Language teaching insights from other fields? (a new book from TESOL Press)

Credit: TESOL Press,
TESOL.org

Although only a few chapters qualify as directly applicable to haptic pronunciation teaching, Language teaching insights from other fields, (from TESOL Press) edited by Stillwell, certainly captures the spirit of the HICPR blog in demonstrating the great commonality in principles of teaching and learning across disciplines.

Most importantly, however, I think it makes another point, albeit indirectly,  that research studies and practice paradigms from other fields should be seen as potentially valid and credible evidence to support teaching practice in this field.

That was, understandably, more in vogue a couple of decades ago, before more empirical studies (in the area of pronunciation, for example) began to appear. Like all developing fields, we borrowed heavily from models of  related disciplines--until our "native" research base and identity emerged. A sign of the recent maturation of the field is appearance of  the new Journal of Second Language Pronunciation.

Lately the pendulum has also begun to swing back in the other direction, however, a trend evident in the social sciences in general: the territorial, professional, "pedagogically correct" (PC) imperative: (For at least some theorists today) only research done in the classroom or the laboratory of language teaching by language professionals/researchers can be considered as adequate or sufficient support for classroom practice.

This book provides some welcome perspective on that issue.

Kudos!

Getting your colleagues or students "in touch"

Following up on the last post, which focused on getting students to buy in to haptic work, this piece from Lee and Sternthal at Northwestern University makes a similar point but from a different perspective. One conclusion of that research is that the key is matching goals to level of abstraction. For example, to persuade a colleague to try EHIEP, you'd make points like these:

• It covers all the basic English sounds and processes.
• It is appropriate for all learners, even in classes of mixed ability.
• It focuses on intelligibility, not absolute accuracy.
• EHIEP focuses primarily on spoken, conversational pronunciation and style. 
• The EHIEP system, after about two months, sets up learners with a set of strategies for learning the L2, especially getting new vocabulary and working with it to anchor it firmly, and more accurate immediate recall of what was just heard in conversation.
• The EHIEP system is best taught by both instructor and class following along with the videos for the first 8 sessions, about 2 months. After that instructor and learners use the techniques in all classes where oral production is involved.
• And, should all else fail: It is based on Acton (1984) and about 30 years of his research and practice in kinaesthetic learning of L2 pronunciation. 

The application of "haptic" to the system does several things:

• It captures the complete attention of the learner, relying on whole body and whole brain procedures well established in several fields.
• Haptic techniques have been shown in many fields to enhance both encoding new skills and later recall of what was learned.
• Haptic techniques make kinaesthetic learning much more systematic and effective, by ensuring that the movements are performed in the appropriate place and manner consistently. 
• Haptic self monitoring allows learner to attend to their speech without too much distraction or concern about errors and pre-planning in real communication. 
• Haptic-based correction of mistakes is both effective and affectively "comfortable."
• Haptic anchoring (touching hands on stressed syllables) has been shown to be highly efficient in both initial learning of sounds and correction of fossilized errors. 

For students, many of whom may have only limited comprehension skills, the approach would be more like this:

• EHIEP will help you learn and remember vocabulary and pronunciation better.
• All you have to do is follow the instructions.
• It is a good way for the instructor to correct your errors. 
• It is fun, relaxing and easy to do.
• After each class video lesson, you must practice three times a week, in the morning for about 30 minutes before  you come to school. (It is better to practice every other day, not every day.)
• It is based in part on research on touch and movement in computer games and robotics--very much like Wii and iPhone!

And if those points don't work, the default position: Let your body decide. Experience it for a few lessons and then make up your mind. Almost never fails . . . 

Future pronunciation: Hands-free "optic" anchoring (with eye tracking)

Clip art: Clker

Ever since seeing the Clint Eastwood 1982 film, Firefox, I have been intrigued with the idea of using eye tracking for teaching pronunciation. In the film, Eastwood flies a stolen, high tech Russian fighter--controlled by his eyes and a few spoken Russian commands-- back to the US. As noted in the right column, the work of Bradshaw and Cook in developing "Observed Experiential Integration,", which involves extensive, therapeutic use of eye tracking, was fundamental to much of the early development of the HICP/EHIEP framework. Here is, basically, a marketing piece for a company that has developed (from my perspective) an amazing range of eye tracking-based software applications. As I read the product list, it would take only two or three applications to allow a learner to do almost all of the protocols or procedures that we have developed, hands free.

In fact, the "optic anchoring" created simply by tracking the eyes across the visual field in roughly the same patterns that we do with arms and hands would be at least as effective, if not more so. Although we do use some eye tracking techniques in working with accent reduction, in general EHIEP work, no explicit eye tracking is used, in part because of the inherent potency of eye tracking procedures and the absolute necessity of being formally trained in working with it. This technology is certainly worth "taking a look at" now. It is clearly integral to the future of virtual reality-based language instruction.