CAST away stress: The Forest Walkabout-Talkabout

If you are going to be at the 2023 BCTEAL Annual Conference on May 5th (at 11 a.m.) at the University of British Columbia, please join us, Angelina Van Dyke and myself, for a casual stroll together, with delightful accompanying conversation through the Arboretum for about an hour. 

The teaching technique demonstrated, the "walkabout," is based on two other techniques: CAST (Collaborative Attending Skills Training) and the "walkabout," a feature of Australian culture made popular by the movie, Crocodile Dundee, when the leading actor, reported having had his marriage come apart some time back . . .  because he had gone out for one in the "outback" . . . for three months! (Have reported on that technique earlier on the blog, as well.)

The CAST system, also described on the blog earlier, focuses on teaching ELLs of almost any proficiency level to carry on conversations in groups of three or four, using "attending skills," where one student tells a good story, a second facilitates the conversation, and a third takes notes on the conversation. After three or four minutes, the conversations stop and the instructor then goes around to each group and elicits examples of effective conversational discourse strategies. 

In this case, students and teacher walk through the forest for about 5 minutes as students, in the small groups, walk and talk, attending to their mutually constructed stories. They pause for about 10 minutes, reflecting on the strategies used by the attender in supporting the story teller's story, and then set off again, with three other students taking on the CAST roles. The effect is dramatic, even in the relatively short 60-minute session. (The Walkabout - Talkabout works best when carried out for about 90 minutes--or more!) 

(Note: Come prepared with a good little personal story to share, one known only to you that you can share in about 3 or 4 minutes!) 

Collaborative pronunciation group work--by design!

Clip art: Clker

There is , as far as I can tell, virtually no accessible, published research on the efficacy of group work in pronunciation teaching. (If you know of some PLEASE post a comment with the link!) There are any number of informal reports and recommendations along those lines, including Gilbert (2008) (a free pdf that you should be familiar with already!) that has some good ideas for pair work on stress assignment and intelligibility of vowel and consonant articulation, a good complement to the Acton Haptic - English Pronunciation System, AH-EPS. (See earlier post  and sidebar on name changes of both our company and what was formerly the "EHIEP" or "HIPOECES" system. Change . . . )

New research by Vaquero of Hewlett-Packard and Cebrian of the University of San Diego, summarized by Science Daily, demonstrates the potential benefits of group collaborative work, as opposed to working alone. So far, so good. But, get this: " . . . almost equally interesting is the fact that these high-performing students form 'rich-clubs', which shield themselves from low-performing students, despite the significant efforts by these lower-ranking students to join them. The weaker students try hard to engage with the elite group intensively, but can't. This ends up having a marked correlation with their dropout rates."

So, in pronunciation work, especially in classes of mixed ability, how do you do effective group work, if at all? Separate out the "rich" and "poor" clubs? Integrate them? For most, the answer is "Neither!" In AH-EPS work, where developing accurate pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) is one important feature each module--not initial phonetic accuracy, the opportunity for mixed-level group work is excellent. (In fact, many times there appears to be little or no early correlation between "haptic-ability" and proficiency.)

The nonverbal, collaborative communication centers on PMP execution--best done in groups of three or more--coordinating it with articulation of the sound, sound pattern, stress, rhythm or intonation assignment. (Note: The key "haptic"  principle here is that accurate PMP anchoring should, by itself, in short order enable more accurate articulation--without a great deal of conscious, auditory self-monitoring.)

Any pronunciation class can, in principle, be "grouped" in attending to some suprasegmental targets, such as in Gilbert (2008). For the most part AH-EPS group and (potentially) homework practice is also wonderfully stress-free and noncompetitive--and egalitarian! A "rich" source of anchored, focused noticing. Ah! (or AH!) a new acronym even: AnFoNot!

Cooperative pronunciation (fluency) learning

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

For most learners, efficient pronunciation change requires having consistent opportunities to practice the new sounds socially, in "friendly" situations and groups. I learned early that in most cases small group pronunciation work is consistently superior to one-on-one tutoring, from several perspectives. New research by Rand and colleagues at Harvard on what enables effective cooperation in groups suggests something of why that might be. In essence, cooperative communication or engagement proceeds much more efficiently when participants interact or respond "intuitively" or "quickly" without undue pausing to reflect, think or plan what they are going to say. Of course, the right kind of classroom-based group conversation activities can create those conditions consistently, where learners not only can but must experiment with the new or changed forms. The key is in the task design and "community of practice" that allows both targeted usage and corresponding supportive social setting. In that environment not only can learners speak and respond spontaneously but targeted feedback by both the instructor and their classmates can be experienced as absolutely appropriate. The bottom line here: Don't even think about not doing it in your work . . . 

Let's get clinical (pronunciation instruction)!

Clipart: Clker

Clipart: Clker

With apologies to the all time favorite aerobic dance anthem, having read over yet one more thread of comments, "a near-conversation" between clinical and experimental psychologists on a blog, the parallel to where we are in the field of pronunciation teaching today was too much to miss. In essence, the experimental types were saying "There is no real evidence for the validity of your clinical practice, especially the procedure that you are recommending." The clinicians, in response, were responding that "Your studies are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to dealing holistically with our real clients. Experience, especially as it is applied to "similar" treatment contexts--and people--is enough to go on, at least for the time being." Sound familiar? A recent research study summarized by Science Daily on the efficacy of online peer support groups, which does relate somewhat to recent posts on group learning theory, ends with the quintessential retort from researcher/clinician, Salazar of Temple University: "These groups likely provide some degree of comfort in sharing a similar experience . . . While we can't yet quantify the benefit with our measurements, it does appear that participants benefit in online contacts with one another . . . If anything, clinicians should become more familiar with online groups because of their prevalence . . . They should be discussing their use with clients, and talking about ways to safely navigate online resources to get the maximum benefit." Now, substitute in any pronunciation teaching technique that you find especially effective for the word "online or groups" in that quote. Does that work in the context of your integrated, "clinical" pronunciation practice? It should. If not, just consider this your online support group and tell us all about it . . . here or on the EHIEP teaching blog!

To bee or not to bee: in class vs one-on-one pronunciation teaching

Clipart: Clker

Clipart: Clker

The clipart of the "lazy" bee in the last post reminded me of what a line of research on honey bees has revealed about the striking impact on learning of individual vs group or community based learning. In essence, what happens is that older forager bees, when brought back into the hive to take on nurturing "duties," experience a significant increase in ability to learn again. The analogy here to pronunciation work will be evident to anyone who has worked with changing the pronunciation of older L2 learners: studying in small groups is generally far more effective than tutoring. (I'll post a case study related to this idea shortly on the EHIEP "data" blog.) Clearly, social practice is critical for almost any integration of pronunciation change, but experience (at least) has shown that it is especially so with "fossilized" students. There have been a number of posts that have dealt with parameters of effective social practice and how to manage it in this field. I have not been able, however, to locate good, empirical studies of that "old bee vs new bee" phenomenon in the general adult learning literature, but I'm certain it is there. (If you know some of that research, please let us know!) How do you keep your classroom buzzing with excitement--or learning?  "Apiarical" linguists of the world, unite!