Haptic (HICP) TESOL 2012 Presentations

Coming toTESOL 2012? If so, we'll be "hapticulating" in at least a couple of talks.

The first is on the 29th in the SPLIS Academic meeting. I'm the closer of five presentations on "integration" of pronunciation work: "Post-Pronunciation pronunciation: Implications of the move toward (a) integration of pronunciation work throughout the curriculum, (b) advances in virtual reality technology and (c) increasing demand that pronunciation presented and  practiced in the classroom be more efficiently integrated into learners' spontaneous speech. "

The other one is on 31st in the morning. Five of us (Burri, Goertzen, Brodie, Teaman and myself) are doing this 45 minute demonstration: Getting Optimal Pronunciation From English Learner Dictionaries and Beyond: This demonstration introduces a set of haptic-based (movement plus touch) procedures for helping learners get pronunciation, meaning, and usage information from English learner dictionaries. Included are six techniques that are also created to be integrated into speaking and listening instruction, appropriate for use with ELLs of most levels and ages. 

Recall the (in)famous epitaph on W.C. Field's tombstone: It could be worse . . . It could be Philadelphia!

Moving Pronunciation, Meaning and Usage from the Dictionary!

Mike Burri, Brian Teaman and I are doing a workshop at the 2011 TRI-TESOL conference this Saturday. From the conference program: "This workshop introduces a haptic-based (movement and touch) set of procedures for helping learners efficiently get pronunciation, meaning and usage information from English learner dictionaries. Included are six techniques that can also be applied to dialogues, connecting pronunciation and vocabulary learning with controlled and then more integrated, spontaneous speaking." If you are in the Des Moines, Washington neighborhood, stop by. Looks to be a very good conference!

Haptic "hand" and kinaesthetic sky writing for spelling and pronunciation

Clip art: Clker

This video clip on the 5-step protocol of "Guided Spelling" for new readers has all the necessary EHIEP/HICP components: (1) Read the word, (2) Say it, (3) Write it on paper, (4) Write it in the air with pencil, (5) Close eyes and visualize it, and (6) Open eyes and "erase" the image in the air. (The testimonials from the kids are about all the confirmation that's needed.) With a little tweaking, that set could be adapted to do more with pronunciation, especially if some of the steps were done simultaneously. (See earlier post on the "Haptic Dictionary Pronunciation Protocol.)

Many adults anchor the spelling of a word as well when working principally on pronunciation. If you have worked with Japanese you have almost certainly had students who use "haptic hand-writing" on the palm of their hands, spelling out words as a favoured memorization strategy. When done by some learners, in fact, it is almost spell(ing) binding (or anchoring!)

Getting (pronunciation) out of dictionaries and into the body!

Clip art: Clker

Have just heard that our proposal (Mike Burri, Alaina Brodie, Michelle Goertzen, Olga Ulyasheva and myself) for a 45 minute demonstration at TESOL in Philadelphia, "Getting Optimal Pronunciation from English Learner Dictionaries and beyond," has been accepted and will be on the program on the 31st of March, 2012. We are doing a similar presentation at the Tri-TESOL conference in Washington on the 22nd of October, next month, "Moving Pronunciation, Meaning and Usage from the Dictionary!" with Brian Teaman. (See earlier post on dictionary pronunciation for "dummies!")

In terms of demonstrating the applicability and effectiveness of haptic-integrated pronunciation work, this workshop format is promising. In about an hour or so, instructors get a good sense of the "felt sense" of the system. An earlier version at an ESL volunteer conference recently was (not surprisingly) "pronounced" a resounding success!

Getting pronunciation out of the dictionary in 9 steps . . . for dummies!

With the development of electronic dictionaries, you'd wonder if "dead tree-tionaries" are on the verge of extinction. Not so, not quite yet. The felt sense of a good, print learner dictionary with audio file attached --and there are several on the market now-- is still preferable for most students at earlier stages of pronunciation learning, and for many long beyond that. The combination of the more accessible full visual field of the dictionary entry and the (generally) good color/font layout add considerably to the material available for good encoding and recall. Plus, the "feel" of the physical book and ability to place it in an optimal position in the visual field is hard to match at the moment electronically. (Although probably not for long!)

We have developed a haptic-based protocol for teaching students how to go to the dictionary and have a much better chance of coming away with the pronunciation, grammatical category, meaning and usage. The key, of course, is continuous haptic anchoring and sequencing--not just saying the word or words to yourself or out loud. In the "Public speaking for dummies, 2nd edition"are, in fact, all the basic elements of the protocol (interpreted with a little imagination and translation, of course!), just not quite in this order:

Clip art: Clker

(a) Identify the stressed syllable.
(b) Identify and anchor the vowel quality in the stressed syllable.
(c) Say the word out loud, anchoring the stressed vowel with emphatic (rise-fall) intonation.
(d) Anchor the grammatical category, doing the emphatic (rise-fall) statement, "It's a X!" twice.
(e) Repeat "c"
(f) Read aloud twice the meaning, using a flat, "robot-like" but good-humored, intonation contour.
(g) Repeat "c"
(h) Anchor the usage example twice with "declarative" or "rising/question" intonation, whichever is appropriate
(i) Repeat "c"one final time.

We'll be doing this next month at the Tri-TESOL conference in Washington, "Haptic Dictionary Pronunciation," and at the TESOL convention in Philadelphia next March (2012). Even if you can't join us to experience it first hand, try that 9-step haptic dance with your students. They'll get a lot out of it.