Haptic bonding: connecting new or modified L2 pronunciation back to visual images of words or graphemes

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Clip art: Clker

Haptic bonding! I love that term! It has been common practice with children to use tactile engagement in working with pre-reading, helping them link the sounds with graphemes. The same ideas have been applied widely in rehabilitation as well but the underlying mechanisms involved have not been well understood. In a fascinating-- and very relevant--study by Gentaz and colleagues at the Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition in Grenoble (CNRS/Université Pierre Mendès France de Grenoble/Université de Savoie), Learning of Arbitrary Association between Visual and Auditory Novel Stimuli in Adults: The “Bond Effect” of Haptic Exploration, summarized by Science Daily, it was demonstrated that " . . . When visual stimuli can be explored both visually and by touch, adults learn arbitrary associations between auditory and visual stimuli more efficiently." And there you have it!

Let's get clinical (pronunciation instruction)!

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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!

Connecting sound and gesture in pronunciation teaching

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Clipart: Clker

Explaining how gesture can facilitate learning of sound and how sound, in turn, can be associated with gesture is not easy. For some, just "explaining" it experientially by leading them through a few basic protocols is sufficient. In doing workshops (like the most recent one) there will always be a group of relatively experienced instructors who for any number of reasons seem to "get it" it quickly. (Students, in general, get it immediately, regardless!) For those with no background in pronunciation teaching, who are just by nature more highly "pre-frontal" (requiring a great deal of explicit, systematic rationale before buying a new technique) or who are just not very "gesticular," more is required. Have been looking for a relatively recent research summary article or two that I can point to that makes the case  persuasively. Found a couple. This one, from 2008 by Kelly, Manning and Rodak, and this one, from 2005 by Empkin, Cramer and Reikinsmeyer will serve for the time being. The former, although not from a refereed journal, provides a very nice overview of research (and some application) on the relationship between gesture and language. The latter, a report on a research project looking at the effect of haptic guidance on learning of movement, demonstrates clearly what touch contributes to the process. (There are several other similar studies reported here on the blog in the past year.) Until we get some controlled, empirical studies of the efficacy of the EHIEP protocols, inferential evidence such as this and anecdotal reports from classroom trials--along with experiential, participatory demonstrations--will have to suffice. Beginning soon, I am going to begin posting reports from colleagues, "Hapticians" who use EHIEP protocols in their classrooms, along with a bit of theoretical commentary. (Or I may start another blog for that purpose, as noted earlier.) Keep in touch. 

Pronunciation in ESL/EFL integrated skills instruction

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Clip art: Clker

As developed in many previous posts, haptic-integrated pronunciation should alway be understood in two senses. First, pronunciation teaching as a skill set should be thoroughly integrated into general instruction--almost to the point that it disappears as a distinct subject of attention. (See this very nice, 2001 summary by Oxford, for instance.) Second, pronunciation, itself, or attention to sound processes, should be multi-modality-based, most senses integrated in haptic-based procedures. Grading a set of term papers recently where the focus was on integrating pronunciation techniques into speaking-listening lessons, I was struck by the effect that previous classroom teaching experience teaching speaking (probably not listening, writing and reading as such) appeared to have on students' success in designing such integrated lesson plans. Those who had some such training and experience were successful in figuring out optimal contexts for attention to pronunciation. Those who didn't . . . weren't. One student even noted in a footnote that pronunciation should be the last skill that teachers are trained in, for that very reason. Not sure I agree with that entirely, but she has a very good point: you must have something to integrate something into! Integrate that idea into your teacher training program curriculum. I'm going to!

Shall we "Pronance?" (Leading your class to better pronunciation)

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Now there (with a little cross-lingual liberty) is a term perhaps we could use: "Pronance" (French for second-person singular imperative of prononcer meaning: Strongly marked; decided, as in manners, etc.), something of a portmanteau of "dance" and "pronounce!" 

What an apt description of the leading and following involved in working with pedagogical movement patterns in HICP instruction. (Forgive the possibly excessive use of Wikipedia there . . . ) I especially like the sense of being clearly marked . . . as in (nonverbal) manners as it relates to anchoring. From pair dance theory, the three terms "compression, leverage and tension" can also be used to characterize the process of "conducting" the warm up and haptic-integrated anchoring procedures. In essence, the three refer to "moving toward, moving laterally and moving away from." Earlier posts have looked at pair dancing as a haptic practice. 

Given all the evidence from recent research that the brain makes relatively little distinction at some level between tactile and visual (and haptic cinema!), techniques where the instructor is leading from across the room--generally with synchronized body movement with students--anchoring various aspects of pronunciation, discourse structure and vocabulary becomes an engaging pronunciation dance of sorts, a pronance! A haptic anchor involves conscious control of compression, tension and leverage--upper torso movement back as one breathes in prior to speaking, a slight forward torso nod on the stressed syllable, and various lateral motions involving the hands and arms across the visual field. In that "pronance," the marked, decisive movements of the instructor are key. Do you follow?

