hits bottom." Have been using it for the last two years in various ways, such as short passages or conversational gambits, with pretty striking results Here is a short video clip from the KINETIK training video series.  Give it a try and let me know how it works in your class (as I'm CONFIDENT that it will!) 

v7.0 will be available sometime later this spring or early summer. 

Keep in touch!

Bill

Touching English Language Teaching . . . Using Touch!

If you are going to be at the BCTEAL 2023 Conference on May 6th (at 11 a.m.) at the University of British Columbia, please join me in a 1-hour workshop, "Embodied touch in teaching and touching students (metaphorically!)" Here is the program summary:

This workshop reviews neuroscience-based research related to the impact touch in English language teaching, both physical/tactile touch and touch as metaphor (emotion and affect). Following that overview, participants explore the application of those principles in several areas, including enhancing memory for meaning and vocabulary, expressiveness and pronunciation teaching.

Here also is a nice excerpt from S Subramanian's 2021 book, How to feel: the science and meaning of touch, that represents the focus of the session well:

"We live in bodies that are most alive when they're open and permeable to what is around us . . . When the handrail wobbles, we know to exercise caution in the face of potential danger; a hug from a family member conveys love and comfort; the cool caress of a silk blouse is synonymous with luxury; plunging our fingers into damp earth to plant a seed makes us feel in tune with nature . . . Touch is a constant affirmation that we exist as selves, separate from our surroundings but connected to them."

Loofa, bark, hand cream and metaphor provided . . .

Getting in the right mood for enhancing your work (and even pronunciation!)

You "up" for a little meta-theory? 

Fascinating study, open source, published in Frontiers in Communication by Lai, Berkum and Hagoort: Negative affect increases reanalysis of conflicts between discourse context and world knowledge. Here is the researchers' conclusion: 

"These results suggest that mood does not influence all processes involved in discourse processing. Specifically, mood does not influence lexical-semantic retrieval (N400), but it does influence elaborative processes for sense making (P600) during discourse processing."

Not quite sure how to feel about this fascinating research at this moment . . . but it should interesting from some perspective, regardless of your general mood or affect as you read about it. In essence, what the research establishes, not surprisingly, is that if you are in a rotten mood at the moment you might be better at deconstructing what follows, identifying the fudging, etc. (As it turns out, the fact that I had just gotten back from a great run on my first read of the research report may have been "colored" by all those endorphins!)

The complete structure of the study is a bit complex to unpack (but you can here, however, or check out the Neuroscience.com summary). Basically, subjects attempted to identify different features of a narrative/story working within two conditions, one more emotionally "negative;" the other, considerably less so. In effect, mood did not appear to impact their ability to focus in on details but it did influence their success at arriving at an integrated understanding or interpretation of the overall narrative or discourse. 

Does that make sense? Of course . . .  So does the application of that work to pronunciation teaching! (Actually, it almost explains a number of things and people in this field, but I'll stick to pronunciation teaching!) 

There are number of pairs of binary (or false) conceptual distinctions that are of more or less utility to us as we sit down to work on a problem as heuristics or mnemonics at best where mood (in several senses) may figure in prominently, whether the mind set of the analyst at the moment or the degree to which mood (affect/emotion et al) is subsumed in  concepts involving attention to or focus on: 

• digital vs analogical 
• accuracy vs fluency
• segmentals vs supra-segmentals
• structure vs meaning or function
• sentence-level vs discourse-level context
• experiential vs cognitive/pre-frontal engagement
• affect vs metacognitive 
• particle vs wave/field analysis
• individual vs group engagement and learning
• local vs global constructs
• visual vs auditory
• learner autonomy vs learner indoctrination 
• critical vs inquiry-based thought
• conscious vs unconscious processing
• left vs right hemisphere-like processing

And how do or should those relate to (KINETIK) pronunciation teaching and learning? Not much, if at all. What contemporary neuroscience reveals very convincingly is that overemphasis on any of those earlier, simple binary distinctions, many of them but remnants or artifacts of earlier "science,"  especially in combination, can be fatal.

Ideas don't die . . . but people (and students) do. 

Bill

Citation: Lai VT, van Berkum J and Hagoort P (2022) Negative affect increases reanalysis of conflicts between discourse context and world knowledge. Front. Commun. 7:910482. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2022.910482

Bite your chopstick, knave! (How restricting imitation might enhance empathy but not pronunciation teaching!)

This piece from Neurosciencenews.com (or as we tend to call it: New-Old-Science) on empathy and imitation, using chopsticks, is just too much fun to let pass. The study  by Matsuda et al at Hokaido University, titled “Imitation inhibition and facial expression recognition: Imitation-inhibition training inhibits the impact of interference with facial mimicry”, was basically getting at something similar to the "startle reflex," that is responding (sometimes) too fast emotionally. That is a common feature of PTSD, the body processing things way ahead of the conscious mind; you respond, in effect, without thinking. At some level, empathy is also like that. 

