"Integrative hypnosis" and mind/body pronunciation

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

On Badenhop's SeiShinDo website there is an excerpt from an interview he did with Melissa Tiers, an "integrative" hypnotherapist. Now to understand exactly where the two of them are coming from you'd need some background in hypnosis, psychotherapy, NLP, CBT--and SeiShinDo, but a quick read is instructive. Tiers talks about her four therapeutic stages of a session with a client and something about how she figures out which technique to use. (The "how" itself is fascinating, sounding very much like what I have often heard from highly experienced pronunciation instructors . . . it just comes to me . . . but I'll leave that for another post!) In essence, the four steps are: (1) identify the problem, (2) isolate the problematic emotional state associated with it, (3) identify another context the client associates with a more positive emotion, and then (4) connect up the emotion of (3) to (1). What is especially relevant to integrated pronunciation teaching is the assumption there that change must be (a) a multiple-modality, mind/body operation, that it (b) requires extreme attention (perhaps a little short of the classical hypnotic "trance!"), that it (c) demands some "out of the box" thinking at times, and that it (d) requires explicit, principled management of emotion. Now I am not necessarily "suggesting" that you get trained in hypnosis (or sign on with Charlie Badenhop for a little stress therapy online) but Ms Tiers' perspective, as one working "in the middle" of change, is near mesmerizing . . . (You may not remember this post, but next time you hear a the word "Badenhop" it will bring "Tiers" to your eyes . . . ) 

Sound memory? Of mice and men . . .

In this 2007 Yale University study, summarized by ScienceDaily, it was found that both exercise and mental stimulation (Details not specified but we can assume it was some kind of metacognitive "inner eye" candy . . . ) enhanced memory in "old" mice. In middle aged and young mice, however, only physical exercise did the trick. Now what are we to make of that? (I know . . . "Warning! You are now entering the usual Acton Analogical Zonenubergang, not to be confused with the high-end olfactory AAZ--which could be the next frontier in HICP exploration, of course!) Maybe this? For very "mature" learners, which I will categorize as either older than I am or prematurely "pre-frontal" (victims of too much metacognitive, explanatory massage or too much linguistics--brand unspecified), deductive, pronunciation mind games and explanation-to-the-death soliloquies (see previous post) may, indeed, pay off in better anchoring and memory for sounds and vocabulary. For the rest, it may serve some other function--like buying time or buying off the non-kinasethetic for the rest of the lesson. I have for some time suspected that we have some old, very haptic-averse mice connected to some researchers and methodologists in the field, but there is hope! Gotta get one of those!

A natural at learning pronunciation? Don't mention it.

Clip art: Clker

Interesting new study summarized by Science Daily on the downside of positive stereotypes. Quick. Make a list of all the "pronunciation stereotypes" you can think of. I sat in on an opening session of a intensive  English pronunciation course of a friend a couple of years ago. As I remember there were about a dozen "findings of research" tossed out in an apparent effort to give the students an informed "understanding" of L2 pronunciation acquisition and the range of variability in the process--including an entire litany of possible excuses to be used later in case one is not all that good at it. I remember a comment from a student seated nearby to the effect that "he didn't have a chance!" The research (admittedly done of middle schooler) seems to illustrate well the potential counter-productive washback of any stereotype, positive or negative when setting up expectations in an experiential learning process. (See 3 o'clock on the Process-experiential Pronunciation model in the previous blog post.) So, take that list and file it--just don't dwell on it when "metacognating" with or attempting to motivate students. And don't bother either with telling them success stories and tales of research studies which prove that instructors trained in the EHIEP system are by far the best--and consequently, they should simply trust you and do exactly what you say either. . . It's always better when they figure that out for themselves. 

Do-it-yourself pronunciation improvement for the "academically privileged"

Photo: Library
of Congress

In a recent post I commented on "English (pronunciation) for the academically privileged," in part focusing on the apparent "hyper-mentalizing" necessary to participate in many such programs. The linked website above, purporting to have the "blueprint" for do-it-yourself-ing it, even has this line at the outset: "If you’ve had trouble with your English pronunciation, this message will be the most important thing you will ever read." Wow. Have no idea if "it" works--although I have my suspicions--but it is certainly an entertaining read, filled with "EAP" hyper-language and "hyper-claims." Enjoy!

English (Pronunciation) for the Academically Privileged and "hypo-mentalizers"

Clipart: Ciker

Following up on the previous post, in pondering why so much of contemporary pronunciation research, methodology and materials seems to be increasingly "hyper-mentalized," it occurred to me that we should perhaps just follow the money . . .  So where, for the most part, are the learners with the resources to pay for extensive--or even, any--pronunciation instruction? You got it: higher education. (Linked is an interesting, but probably not representative, EPAP "strawman" of a syllabus. Would love to see the list of tongue twisters!) Nearly as important, however, is the nature of academic study and materials in that context: hyper-mental and hyper-textual. That group thrives (or survives) on hypothetical, metacognitive challenges, but in terms of intelligibility their needs may bear little or no resemblance to those of the immigrant or guest arbiter. It may be time to create a new pedagogical category or two: English Pronunciation instruction for the privileged academically (EPIPA!) and English Pronunciation Instruction for the "not so" (EPINS!). The irony is that, at least from our perspective, a good, less cognitive-deductive (and, of course, haptically-integrated) EPINS!-type program (for the hypo-mentalizer) which focused primarily on integrating new pronunciation, rather than understanding it and decontextualized practice, would almost certainly be more effective and efficient for most EPIPA!'s as well. If you have regular work doing EPIPA!, Congratulations! If not, no need to hyper-mentalize . . .

Over-personalizing pronunciation instruction: grapheme personification

Clipart: Clker

As you may have noticed, one of my hobbies is following synaesthesia rabbit trails in research. Linked is the abstract of a new article in a special issue of the Journal of Neuropsychology by Amin, Olu-Lafe, Claessen, Sobczak-Edmans, Ward, Williams, and Sagiv on a relatively rare condition, what they term a form of "social synaesthesia": giving letters of the alphabet personalities and other human attributes. Would that my institution were fortunate enough to have a subscription to that journal. (I may even consider forgoing a week of venti carmel frapps and buy that.) Apparently they haven't visited many preschool phonics classes in North America where letters are routinely given names, faces, bodies and identities . . .  The last line of the abstract, however, is most interesting: "This benign form of hyper-mentalizing may provide a unique point of view on one of the most central problems in human cognition – understanding others’ state of mind." Now I could go a dozen different directions with that, but I think I'll stick with this: hyper-mentalizing. What a concept! That finally may explain why some applied linguists have such difficulty with pronunciation instruction, especially HICP: they just get too up close and personal with their phonemes and begin hyper-mentalizing. Should that fit you to the letter . . . we have the antidote.
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