Confident, successful pronunciation?

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Yet another potential piece for your "Well . . . duh!" file. The term "self confidence" and "pronunciation" are commonly associated, getting over 1,000,000 hits on Google . . . For example, in this introduction to a short piece by Shelly Vernon, the website ESLBase.com begins like this: "Do you avoid teaching pronunciation in your classroom? In this article, Shelley Vernon suggests going right back to the level of the phoneme to build learners' confidence." (Bold face, mine.) Now although implying it perhaps, Vernon never actually says that explicitly in the article. I do like that point of departure, nonetheless.

In a research report, entitled "Minority Report" about to be published (with apologies to the real Minority Report, one of my favorite movies), however, one of the findings may relate to the impact of confidence "on the job" --seemingly supporting Vernon's perspective. In a Science Daily summary, Hasmath and colleagues at the University of Melbourne report " . . . a strong correlation between confidence and occupational success." There are several other tidbits included such as one referring back to earlier studies suggesting height and attractiveness may also contribute to confidence or

 " . . . that workers who described themselves as 'extroverted', 'neurotic', 'open to experiences' or 'agreeable' (standard indicators of conscientiousness) were also found to be more motivated, and doing well professionally." And then the pies de resistance: "Interestingly, members of visible ethnic minorities reported lower rates of confidence, but similar levels of conscientiousness . . . This may partially explain why their wages and rates of advancement are consistently lower than members of a non-visible ethnic minority."

Where to begin . . . psychotherapy, obedience training, elevator shoes, cosmetics or phonemes? 

Bold and shy pronunciation learners

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Was "hunting" for some research on personality styles of learners and came on this: "In Elk Hunting, Success Depends On the Animal's Personality,"summarized by ScienceDaily, by a team of researchers at the University of Alberta. They discovered two basic types: bold runners and shy hiders. (Note: This is about elk being hunted, not the converse!) As you might suspect, the latter type lived significantly longer. Ironically (or maybe not), we see something of the same in haptic-integrated pronunciation work. Strong extroverts, although initially often better at picking up pedagogical movement patterns, do not seem to have much if any advantage in anchoring pronunciation change--in fact, the contrary seems to be the case. As noted in some earlier posts, attention management is often more "manageable" for those whose body language is not as uninhibited and "gesticular." For example, a highly expressive Italian who makes wonderfully wide-ranging and fluid use of gesture while speaking in his L1, may actually have a great deal of difficulty in consistently anchoring sounds in the visual field, making hands touch consistently, in a very controlled manner, at designated positions. And like the ill-fated bold elk, although they get off to a great start and feel very much at ease with "dashing around out in the open," they may not last long . . . Always a good idea to hunt them down early and rein(in the)deers!