In the study, the treatment group was trained to "respond more slowly" to images on a screen by having to perform an action with fingers requiring some processing time. The "pièce de résistance," however, was that in the test phase, both the treatment and control groups were required to bite down on a chopstick which (quote) " . . .  inhibited their ability to mimic facial expressions." With that add on filter, the chopstick, the treatment group was better/faster at recognizing facial expressions than the control group. Now exactly why the chopstick was necessary is not explained, but it was apparently needed to cancel out initial, unconscious facial/physical imitation that would have complicated things. 

The conclusion: "These results suggest that imitation-inhibition training increases self-reported empathy and allows for a similar level of recognition of others’ emotional states, regardless of discrepancies between the condition of self and others."

Wow . . . 

So . . . suppressing initial emotional response, in this case realized in facial imitation, enhances empathy partially defined as being able to recognize emotions in others. That is certainly an aspect of the metacognitive dimension of empathy, or maybe empathy, Japanese style? I have lived there; could be, in fact!

But what might that same suppression of imitative "mirroring" do during learning, of pronunciation, let's say . . . I can tell you, actually. 

That is a near perfect metaphor or analogy for instruction that either formally or informally restricts body response and engagement, which is far too often the case. Imitation today has a bad name in the field, in part, seen as being essentially simplistic, noncognitive. Consequently, that is how it is treated or applied, dismissed as being not meaningful enough or superficial. And without holistic body engagement in the first place, that is . . . well . . . accurate. 

The implicit restrictions today on spontaneous body response, to a large extent the result of  conscious/cognitive bias and media (versus face-to-face interaction) involvement in the field--at least in  adult education--work against us, the learner and learning. 

The "chopstick chomp" at least has entertainment value . . . and being able to read other's emotions, detached from your body and your own has got to be a good thing, occasionally.  

So try the "Chopstick Chomp" with your friends playing a game that normally involves some emotional juice, or with your class sometime. I have. The effect is sometimes "dramatic;" sometimes, not. 

There, of course, is a better way to do pronunciation!

Keep in touch!

Bill

Original Research: Closed access.
“Imitation inhibition and facial expression recognition: Imitation-inhibition training inhibits the impact of interference with facial mimicry” by Naoyoshi Matsuda et al. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society

Killing Pronunciation 15: Feelings . . . nothing more than feelings?

Finally (what seems to me) a fascinating glimpse, or at least different perspective, into why for many
language learners it can be so difficult to remember how sounds are pronounced in their second language. Fascinating study, by Fandakova, Johnson, and Ghetti of UC-Davis: Distinct neural mechanisms underlie subjective and objective recollection and guide memory-based decision making (summarized by ScienceDaily as "Making decisions based on how we feel about memories, not accuracy.") Now I'm  not sure that SD summary is entirely accurate, but it is close . . . 

Exploring the brain circuits involved in recalling past events, in essence what emerged was the "fact" that one circuit is more responsible for something resembling data, e.g., who, what, where, when; the other, with the emotion or "feeling" associated with the event. What the research demonstrated was that recall was overwhelmingly triggered through the affective/subjective wiring, not the objective circuit(s). In other words, in some very general sense our access to memory is substantially more emotion-based, not visual/objective data-oriented. 

So, other than the fact that there may be some potential gender bias there . . . how does that relate to learning the sound system of a language effectively? Ask yourself: How do you and your students feel about learning pronunciation? Does that answer the question? For many it does. If affect or feeling is that critical to good recall, then pronunciation learned may be especially vulnerable to being inaccessible in varying degrees. 

Now the "feeling" of  pronunciation could come from at least three primary sources: the affective climate of the class where it is studied; the relative engagement or appeal of the instruction to the individual, itself or satisfaction entailed or-- the somatic, physical sensations of what it is mechanically to perform or articulate the sound. 

I, myself, was trained in pronunciation teaching by one amazing speech therapist and early leaders in the field of TESOL. What I learned, which most pronunciation teaching does not take seriously enough or does not really focus on at all is how to help the learner get the richest possible somatic experience (mostly tactile and kinaesthetic) as to how the sound or pattern feels when it is articulated. Part of that, of course, is the metalanguage used in talking about it and to some extent, the procedures and practice routines, themselves. 

In other words, without a good sense of "the feeling of how it happens" (Damasio, 1999), often it just doesn't happen or at least is not anchored adequately to be remembered or recalled efficiently. There are any number of methods or systems for establishing that critical link between the sound and the feeling of the sound, not just its conceptual, visual, auditory and orthographic features. Of course, we FEEL that haptic pronunciation teaching, founded on gesture and touch, has "got that," and more. If your pronunciation work just doesn't feel right . . . get into touch . . . with us, or your local speech therapist! 

Sources: (Cited in ScienceDaily summary)

University of California - Davis. (2021, March 10). Making decisions based on how we feel about memories, not accuracy. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 14, 2021 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210310150347.htm
Yana Fandakova, Elliott G Johnson, Simona Ghetti. Distinct neural mechanisms underlie subjective and objective recollection and guide memory-based decision making. eLife, 2021; 10 

What do you expect? (A "Tsough" question for pronunciation teaching!)

