Hunting for quail and qualia in pronunciation teaching

Clipart: Clker

I cannot resist a good analogy (or even a bad one, unfortunately!). My undergraduate degree in philosophy continues to "dog" me. Here is another. Hunting for quail and hunting for "qualia." If you have never experienced a quail hunt, just imagine a fabulous pronunciation class or "teachable pronunciation moment" where problems which must be dealt with immediately keep popping up all around you--and all 20 of your students are demanding your attention at the same time . . .  BUT FIRST, "qualia." That is a philosophical term, which focuses on what an experience feels like, its "raw feel"-- which corresponds in many ways to the term "felt sense" that we use in our work. If you can quickly and efficiently anchor the felt sense of a sound/word, the chances of integrating that change into spontaneous speech increase exponentially. The problem, for both quail and qualia hunting is context and system. Here are 10 tips from Mademan.com that apply e-QUAL-ly to both projects:
1. Look for quail in open land. (Make sure you have the learner's complete, whole-body attention.)
2. Use a shotgun when quail hunting. (You don't need extreme accuracy, just intelligibility.)
3. Bring a dog on your hunt. (The attention of the learner should be on the protocols, not on you as instructor.)
4. Never shoot a low flying quail. (Make sure that the target sound is clearly in focus before attempting to anchor it.)
5. Hunt for Quail in late season. (Implement integration work with the protocols after they have been introduced and practiced outside of the class.)
6. Stay as quiet as you can be. (The qualia should be as much an internal experience for the learner as possible, not a social event. The same applies for the instructor's role.)
7. Walk into the wind. (Always attempt to leave learners with the essentials of the protocols, not with too many random associations of place and occasion clinging to the anchored word or phrase.)
8. Know their routines. (Of both the protocols and the quality and quantity of homework assignments)
9. Look for fresh tracks. (Be always ready to recognize and point out learner progress on protocol form. Change in pronunciation of problematic sounds generally follows practice using the protocol.)
10. Be familiar with the hunting area before you hunt. (All aspects of the classroom milieu contribute to the effectiveness of noticing and anchoring sound to felt sense to qualia. Play some background music maybe or arrange the chairs before class . . . ) With those guidelines in mind, you should be more than QUALIAfied . . . 

Pronunciation change anxiety? Check your analogy!

Clip art: Clker

As explored in an earlier blogpost, golf may be one of the best analogies for the process of pronunciation learning, especially the relationship between skill development and "competence" on the course under pressure. There is a mind-boggling array of techniques and mental tricks to keep the golfer in the game, "mindful," as noted in another recent post. In studying why professional athletes "choke," exploring the effect of, for example, paying too much attention to mechanics momentarily--and how they manage not to, researchers were surprised to find a common strategy: analogies. Who'd of thought . . .

Here is one they suggest: "For example, a golfer who grips the club too tight when she's nervous might benefit from an instruction like 'Imagine you have an open tube of toothpaste between your hands and the contents must not be pushed out.' This would both address the problem and get her attention away from how well she's doing."

Wow! I never thought of that. We clearly need some good haptic analogies like that one. Do you have any? Well . . . how about: Imagine you have an open tube of grey poupon in your hand and the contents must be pushed out gently on your stressed syllables as you talk to your boss, telling him that he is a real jerk and you quit! See if you can squeeze or "sandwich" that one in sometime!