Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: conversational discourse

Showing posts with label conversational discourse. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Hot Haptic pronunciation teaching topics for upcoming conference proposals!

Here in Vancouver we are getting ready to collaborate as usual in writing haptic proposals for a couple of upcoming conferences. Here is our current list, most of which are new or emerging topics for us:

Introducing AH-EPS v3.0 Bees and Butterflies (Serious fun!)
A haptic approach to teaching West Coast, BC pronunciation to others!
Workshop in basics of haptic pronunciation teaching
Teaching conversational discourse orientation (the skills involved in matching the prosodics of your speech to that of the person you are talking with)
Embodied Confident speaking practice (The Fight club) for nonnative non-male professionals of Asian ethnicity only
10 warm ups for pronunciation and speaking instruction
Stressing unstressed vowels
Going from L1 to L2 pronunciation: Using the L1 vowel system as a point of departure
Giving voice to voiced medial and final consonants
Moving conversations: the haptic talk-about walkabout (peripatetic attending skills)

There was an earlier post (March, 2014) this spring as we were cranking up for TESOL international proposals that had a few others:

Reports from the classroom: Haptic pronunciation teaching (academic sessions)
Research project on haptic-assisted fluency (paper)
Haptic-assisted Rhythm instruction (Butterfly and Fight club) workshop
Haptic phonetics (anchoring L1s in addition of L2s) demonstration
Haptic techniques for consonant repair (workshop)
(Haptic-enhanced) Embodied confidence (Research paper)
Haptically anchoring word stress rules and word stress (workshop)
Linking linking with fluency: haptic circles (mini-workshop)
Basics of haptic-integrated pronunciation teaching
From intonation to expressiveness: dramatic, haptic bridges for Non-native speakers
Haptic and kinaesthetic listening (Research paper)
On the spot, impromptu haptic pronunciation modelling, feedback and correction
Haptic anchoring of Academic Word List vocabulary (demonstration or workshop)
Sentence diagramming with movement and touch
Songs that touch on pronunciation: haptic anchoring of rhyme and reason (workshop)
Teaching pronunciation to young children (workshop)
Embodied conversational discourse markers (demonstration)
Phonics "a la haptique!" (demonstration or workshop)
Haptic Handwriting for L2 English learners (demonstration)
Embodied conversational listening: haptic anchoring of attending skills
Haptic or kinaesthetic self-monitoring

Several of those or adaptations of them were submitted to three upcoming conferences. See any you like? If a proposal was done, I can probably get that to you. If not, how about you join one of us in submitting one for a conference you are planning to attend?

Keep in touch!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

"Effortless," fluent English speaking--even without conversation?

Clip art: Clker

Wow. Once in a while you stumble on a commercial English teaching website where the claims are almost breathtaking. Here is one. There is 2-minute video by the creator of the program that is worth watching, if only to see the model of "effortless" English that he uses in pitching his stuff in the form of the promise of 7 rules and related materials which you can get for about $97--and to contrast that with what McCarthy is saying, as reported in the previous blogpost. The contrast is striking, to put it mildly. The "effortless English" system, like so many approaches to speaking fluency (as opposed to other aspects of communicative competence), is based on the concept of individual practice in private, without reference to how fluency, as characterized by McCarthy, is developed in conversational interaction.

There was a time when that, the "public speaking" approach, was the industry standard. No longer. There are, indeed, aspects of the experience of speaking a new language which appear to be "effortless." Most, however, are related to the felt sense of using what is known, not learning what to use. It is, of couse, possible to train to "speak" fluently, colourfully and rapidly--and still be utterly incapable of communicating interpersonally with the rest of us out here. ( I'm sure you know a native speaker who fits that category.) The antidote: something like attending skills. At least for the time being, there is no good substitute for f2f, or something very close to it, for developing genuine fluency. Now that's not hard to understand, is it?

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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.)