Intriguing title of  recent piece/summary on ScienceDaily.com: "Flaw in Rubber Hand Illusion raise tsough questions for psychology" (a real double threat: not only a spelling miscue, but a grammar issue as well.)  Do those two little "glitches" affect your expectations as to what is in the article? Unavoidably, eh . . . and that is too bad. The research by Lush of University of Sussex being summarized is potentially paradigm shaking (original title): Demand Characteristics Confound the Rubber Hand Illusion.

From the summary: 

Clker.com

"The Rubber Hand Illusion, where synchronous brush strokes on a participant's concealed hand and a visible fake hand can give the impression of illusory sensations of touch and of ownership of the fake hand, has been cited in more than 5,000 articles since it was first documented more than 20 years ago."

What that appeared to establish early on is that the brain was in some sense "hard wired" to tranfer sensation throughout the body, as a function of consciousness. The problem, according to Lush, and demonstrated in the study, is that the results from experiments exploring that effect, may be hopeless biased by what are termed "demand characteristics," of the study, in effect (hypnotic-like) suggestion as to what the researcher expects to find and the subjects experience. 

In other words, subjects will do their best to exhibit the effect being elicited. In Lush's study, subjects' expectations for how they would respond to the "rubber hand", having read the original introductory protocols, were striking to the extent that they were biased in favor of experiencing the "ghost sensations" in the rubber hand. 

Since in haptic pronunciation teaching the hands play a central role in linking sound, gesture and concepts, we clearly have a "pony in this race" as well.

A couple of decades ago, in a piece on the role of suggestion in language teaching in the JALT Language Teacher, I cited a paragraph from a (then) popular student pronunciation book (bold-face, mine):

"Acquiring good pronunciation is the most difficult part of learning a new language. As you improve your articulation you have to learn to listen and imitate all over again. As with any activity you wish to do well, you have to practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more . Remember that you cannot accomplish good pronunciation overnight; improvement takes time. Some students may find it more difficult than others and will need more time than others to improve" (Orion, 1989, pp. xxiii-iv).

I went on to note: "In those . . . words and phrases . . . can you not hear echoes of that famous line above the door in Dante's Inferno, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here?"

This relates back to two blog posts ago on "pronunciation preambles," that is the way instructors set up work in pronunciation. Human beings, at least most of them, are highly suggestable. They have to be to be capable of picking up subtle cues in their environment quickly and efficiently. Pronunciation teaching, and pronunciation, in general, has gotten a bad rap, some of it deservedly so, of course, but how it is presented to learners, consciously and subconsciously, makes an enormous difference in outcome.

A "slight of hand" in the truest sense. What are you suggesting?

Source: 

University of Sussex. (2020, April 10). Flaw in Rubber Hand Illusion raise tsough questions for psychology. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 15, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200410162432.htm

I like the way you move there! (Why haptic pronunciation teaching is so attractive!)

Do you like your students? Really? If you do, can they tell? If you don't, do they know? Do you like
teaching pronunciation? Does it show?

Clker.com

If your answer to any of those 6 questions is "I don't know . . . ,"  A meta-analytic investigation of the relation between interpersonal attraction and enacted behavior, by Montoya, Matthew; Kershaw and Prosser, summarized by Neurosciencenews.com, may be of interest. What they did is look at a bunch of studies, done on "hundreds" of cultures, trying to find universally recognized human behaviors that signal attraction (e.g., I like you!) Those nonverbal behaviors that (they claim) are universal are: 

• Smiling
• Eye contact
• Proximity (getting close in space)
• Laughter

Now, of course, how those behaviors are actually conveyed in different cultures may be quite different, but it is a fascinating claim. The summary goes on: 

"Other behaviors showed no evidence of being related to liking, including when someone flips their hair, lifts their eyebrows, uses gestures, tilts their head, primps their clothes, maintains open body posture or leans in." (Some of those at least intuitively seem to be related to attraction, at least in North American or Northern European cultures.)

One of the other, most striking findings (to me, at least) is that mimicking (or mirroring) and head nods were only associated with attraction in English. In other words, if your nonverbal messaging or expectations of students in the classroom relies to any extent on mirroring (of you or of your mirroring of them) or head nodding--and for the native English speaking instructor it certainly will to some degree--there can be a very real affective mismatch. 

Any native English speaker who has taught in Japan, for instance, can easily have their perception of audience engagement scrambled initially, when those in the audience sit (apparently) very still, with less body movement or mirroring, and nod heads for reasons other than just understanding or attraction. 

The intriguing implication of that research, in terms of haptic pronunciation teaching and training, is that both head nods and mirroring figure in very prominently in the teaching methodology, in effect making it perhaps even more "English-centric" than we had imagined. In most instances of modeling or correction of pronunciation, for example, a student "invited" to synchronize his or her upper body movement with the instructor or other students, as they repeat the targeted word, phrase or clause together. Likewise, upper torso movement in English and in the haptic system accompanies or drives head nodding, often referred to as upper torso nods, in fact.