Touches worth a thousand pictures (or sounds)

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Clipart of Nobel:
Clker

One of the basic assumptions of research in haptics has been that in most settings visual stimuli override auditory, kinaesthetic and tactile. The import of studies reported in earlier posts for our work had been that haptic procedures (such as hand movements across the visual field to anchor intonation) were "seen" to be highly susceptible to interference from visual distraction in the immediate environment. What the new research revealed is that in a very real sense both visual and haptic information are, in effect, processed in the same channel or areas in the brain. Which of the modalities dominates at any point in time appears now to have as much to do with the quality of the stimuli themselves, not some intrinsic difference in potency of the modality type. The point is this: from a theoretical perspective, it means that haptic work done right can be enormously powerful in anchoring sound, much more so than I had thought possible earlier. In retrospect, I have consistently seen evidence of the strength of haptic anchoring, regardless of the scene or potential distractions in the classroom but was hesitant to interpret that as evidence reflecting more of a balance in visual/haptic processing. A  welcome touch of uncommon (unconventional) sense . . . 

Free L2 and haptic research studies and reports!

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Clipart: Clker

You may have noticed that most of the research or sources linked off this blog connect to sites that are free, accessible to anybody. There is a good reason for that.You may also have noticed in the last decade or so that more and more  published research is only accessible through publishers or professional associations. Although I do occasionally buy a copy of a study online, at $30+ per piece, the budget runs out quickly. And when I do get the article, I still cannot follow up on many of the sources in the reference list--for the same reason. The "Guild," the traditional owners of information, membership and privilege are attempting to maintain what control they have left today. The very notion that those of us without access to the original research should simply accept uncritically the digested version of a study by any expert is losing ground rapidly today. There are a growing number of excellent, online refereed and unrefereed journals such as the Asian EFL Journal, that are freely accessible--let alone a phenomenal number of quality research blogs. In many disciples, the blog is quickly replacing the journal article as the venue of choice for disseminating research findings. As a matter of principle, if the HICP practitioner cannot personally check the details and validity of a study--for free, it will generally not be cited here. (For one of my favorite musical depictions of the fading power and place of the Guild in a culture, see the Youtube link above.) Granted, that still somewhat restricts the scope of what can be brought in to substantiate haptic-integrated classroom practice, but  fortunately it also limits the necessity of taking too seriously "Die Meister-Thinkers" of disembodied, inaccessible research--and opinion,  as well. 

Tap your way to better pronunciation?

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If for some reason you have encountered any of the so-called "Power Therapies" developed for dealing especially with conditions such as PTSD, you may have heard of "Thought Field Therapy." (If not, not to worry!) It is based roughly on, among other things, acupressure therapy which, in turn, is based on Chinese traditional medicine . . . Thought I'd just briefly "tap" into that approach to psychotherapy to highlight one aspect of HICP teaching: tapping the hands and body for different functions. (See most recent post of the potential cross-cultural pitfalls of self-touch in our work.) There are several versions of TFT; the one linked above, the British TFT Association, has more connections to Western "reality" than some others! What they share is the use of rhythmic and a-rhythmic tapping on various acupressure (or Shiatsu) points on the arms and upper body, locations in traditional Chinese medicine which are identified with various "energy fields" or "junctures" of various kinds--typically while focusing on a problematic memory or systematically avoiding focusing on it. That such manipulations in a coherent therapeutic mindset or worldview may "work," is not the question. They do, but, from a Western perspective, particularly, it is nearly impossible to establish that empirically--so I won't try. HICP does, however, borrow from that tradition the idea that touch, as it creates haptic anchoring, in some cases even on the same acupressure locations, is a useful tool--when combined with a wider range of more "traditional Western" pronunciation teaching moves. Just for fun, you might download the linked PDF on TFT .  . . and keep it "on tap!"

Working with cultural taboos on touch in HICP

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In my high school public speaking class (circa 1960), one of the "rules" for giving effective speeches was to NEVER touch your head. You got points off every time you touched your face--for any reason. That lesson stuck . . . (For a general review of the place of the use of touch in communication and therapy cross-culturally, see the piece on the Zur website linked above.) Although it is difficult to find readily accessible research on the web on the place of self-touch in various cultures, there are some surveys that relate general principles, such as this one. Given the incredible range of symbolic meanings attached to the head, face, hands and arms in different cultures, the chances of infringing on a student's L1 paralinguistic taboos in working with directed upper body movement can be substantial. Likewise, touching hands in the visual field can accidentally coincide with a prohibited gesture. That constraint is evident in the development of signing systems for deaf in different cultures, as well. In EHIEP system as it is today, in addition to touching hands, much like sign language, there is some minor facial touching in anchoring, such momentarily placing a finger on the voice box or point on the head to get the felt sense of resonance. Experience with learners from most major cultures have helped us gradually eliminate pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) that don't work in specific contexts, but instructors may well have to make minor adjustments. For example, recently we were working with a new protocol to establish more upper body flexibility that included lightly tapping both thighs in the course of the exercise. The students reacted with great, embarrassed laughter--quickly informing the instructor that that touching gesture signalled a very personal function in their culture, never to be done in public! There have been more than a dozen such "revelations" in the last few years--such as left hand use--to the point where what we have today generally is accepted by students as at least inoffensive in the classroom context. (Part of the reason for that is that normally in the early stages as the PMPs are being learned, only the instructor can see the students' PMPs, not other students.) I have, on the other hand,  a long list of other techniques that should be taboo in pronunciation teaching . . .