Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: core

Showing posts with label core. Show all posts

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Pronunciation "corps" competence!

Photo credit: Customworkoutvideos.com

The problem with graduate students, when one enjoys an occasion good pun or double entendre, is that they can almost at any moment do the same, often even "one-up-man-shipping" you! The other day I was challenged to define the "corps competence" of HICP work (the illusion being to the basic meaning of 'corps' being 'body'.) Although this is still a work in progress, as usual, I found a potentially good analogy: core exercise frameworks in physical training. Linked is the Sports Medicine About website, which also links to every kind of core strengthening exercise imaginable, lists the three main "benefits" of core training: (a) relieves back pain, (b) improves athletic performance, and (c) improves posture. Translating that to our work, those categories read as something like: (a) fluidity (fluency), (b) integrated, energetic speaking performance, and (c) body awareness and directed movement. One of the key concepts in core training, whether in athletics or pronunciation work, is integrated functionality, that is understanding the system as a whole and attending to key components in a systematic and ordered way. (To get a set of abs like those pictured to the right requires a great deal more that just crunches and holding your breath!) The "problem" for us, of course, is that on the one hand, integrating pronunciation throughout the curriculum is a very "deconstructive" act, distributing procedures and objectives almost at random. On the other hand, as we have learned in haptic-integrated work, a certain amount of very systematic, skill and body-based training--separate from regular class, integrated skills activities (probably about 8 hours in total, spread out over the course of around 8 weeks)--is essential to provide an optimal set of "integrate-able" pronunciation techniques for instructor and students to use in class. The parallel to physical training is apt (or "ab-t"!): efficient, integrated pronunciation teaching requires genuine "corp-oration," getting and keeping both corps and core skills in shape . . .

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Core pronunciation: Intonation

Conductors, choral and orchestral, are said to develop great core strength (and a life expectancy considerably beyond the rest of us, by the way!) It is as if they conduct from their very core both literally and figuratively. The EHIEP approach attempts to capture the felt sense of English intonation focusing on both expressive, flowing gestures across the visual field and the accompanying mid-body core (abs and diaphragm) rhythmic movements. To get a sense of the ideal "felt sense" of flow, see the linked video above. (Granted, that one is not conducting, per se, but just put a ribbon in your left hand and follow along with Eugenia Kanaeva.)

For expressiveness, shut off the sound and mirror Navarro Lara for a couple of minutes. For a nice experience of conducting from the core, strap your hands to your sides and then watch this one of an excerpt of a master class by Maestro Cheah, contracting your core on each down beat. Flow, expression and core anchoring of discourse foregrounding. Work on that for a couple of weeks.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Core pronunciation: Rhythm

This is the first of three posts on the somatic (body-based) centers of HICP work. The second will be on vowel resonance; the third, on pitch or speech melody. Each post will be accompanied by a great Youtube video that you can either dance or sing along with to develop the better awareness of relevant body movement or "good vibrations" that are part of each overall pedagogical movement pattern (PMP). There is simply no better place to begin than with Latin ballroom dancing . . . (If you have a Wii or Kinect system, you probably have a few dance routines already like this one!) The basic core muscle contraction and hip movement in the video--done a little more unobtrusively, of course--is a good introduction to the felt sense of English rhythm. Most of the protocols in the training phase of EHIEP instruction include some degree of conscious attention to core and hip motion. (This exercise is for instructor training only--unless, of course, you are teaching in Brazil or thereabouts!) A couple of times through the 7-minute video and you got it. A month or so of regular practice and you are beach-enabled!

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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.)