In other words, the basic pedagogical process of haptic pronunciation work is, itself, "attractive," involving nonverbal "synchronization" of head and body in ways that enable acquisition of at least English. The only other language that we have done some work in to date is Spanish, but its "body language" is, of course, closely related to English. 

Even if you are not entirely "attracted" to haptic yet, this research certainly lends more support for the use of mirroring in English language instruction, especially pronunciation. (Nod if you agree!)



Source:
“A meta-analytic investigation of the relation between interpersonal attraction and enacted behavior” by Montoya, R. Matthew; Kershaw, Christine; & Prosser, Julie L. in Psychological Bulleting. Published May 8 2018. doi:10.1037/bul0000148

Anxious about your (pronunciation) teaching? You’d better act fast!

Probably the most consistent finding in research on pronunciation teaching from instructors and student alike is that it can be . . . stressful and anxiety producing. And compounding that is often the additional pressure of providing feedback or correction. A common response, of course, is just to not bother with pronunciation at all. One coping strategy often recommended is to provide "post hoc" feedback, that is after the leaner or activity is finished, where you refer back to errors, in as low key and supportive a manner as possible. (As explored in previous posts, you might also toss in some deep nasal breathing, mindfulness or holding of hot tea/coffee cups at the same time, of course.) Check that . . .

A new study by Zhan Slow Is Also Fast: Feedback Delay Affects Anxiety and Outcome Evaluation, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, adds an interesting perspective to the problem. What they found, in essence, was that: 

Learners who tended toward high anxiety responded better to immediate positive feedback than such feedback postposed, or provided later. The same type of learners also perceived overall outcomes of the training as lower, were the feedback to be provided later.
Learners who tended toward low anxiety responded equally well to immediate or delayed feedback and judged the training as effective in either condition. There was also a trend toward making better use of feedback as well.
Just why that might be the case is not explored in depth but it obviously has something to do with being able to hold the experience in long term memory more effectively, or with less clutter or emotional interference.






I'm good!

So, if that is more generally the case, it presents us with a real a conundrum on how to consistently provide feedback in pronunciation teaching, or any teaching for that matter. Few would say that generating anxiousness, other than in the short term as in getting "up" for tests or so-called healthy motivation in competition, is good for learning. If pronunciation work itself makes everybody more anxious, then it would seem that we should at least focus more on more immediate feedback and correction or positive reinforcement. Waiting longer apparently just further handicaps those more prone to anxiety. How about doing nothing?


This certainly makes sense of the seemingly contradictory results of research in pronunciation teaching showing instructors biased toward less feedback and correction but students consistently wanting more

How do you provide relatively anxiety-free, immediate feedback in your class, especially if your preference is for delayed feedback? Do you? In haptic work, the regular warm up preceding pronunciation work is seen as critical to that process. (but we use a great deal of immediate, ongoing feedback.) Other instructors manage to set up a more general nonthreatening, supportive, open and accommodating classroom milieu and "safe spaces". Others seem to effectively use the anonymity of whole class responses and predictable drill-like activities, especially in oral output practice.


Anxiety management or avoidance. Would, of course, appreciate your thoughts and best practice 0n this . . as soon as possible!


Citation: Zhang X, Lei Y, Yin H, Li P and Li H (2018) Slow Is Also Fast: Feedback Delay Affects Anxiety and Outcome Evaluation. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 12:20. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00020

Enhanced courage and L2 pronunciation through acute alcohol consumption!

Clker.com

Some studies are enough to drive you to drink . . . and then miss numerous unaccounted for sources of variance.

You may have seen popular commentary on this recent study, "Dutch courage? Effects of acute alcohol consumption on self-ratings and observer ratings of foreign language skills" by Renner, Kersbergen, Field, and Werthmann of the University of Liverpool, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.  (ScienceDaily recast the title as: "Dutch courage: Alcohol improves foreign language skills."

This study had potential. What they found, basically, was that rater evaluation of pronunciation , as opposed to overall speech production, was better but  (interestingly!) that the subjects, themselves, did not perceive their L2 speech to be better. The subjects had been provided with a pint of something a bit earlier--not the raters or the experimenters, as far as we can tell.

Another relatively interesting feature was that the evaluations were done by blindfolded judges (which in itself, may have been problematic as noted in recent blogposts here) and the speech was evaluated during dialogue (interesting, again, but not sufficiently unpacked), not just with controlled repetition in a laboratory setting as had been the case in many past studies (e.g., summary of  Guiora et al, 1972 by Ellis).

