Perfect form in HICP work

Near-perfect form is essential in early HICP work only in overall body posture, stance and breathing--and pedagogical movement patterns--not in absoute accuracy of the pronunciation of L2 sounds being produced by the learner. In other words, on the physical side, the approach is "form-focused instruction," whereas in terms of phonetic accuracy, it is more "focus on form" based. (See the nice linked 10-point list from RealAge fitness on achieving better form in exercising. I am going to create a slightly adapted version in rubric format for HICP work, in fact.)

It is a crucial distinction, one that is now well-established in the field in terms of how we direct learner attention to form in the process. In grammar work, for example, the difference would be starting off a class with a grammar explanation and drill and the practicing it, as opposed to creating tasks, such as story telling, where grammatical constructions naturally come up that need to be attended to and then giving students a brief, concise mini-lesson, sufficient to manage the problem at hand.

The same applies to pronunciation instruction, in general, of course, but the problem is always being able to adequately "anchor" the new structure or strategy in the mind (and body) of the learner. The research seems to suggest that FonF, when done well in clearly defined contexts should result in better uptake and integration into spontaneous speech. From that perspective, HICP is perfect . . . 

Widdowson's Error II: Focus on form during "communicative" activities

Following up on the previous post, here is a 2010 study by Ellis looking at how corrective feedback and intervention happens in what he refers to as "communicative" classroom instruction. What is typical and fascinating is that at no place in the description of the study does he provide any real detail as to what was actually going on in the classroom--or whether it was being done well. We are to assume that it was, and that we all agree what we mean by communicative--and that most any type of communicative activity is, for research purposes, of equal effectiveness and impact. That is almost standard practice in research related to pronunciation teaching practices.

Widdowson
Photo credit: ied.edu.hk

You will rarely get much information as to what went on clinically, only pedagogically--which means just providing the name of the technique(s) used. Imagine a psychotherapist trying to convince colleagues of the efficacy of a new protocol simply by focusing on the results, not the details of the process. From that perspective, it is just as reasonable in reviewing many studies of attempts to correct pronunciation in oral communication classes to ask whether the communicative dimensions of the class were conducted well. Unless proven otherwise, we have to assume that the problem with the focus on form may have been also caused by or at least exacerbated by poor communicative instruction.

True to "form," from a HICP/EHIEP perspective, that should almost always be the case: unless the class communicative narrative is strong, haptic anchoring of pronunciation change will not work either. Maybe Widdowson was right after all.

Hand signs and symbols in HICP

I have described the pedagogical movement patterns (PMP) of the hands in HICP work in various ways: sign language-like, choral conducting, baseball hand signals, ballet-like, etc. The best analogy for me has always been classical dance of Japan and India. Having attended many dance performances in both traditions, the use of hand and arm movement still seems to me to best illustrate the ideal felt sense of PMPs in our work. The problem with bringing in those artistic "hands," has always been the lack of a description or analysis accessible to outsiders, not those of the culture.

Clip art: Clker

This link to an article by Parimal Phadke in a less-than-scholarly website (w/apologies, of course), is one of the best I have seen in conveying the meaning of the hand and foot engagement in (some) Indian classical dance. The "take away" from the piece, is that the hand and arm movements--from that cultural perspective--do not have intrinsic meaning, are not associated with baseball or iconic gestures, but, instead, serve to give "rhythmic form" to the dance so that the artistic expression can be more freely presented.

And so it is with HICP: the PMPs need to be learned at some level initially for the process to work. The PMPs of each of the six protocols take about 30 minutes to learn sufficiently so that the instructor can begin to integrate them regularly into the classroom instruction. If you do or have done or love interpretative dance or a related form, you are a step ahead. Or, might want to start here . . . HICP hand and arm movements across the visual field should not be thought of as conveying any deep "social meaning" or connection to common conversational gestures. They comprise but a form to put the dance in . . .

Could Krashen's "Monitor Model" have been 25% correct?

Clip art: Clker

Here is an article that begins with a quote from Krashen (1982) that states his initial articulation of the "Monitor Model," arguing, among other things, that attention to form or correction in L2 acquisition is not effective or productive, at best. Following on from recent posts, you can see how he had captured a critical dimension of the process but was tossing out even the possibility of any directed, modality-mediated monitoring of spontaneous speaking (that is, modulating attention appropriately to learner cognitive style profile among the four senses or modalities), as we have been exploring for some time now. I'm sure I am not the first to suggest that "Krashen's Error" was that he was  just slightly "out of touch" . . .

Art, Music, Physical Education--and Pronunciation

Clip art:
Clker

Here is a document showing essential K-5 outcomes in Art, Music, and Physical Education. Careful examination (with your "analogy-detector" activated) reveals any number of ways in which pronunciation instruction shares features and fundamental pedagogical strategies with those three disciplines, including being seen by many as peripheral to core instruction.

In fact, many of the current shortcomings of contemporary pronunciation teaching relate quite directly to its not being sufficiently artistic (tied to expressiveness), musical (attending to prosodic features such as intonation and rhythm) and "physical" (cf. HICP, of course!)  Likewise, when the education culture sees art, music and physical education as first in line during budget cutting, it should come as little surprise that pronunciation instruction falls in the same category. Although there are any number of reasons within the recent development of the field from communicative language teaching forward for the declining interest in pronunciation teaching, the trend represents a more general evolving, post-modern societal attitude toward form, body and person.

Pronunciation teaching as we know it, as a more or less discrete, "skill-based" specialization that is of sufficient value to the field such that it should be reestablished in teacher training programs in these times of fiscal and form-based restraint may well be beyond resuscitation.