Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: courses

Showing posts with label courses. Show all posts

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Spring 23 KINETIK Courses!

Spring 2023 KINETIK courses now scheduled.

KINETIK Method: a full-body/haptic approach to both pronunciation teaching and enhancing memory for course content. (Haptic: employing movement/gesture and touch)

English Fluency and Pronunciation Course

For nonnative English speaking students, adults of upper intermediate level and above
For those who need to improve their speaking fluency and pronunciation of English.
Especially designed for those who do not have the opportunity to speak English often enough, or have pronunciation problems that are difficult to change.

11 weeks in length, 75 minutes per week, plus optional, 60-minute review session

begins on January 26^th, 2023.

Thursdays, 5:00~6:15 p.m. – Live Class--on campus (or by viewing the class video later)

Homework: 15-20 minutes per day for best results.

Wednesdays, 5:00-6:00 p.m. -- Optional homework practice review on Zoom (or by viewing the class videos later)

Instructor: Bill Acton, MATESOL Department, Trinity Western University
For additional information: william.acton@twu.ca
Certificate is awarded for 80% attendance. Books and recorded practice videos are provided.

Course fee: $500 CAD for on campus course. ($200 CAD for access to the 11 class videos only)

***

KINETIK Method Instructor Certificate Course: 12 weeks, Online, beginning 1/30

Objectives

Basics of haptic pronunciation teaching
Techniques for enhancing memory for course content
Enhanced (instructor's) classroom speaking model and pedagogical presence

Weekly schedule

30-minute training (recorded, available Monday)
~60 minutes of "homework" (pre-reading and practice)
60-minute live seminar on Zoom (arranged according to participants' schedules, usually on Saturday evening, PST)

$600 USD, materials provided
Certificate provided upon successful completion
Full-refund (no questions asked) up to Week 4
Preliminary Zoom interview required (contact: wracton@gmail.com)

If you are an instructor, considering having your students take EFPC, contact me and I'll be happy to discuss the course with you. With sufficient enrolment, both courses can be offered for just one school.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Upcoming KINETIK Courses, beginning September, 2022!

As promised, two or three great KINETIK courses now scheduled:

(For students, adults, lower intermediate and above) Embodied English Fluency and Pronunciation Course: 10 weeks, beginning 9/19, offered through Trinity Western University (for more details, see earlier blogpost)

Objectives:

Good uptake - attention to and memory for course content, meaning, emotion, concepts and vocabulary
Improved clarity - greater emphasis, expressiveness, fluency and intelligibility
Greater confidence in speaking and ability to "use what you know already!"

Weekly schedule

30 - minute training (recorded), available Thursdays
60 - minute, (recorded or live), homework feedback Zoom class, the following week on Wednesdays (6 p.m. PST)
Homework: 30 minutes per day, minimum 4 days per week

Cost: $500 CAD, materials provided
Preliminary Zoom interview required (contact: william.acton@twu.ca)
Can also be customized for individual classes or schools.

Instructor Training Certificate Course (KMICC): 12 weeks, beginning 9/22, offered through ActonHaptic.com (for more details, see course description)

Objectives

Basics of haptic pronunciation teaching
Techniques for enhancing memory for course content
Enhanced (instructor's) classroom speaking model and pedagogical presence

Weekly schedule

30-minute training (recorded, available Monday)
~90 minutes of homework
75-minute live seminar on Zoom (arranged according to participants' schedules, usually on Saturday, PST)

$600 USD, materials provided
Certificate provided upon successful completion
Full-refund (no questions asked) up to Week 4
Preliminary Zoom interview required (contact: wracton@gmail.com)

In all humility, these are terrific courses. If you are an instructor considering having your students take EFPC, contact me and I'll be happy to discuss the course with you. Both courses can be offered for just one school, beginning in January 2023.

Friday, November 24, 2017

NEW book chapter: A haptic pronunciation course for Freshman ESL college students

John Murphy's excellent new book, Teaching the Pronunciation of English: Focus on whole courses, has just been published! It is in many ways a celebration of pronunciation teaching.

Unapologetic haptic disclaimer: Of the 12 chapters, done by 17 contributors, our favorite (understandably) is by Nate Kielstra (with William Acton): "A haptic pronunciation course for Freshman ESL college students!"

From the forward:

"This volume fills a gap by introducing readers to whole courses focused on teaching the pronunciation of English as a second, foreign, or international language. This collection is designed to support more effective pronunciation teaching in as many language classrooms in as many different parts of the world as possible and to serve as a core text in an ESOL teacher development course dedicated to preparing pronunciation teachers."

It certainly delivers on that.

This volume is based on some of the same principles as Murphy and Byrd's earlier (2001) Understanding the courses we teach: Local perspectives on English language teaching. (Which we still use in our graduate program as a template for course development/description.)

One striking feature of the volume which we endorse enthusiastically is the idea that the courses described are more or less "stand alone". Talk about revolutionary (or Back-to-the-future-ish!) In other words, they are seen as effective even without much subsequent follow up by other classroom instructors teaching other skill areas--although all recommend (implicitly or explicitly) application of what is learned elsewhere in the curriculum.

Just imagine what it would be like should the inspired work of one of these "master classes" in your school go spilling off into the rest of program, either in just improved student pronunciation or instructors who take the process and run with it . . .

Murphy's first two chapters do a nice job of laying out the basics of what such courses need to cover or contain. Nate's chapter will give you a good picture of what a haptic-based course can look like.

Required reading!

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.)