Two terminological issues:

• By "acute" the researchers indicate that it was a "low dose", one pint of 5% beer or equivalent. Now in the field of psychopharmacology that term, acute, may just mean something like "one time" or unusual. (I find conflicting opinions on that.) In normal North American English usage, of course, that usually is taken to mean something like: severe, critical, long term, etc. --or, of course, insightful, attention to detail, etc.  In Guiora, et al (1972) the alcohol dosage where the main effect was evident was at about one ounce of alcohol in a cocktail, roughly equivalent to that used in this study--but it was not described as "acute!"
•  The subjects were termed "bilingual" (absent any empirical measurement of what that meant exactly) who had learned dutch "recently", at best a loose interpretation of what "bilingual" is generally taken to mean in the field today. That proficiency question may have had significant impact on the outcome of study, in fact.

So, why was the perceived improvement in subjects' speech just in their pronunciation, not other aspects of their speech or behavior? In Guiora et al (1972), for example, to explore that effect, subjects also had to perform a motor skill task, putting shaped blocks in holes of different shapes. What they found, not surprisingly, was at the 1-ounce level, both pronunciation improved and manual dexterity declined. The "physical" correlate was clear. One of the main criticisms of that alcohol study was that the alcohol effect may have been primarily "just" loosening up of the muscles and vocal mechanism, not some more higher level cognitive functioning. (Brown, 1989, also cited in Ellis, above).

Guiora et al (1972) were ultimately looking for the impact of that effect on "language ego", perception of one's identity in the L2. In a way they found that--a correlate. It is to some extent a matter of design directionality: loosening up the body does the same to the vocal mechanism. Will it be any surprise to find out that other non-pharmacological yet still "somatic" treatments, such as hypnosis, mindfulness or simply kinaesthetic engagement, such as gestural (or even haptic) work do something similar? Not at all.

In other words, the "pharmacogs" seem to have come up with a possible explanation for a well-appreciated phenomenon: after a shot, you'll be more courageous (or foolhardy) and your L2 pronunciation will be perceived as improved as long as your date is blindfolded or the room is very dark--but you won't know it, or care . . .

A little more interdisciplinary research and theory-integration, along with more in depth concern for the relevant "cocktail cognitions" of the subjects, might have made this more a fun read. Of course, the ultimate source of insight on the effect of  alcohol will always be Brad Paisley!

Source:

Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, Jessica Werthmann. Dutch courage? Effects of acute alcohol consumption on self-ratings and observer ratings of foreign language skills. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2017; 026988111773568 DOI: 10.1177/0269881117735687

Bedside manner in (pronunciation) teaching: the BATHE protocol

Clker.com

Sometime the doctor-patient metaphor does work in our work!

Recovering from recent surgery here at home, and especially recalling the wonderful way that I was treated and prepared prior to the operation by the nurse in pre-op, this study, "Inpatient satisfaction improved by five-minute intervention," summarized by Augusta Free Press, published originally in Family Medicine by Pace, Somerville, Enyioha, Allen, J, Lemon and C. Allen of the University of Virginia really hit home, both as an interpersonal framework for dealing with problems in general and (naturally) pronunciation teaching!

The research looked at the effectiveness of a training system for preparing doctors better for talking with patients, bedside manner. In summary, patient satisfaction went up substantially, and time spent per patient generally went down. The acronym for the protocol is BATHE. Below is my paraphrase of what constitutes each phase of the process:

B - Start with getting concise background information with patients
A - Help them talk about how they are feeling (affect)
T - Together, review the problem (trouble)
H - Discuss how the problem is being handled.
E - Confirm your understanding of the situation and how the patient is feeling (empathy).

That is a deceptively elegant protocol. Next time you have a student (or colleague) or friend approach you with a difficult problem, keep that in mind. That also translates beautifully into pronunciation work, especially where there is appropriate attention to the body (like in haptic work, of course!) Here is how the acronym plays out in our work:

B - Start with providing a concise explanation of the target, also eliciting from students what their understanding is of what you'll be working on.
A - Anchor the target sound in a way that learners get a good "felt sense" of it, i.e., awareness and control of the sensations in the vocal track and upper body
T - Together, talk through the "cash value" and functional load of the target and practice the target sound(s) in isolation and context. 
H - Discuss how the student may be handling the problem already, or could, and what you'll do together going forward, including homework and follow up in the classroom in the future.
E - Finally, go back to brief, active, "physical" review and anchoring of the sound, also providing some realistic guidance as to the process of integrating the sound or word into their active speaking, especially the role of consistent, systematic practice.

One remarkable feature of that system, other then the operationalized empathy, of course, is the way it creates a framework for staying focused on the problem and solution. How does that map on to your own "BATHE-side manner?"

Killing Pronunciation 9: Reappraising negative attitudes toward pronunciation

Clker.com

 Maybe the most consistent finding of research on pronunciation teaching is that (at least from instructors who have yet to recover from structuralism, "communicative language teaching" or cognitive phonology) there are a lot of negatives associated with it (e.g., Baker, 2015 and many others). My approach has always been to stay calm and train teachers in how to do pronunciation well, figuring that success will eventually get them past all the noise out there.

I may have to reappraise that line of march, especially with my Chinese students. Maybe I could do more to attack those negative feelings and perceptions directly. But how?

