A "critical hypersensitivity period" for pronunciation learning?

This may fall into the "Well, duh . . . " category of research findings. According to Steinberg of Temple University, Summarized by Science Daily, teenagers develop intellectually well before they do emotionally, experiencing an extended period of "hypersensitivity to immediate rewards," especially when hanging out with friends. Ya think? Actually, that is worth considering a bit in relation to pronunciation work, especially haptic-integrated pronunciation work. A couple of decades ago, the idea of the "critical period" in language learning, ending roughly with puberty, was seen as giving children an enormous advantage over adults. Subsequent research has very much moderated that view; adults learn in different ways but are still capable, given appropriate conditions, of very effective learning, even of sound systems. (It is interesting that most studies compared children with adults, not children with teenagers, nonetheless.) The Steinberg analysis suggests something of what the difference is, especially to the extent that emotional engagement--and management is critical to language learning. The same principle is very evident in haptic-integrated pronunciation work, as noted in previous posts: when movement and touch are involved, any affective or visual distraction from the target of instruction during the process of anchoring can be enormously disruptive. That is one of the reasons that the EHIEP system is carefully designed to avoid over-emotional responses and "dramatic" gesture and dialogue. Should you, too, constrain your use of highly enthusiastic, pronounced, motivational, over-the-top, out-of-control "cheer leading" and nervous giggling? Need to be a little more "hypersensitive-sensitive?"  

Bilingual teenage brain stems listening comprehension!

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Here is a Science Digest summary of a fascinating study on the advantages of being bilingual just published. (This is one of those pieces that I could go off a dozen directions on and really have fun with--but I'll try to "stick to the facts," regardless!)  In essence, it was discovered that the brain stems of bilingual subjects were significantly better at sound/pitch discrimination than monolinguals in one context: when the sound was strongly masked with static or white noise. The researcher notes some pretty amazing implications of that: "The bilingual's enhanced experience with sound results in an auditory system that is highly efficient, flexible and focused in its automatic sound processing, especially in challenging or novel listening conditions," and " .  . . evidence for system-wide neural plasticity in auditory experts that facilitates a tight coupling of sensory and cognitive functions." [italics, mine] Wow. The study does not explicitly establish that "tight coupling," although in terms of general understanding of the function of the "reptilian" brain stem (in addition to managing emotional response), that case can be made rather easily. But teenagers "paying attention?" Really? This may suggest one way around some of the  "critical period" problem in pronunciation or accent development: enhanced (full mind-body) attention training. Now let me think . . . how could that be done? Keep in touch.

Plastic Brain . . . Pronunciation Change

Clip art: Clker

One of the most striking findings of recent research, such as this 2002 one by on neuroplasticity in motor learning by Ungerleider, Doyon and Karni is not just how the brain works but its inherent plasticity in many respects, its ability to reorganize and relearn or learn in other ways if necessary. One obvious implication of that is that just because students have individual preferences for particular learning styles does not mean they can not, in many cases rather easily, switch to other styles or develop better use of secondary preferences. The danger of cognitive style or learning style categories is . .. that they are categorical. Once we "know" what we are, that's it. (In fact, research suggests that once you know your style, especially based on some simpleminded 5-minute questionnaire,  you become even moreso--one of the basic assumptions of hypnotherapy, of course.)

Bottom line here: even the "adult brain" (and this is especially good news for learners of my generation and beyond) is capable of enormous flexibility and re-generation. So forget all that nonsense that you have heard about having to alter your teaching style to fit those of your students: retrain them instead! Well, actually, you should be constantly training everybody, yourself included, in multiple modality learning. Get HIP(oeces), eh!