New research by Wu, Guo, Tang, Shi, and Luo reported in Role of Creativity in the Effectiveness of Cognitive Reappraisal suggests a way to do just that: a little instructor-directed and controlled creativity, something I suspect that only a team from the Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, The Collaborative Innovation Center for Capital Education Development, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China and the Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China--could possibly pull off!

In essence, they confirmed that subjects recognized creativity as a potentially powerful antidote to negative emotions, something that has been established empirically for some time. What was fascinating, however, was that subjects negative feelings about the targeted video scenes could only be "affected" substantially by being led through creative exercises. In other words, they couldn't get past the negatives by doing something creative on their own, themselves, without help. Wow.

Instructor-conducted / creativity-driven / negative attitudes /  toward pronunciation teaching repair/reappraisal (INPRR pronounced: In-P-RR). What a concept! Well, actually, much of what passes for creativity training is instructor-centered, not designed to provide you with the tools but to guide you in thinking outside of the box so  you know what it feels like when it happens. I was really into that for a couple of decades in pronunciation teacher training, in fact. There are still those in the field, like Marsha Chan, who do that well, the "there are all kinds of really creative, fun things you can do when teaching  pronunciation" shtick. Working with kids, that plays well; with adults, on the whole I have always thought it is at best counter productive.  (The reasons for that have been developed on the blog extensively.)

However, I may have it wrong. But rather than training teacher trainees in creative techniques to use in the classroom, I should be doing creative activities with them that address their underlying negative feelings (fear, self doubt, etc.) directly. Some suggestions, most of which I have seen over the years at conferences or on the web. I'll get things started with a few that are research-based (and reported on the blog recently) and then you help by adding to the list your best INPR:

• Have them list all those negative pronunciation-induced emotions on the top of cookies or in chocolate and eat them.
• Lead them in doing your basic OEI switching technique to defuse the emotion if it is really strong. (Done with only one student at a time, in private, however.)
• Have them talk about themselves fearing pronunciation in the 3rd person (See Gollum Speak)
•  Lead them in coming up with a list of all the ways they might overcome such emotions and then have select students read out each expressively and dramatically in their heaviest L1 accent (I like that one!)
• Have them share with each other in pairs their negative feelings toward pronunciation holding a hot beverage. That one is incredibly powerful.
• Then have them report back to the class in pantomime, having the rest of the class guess what it is. 
• You stand up in front of the class and begin listing verbally the unrealistic fears your students may have about pronunciation or those that they may have now but will be "gone" at the end of the course. Also have a list on the board of epithets appropriate for shouting down goofy ideas which the students produce after you state each, possibly accompanied by gesture. 
• Come to class dressed as Sigmund Freud or your neighborhood therapist. Sit in a comfortable chair and answer their questions chewing on a pipe, suggesting hilariously funny solutions to their fears. (I sat in on one of those in Japan that was priceless and exceedingly effective, I think.)
• Have a "Love me, love my accent day" in class where students intentionally speak with stereo-typically heavy accent. (Have seen that recommended a number of times.)

Your turn! I'll award a set of the v4.5 AHEPS DVDs to the contributor of the best one!

Source: 
Retrieved September 18, 2017 from http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01598/full

Gollum Speak: Making language improvement less stressful by talking about me

Bill is impressed with a new study by Moser et al at Michigan State University, reported by Science Daily, entitled Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. In fact, he finds himself talking about himself thinking about it in the 3rd person constantly . . . He has even given it a name: Gollum Speak. If you are not a fan of Tolkien, you might want to go here, to get a sense of what that sounds like! One implication of the study is that you can use Gollum-like grammar to control emotion--without interfering with "cognitive" functioning. (Really?) The longer term effects of becoming gradually more "Gollum-like" by talking like that are not examined, however.

Bill's local psychotherapist informs him that some form of that technique, making the patient temporarily distance themselves either verbally or visually is a long established trick in the field. Works well sometimes but should NOT be just tossed out as an option for those not supervised or not  up on how to "talk themselves out of it", too. In other words, do NOT try that at home!

On the other hand, Gollum Speak used with language learners may have possibilities. It is, in effect, after all not all that far from role play and drama work, taking on not just the language of the character but the "voice" or perspective as well. Even in working metacognitively with learners on their progress or problems, being detached and "objective" has it merits--although that type of talk can easily devolve into deeper "Gollum": neurotic, uncontrolled self-reflection and . . . doubt. 

Bill has tried a bit of that already and will do it again with a class in a couple of days. His current read on the use of Gollum in the classroom is that students so far have found it hysterically funny--and grammatically a great game-- but were also apparently able to talk with a little more ease about themselves, just as Moser et al would predict. See just how "Gollum-able" you and your students are!

He looks forward to his follow up report--and yours!

KIT

Michigan State University. (2017, July 26). Talking to yourself in the third person can help you control emotions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 7, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170726102906.htm

Passionate about teaching pronunciation? Amygdala for your thoughts . . .

Tigger warning*: The following contains neuro-science-related material that may be perceived by some as being mildly political . . . This research by Kaplan, Gimbel and Harris of USC, summarized by SciencDaily, is just too "target rich" a piece to pass up.

Clker.com

The research question was something like: Why is it so difficult to get people to change their opinions on things like religion and politics? (The same problem is evident in changing attitudes toward pronunciation--and in many ways, perhaps, for the same reasons, I think.) In essence, here is what they did:

• Found 40 self-identified, political liberals and then  . . .
• Had them respond to statements that seemed to contradict either their political beliefs or their beliefs about non-political things such as who is smartest guy who ever lived, etc. 
• Connected them up to fMRI technology to observe how their brains lit up in each condition

What they found was that:

• On nonpolitical challenges, most expressed some change in position, however slight--and the brain response was relatively unemotional.
• On the political issues, however, there was virtually no change in position, accompanied, however, by a stronger emotional response in their collective amygdalas. 
• And their conclusion (get ready): " . . . when we feel threatened, anxious or emotional, then we are less likely to change our minds." (In part because our core identity and "deep" thinking responses have been threatened or intruded upon.)

Caveat emptor: The subjects were all political liberals, self-professed, no less--from Southern California. Why so? Why was it not a "balanced" design, say with political conservatives from the Napa Valley of California, or . . . Texas? Was it that that group tended to be more emotional in reacting to challenges to their beliefs? (Liberals, more reactive or conservatives, less, in general? Nah!) Was it that it was impossible to find 40 conservatives in Southern California? The researchers do not comment on that . . (I will leave that rabbit trail to the interested reader . . . ) But see earlier research on this topic!

As research on teacher cognition has repeatedly demonstrated, beliefs about pronunciation tend also to be emotionally charged. Based on this research, I may have to go back and review the subject pools of that earlier research to check for political orientation of the teachers/subjects/researchers, too! Who knew?

The study may, however, as the researchers suggest, give us some additional insight into how (carefully and circumspectively) we might go about persuading others to do more pronunciation work in class.

But by allowing teachers to avoid pronunciation entirely for fear of triggering emotional reactions and violating safe identities, have we just been too "conservative" on this issue--or not conservative enough in interpreting the research in the first place?  As is evident now in most contemporary stress reduction systems, inoculation and gradual introduction of problematic stressors has been proven to be far more effective than either avoidance or relaxation/coping methods.

So, Just do it, eh!

Tigger warning (used on this blog in lieu of "trigger" warnings)
Translation of "Amygdala for your thoughts . . ." in the title.

Tired of just "horsing around" with pronunciation? Key principles of equestrian training applied to pronunciation teaching

Clker.com

If you have followed this blog for a bit, you know that some of my favorite models for understanding key aspects of body-biased/haptic pronunciation teaching come from golf (Hank Haney) and horse training (Griffin, University of Kentucky), two disciplines where "training the body first" (Lessac) are a given. Recently I spent a pleasant evening with trainers of "cutting" quarter horses.

The commonality of effective training concepts was striking. One reason for that is that both disciplines require at least understanding of how to train the body, relatively independent of language and meta-cognitive involvement. Here are some of the principles from Griffin's list, along with my informal extrapolation to pronunciation teaching (in italics):

• "Research has shown that horses work harder and maintain higher response rates when reinforcements are not on a predictable schedule. You should avoid becoming routine when reinforcing responses." Question: How do you reinforce appropriate pronunciation? My guess is that you have a very limited repertoire of responses, at best. Record yourself or have a colleague observe you in action . . . weep!
• "Long, concentrated learning sessions are an inefficient method of training horses. A more effective training method is to have more training sessions per week of shorter duration. Work on different maneuvers each day. Refrain from repetitive drilling on a maneuver after the horse has learned it well." This is the gold standard of integrated instruction, especially with multi-level classes, requiring consistent preparation and follow up. That last note is especially revealing, what is known as the "delearning effect." (In haptic instruction that is particularly relevant.)
• "Inherent emotionality is a horse's (general) psychological state.  . . . A good trainer quickly recognizes the emotional state of the horse and adjusts training regimens accordingly." Pronunciation teaching/learning is perhaps the most emotionally problematic aspect of language learning. Research (e.g. Baker, 2012) has established that a surprising number of instructors avoid pronunciation for that reason alone.
• "  . . . An older horse may have a decreased learning performance, most likely because it has learned to ignore the type of stimuli often utilized in learning." This actually goes back to the first point: balance between variety and consistency. Pronunciation techniques have the (probably deserved) reputation of being boring in the extreme, with drill and meaningless "speaking" or oral reading. There are, of course, other ways to anchor new patterns and sounds. (See the right hand column, for instance . . . )
• "Horses have very good memory . . . Recent research in this area has shown that horses learn to learn. The learn-to-learn phenomenon is simple: The more tasks a horse learns to perform, the easier it will be for that horse to learn new tasks. These new tasks may be tasks that the horse will never use, but they will aid in learning ability." This one is critical for pronunciation instruction: It is not absolutely essential that everything presented is recognized by learners as being immediately applicable or "relevant" to their use of the language. Learning, itself, enhances ability to learn, in effect. Recent research on "simple" memorization, for example,  has demonstrated that the very practice itself helps learners develop better memories and aptitude for learning in general--and memory for longer lists of procedural "steps" as well.

The parallel is remarkable. With the advent of more and more web-based instruction, learners are by default being forced to learn more by reading text and listening, along with often exceedingly "disembodied" speaking in response. Haptic pronunciation teaching, of course, is one approach, as are several others, requiring more or less instructor explicit management of body movement and presentation/control.

Saddle up!

Pronunciation teaching not your cup of tea? It may be your metaphor or M-Cat!

Clipart:

Neuroscientist, Glaser, of King's College, as reported in the Guardian, may just have the "answer": adjust your metaphors! For example, if your students are not as friendly or malleable as they should be, have them all hold a cup of warm tea for a bit. (Caveat emptor: The following is serious fun!) In one study:

"Those holding hot drinks were also more likely to be generous, and less likely to display behaviour thought of as selfish. This is due to the strong linguistic and metaphorical links created in the brain by repeatedly using the words ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ to describe personalities."

"This is due . . . " Wow. That is a bit of a stretch, of course, but he is getting warm . . . Pretty strong claim there, that it is the specific use of such adjectives alone that generates the visceral, affective response. Without digging too deeply into the evidence (which he doesn't, in fact), just hold your warm latte in both hands and read on. 

I've reported earlier on the blog similar research "linking" the metaphorical and somatic/tactile link between words such as "rough" or "coarse", for example, and how the brain seems to interpret those in a way very similar to when one actually touches a surface possessing that tactile quality.

Similar studies connect language and olfaction (smell/aroma therapy), e.g. That argument stinks! Likewise, beginning with work such as Metaphors we live by,  Lakoff and Johnson (2003), and continuing more recently in language teaching, e.g.,  Holme (2004) Mind, Metaphor and Language Teaching, in a very real sense, anything in the classroom is in principle, amenable to intentional (metaphorical) design and adjustment.

In the past, asking students to hold something random to affect their perception of something else was seen as pretty far out--objectionable to the point of unconscious manipulation. But today, with both research on the impact of placibos and pop-neuroscience that encourages a wide range of conscious adjustment of perception, it is a different "ball game"! (I make extensive use of balls in pronunciation teaching.) But first we need to ferret out all the classroom behaviors that are potentially working against us!

What we might term "meta-cup-a-tea" (M-Cat), that is the sensation evoked by touch or physical contact and presence is a variable in all instruction, including pronunciation. In general pronunciation instruction M-Cat may rarely be attended to consciously, but in haptic pronunciation instruction (HaPT) it can be critical, since it can divert awareness away from pronunciation-focused touch-based techniques. (For more on that see this!) In L2 work, however, cultural "misinterpretation" of in-class touching can of course go almost anyplace imaginable.

So let's just look at a few traditional pronunciation teaching "tactile experiences" (other than what goes on in the mouth or what is involved in HaPT) for their potential "Meta-cup-a-tea" contribution (or lack of contribution) to instruction. Listed below are some of my students' best M-Cats. On the face of it many of these are done to reinforce or correlate with a targeted sound or pattern. In practice, it is not at all clear what if any connectedness is realized, nonetheless. In many cases the "contact" or pressure can be counterproductive, interfering or distracting attention--but still fun:

Clker.com

• blowing air on tissue paper or hands: X is mostly hot air, germ dispersing 
• touching the face: X is untrained; has not taken course in public speaking
• clapping or tapping hands: X is attention-deprived
• stretching rubber bands: X is all thumbs, overextended
• snapping fingers: X impulsive, too much math, phonetics or syntax
• overly precise hand writing: X is scary or boring or compulsive
• hands holding things that are not warm: X is cold, unfeeling
• spinning pencils: X is neurotic, not from this culture, not a native speaker!
• fingers on smart phones, especially when multi-tasking: X is "situ-phrenic"
• hands excessively on books, notebooks: X is bookish, introvert, anachronist, dead-tree-ite
• hands excessively on body parts: X has pronounced problem
• hand or marker moving on iPad or white/smart board: X is hip, maybe even creative
• going through practice cards: X is a dealer
• caressing keyboard or mouse: X is geek-ish, L2-a-phobe, possibly closet rat
• glutes on chair: X is sedentary, butt stable
• sitting on chair in language lab: X is antisocial, isolationist
• full body on bed: X is seriously sedentary, probable "sound-nambulant"
• earphones on/in ears: X is audio-phont, "ear-y" at best
• chewing, eating, drinking: X is hypoglycemic or language hungry
• continually wiping finger prints off iPhone screen: dys-Appled, but possibly good follower
• head scratching: lice, itching to learn, excessive meta-cognition in process

Got any more good M-Cats? Post'em and I'll add them to the list.