Meta-coupling: Freeing mind, map and project from the chimera of AI

Caveat emptier: This post was drafted with help from an AI assistant (Perplexity)— but ideated and edited extensively by the human, Bill Acton. Also, at the very end is my usual quick soft sell on IDshield!

We may have rushed to “use AI,” but the key 21st‑century skill set is up another level: meta‑coupling—the ongoing ability to know how AI is shaping your work and thinkinig while you are using it, and to adjust that relationship on purpose, dynamically. Meta‑coupling asks, “What did AI add here, what did I add, and is that actually the mix I want?” 

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Instead of treating AI as a magic typewriter, meta‑coupling turns it into an explicit, visible, yet subordinate "partner" whose influence you must monitor, identify, and generally resist. You are not only writing the email, lesson plan, or sales pitch; you are also tracking the hand‑offs between your judgment and the model’s suggestions; you uncouple to manage the process. 

From “Using AI” to a meta-cognitive grounded relationship

Most advice stops at “Use AI for brainstorming, then rewrite in your own words.” Helpful, but shallow at best. Meta‑coupling goes much further. It requires you to notice:

• Who framed the problem—me or the model?  
• Who/what chose the structure—my sense of the audience, or the ghost in the machine (deux ex machina)?  
• Which features I could still defend or justify on my own, without AI.

That shift matters. Research in both education and management notes that generative AI can either erode critical thinking or strengthen it, depending on whether people simply accept outputs or actively interrogate and revise them. If you stay coupled to AI from start to finish, the system quietly does the heavy lifting: it chooses what counts as important, supplies the wording, and even suggests the tone. When you meta‑couple, you deliberately "uncouple" at key junctures to question, reframe, and revise, so your analysis and experience remain constantly in play. 

Think of AI as a fast, opinionated collaborator who never tires (but should!). Meta‑coupling is, in part, the habit of stepping back regularly and asking: “Is this still my project . . ?” 

Schools that are teaching meta‑coupling

Some schools are already designing around this deeper layer. At Stamford American International School in Singapore, teachers report explicitly presenting AI as a “thinking partner, not an answer machine.” Students might ask AI for example, for multiple interpretations of a text or different solutions to a problem, but then the "real" work begins: they have to critique those outputs, compare them, and explain what they accept, what they reject, and why. That kind of structured reflection—using AI to generate ideas and then teaching students how to evaluate them—is exactly what recent studies recommend for building (or at least maintaining!) critical thinking in the age of generative AI. 

Meta‑coupling is built right into the assignments. Students must be able to identify which ideas came from AI, where they see bias or gaps, and how their own perspective differs. They are not just consuming AI answers; they are practicing the move: “Here’s what the system offered—and here is what I think about it,” and how to continue the dialectic to conclusion. 

A similar pattern shows up in university programs that use AI to enhance experiential learning. At the University of South Florida, for example, faculty development efforts encourage instructors to use AI to simulate negotiations or customer interactions, while insisting that students still build deep subject understanding and reflective practice outside the tool. Faculty are learning to ask not only, “Did this AI scenario help?” but “Where should AI carry the load, and where must students still stand on their own understanding?”—a classic meta‑coupling question.

Businesses that keep humans in the pilot (not Copilot!) seat

Companies are discovering the same thing: the best results come when AI acts as co‑pilot, not autopilot. Analyses of human–AI collaboration show that performance improves when AI handles data‑heavy pattern‑spotting and humans retain ownership of context, values, and trade‑offs. Leaders are urged to treat AI recommendations as powerful input—not as final decisions—especially when the stakes are ethical, legal, or reputational. That is meta‑coupling at the leadership level. Instead of blindly “trusting the AI” or reflexively rejecting it, managers learn to:

• Treat AI outputs as hypotheses, not conclusions.  
• Probe where those suggestions come from and what they leave out.  
• Override the system when local knowledge or human impact demands it. 

AI speeds up the work; meta‑coupling keeps it accountable to human judgment.

The “UNCUPLE IT!” Meta‑coupling checklist

To make this concrete, here is more personified checklist. 

1. Spot the Hand‑Off – “Where did I give the wheel away?”  

Name exactly what you just outsourced: ideas, structure, wording, or fact‑checking. If you can’t say it in a phrase, AI may already be doing more than you think. 

2. Tag the source – “This line is mine; that block is bot.”  

 Look over the page and mentally label sections as YOU or AI. Make sure at least one key move—central idea, story, or structure—is unmistakably yours.

3. Flip the Frame – “If AI went dark and I lost this draft, what would/could I do?” 

Take any AI‑generated outline or argument and imagine one alternative way you could approach it. You don’t have to write it out; just prove your own route still exists. 

4. Unplug and Rewrite – “Close the tab, find my voice.” 

 Do one pass with AI turned off. Rearrange, cut, and rephrase until you can hear your own cadence and convictions, not the model’s neutral hum. Highly recommend that that be done reading OUT LOUD!

5. Interrogate the Output – “If this is wrong, where and why?” 

Treat AI as a challenger, not a judge. Ask what could be missing, biased, or flat‑out mistaken—and make your own call about which weaknesses matter.

6. Draw the line – “AI can help, but it cannot decide.”  

 Decide in advance which decisions AI is allowed to own, other than ethical judgments, promises you make to others, or anything signed with your name. 

Spot. Tag. Flip. Unplug. Interrogate. Draw the line. 

That’s the meta‑coupling rhythm —a relationship with AI that stays visible, adjustable, and genuinely human‑led.

Postscript: Meta‑coupling minds are harder to scam

There is one more bonus to cultivating a meta‑coupling mind: you become much harder to fool. Studies suggest that blind confidence in generative AI correlates with weaker critical thinking, while reflective, self‑aware use is linked to better scrutiny and decision quality. The same habit of asking, “Who really wrote this, and what are they trying to get me to do?” makes you far more likely to catch AI‑driven phishing, deepfake messages, and too‑smooth scam pitches before you click. 

You do not have to do all of that alone. A dedicated security service—such as IDShield (the company I'm with, BTW!)—can act as your always‑on first line of defense, monitoring for identity theft, suspicious activity, and emerging fraud patterns in the background, while your meta‑coupling instincts stay focused on what humans do best: noticing when something feels “off,” asking better questions, and choosing when to unplug, uncouple, and walk away.

References consulted by Perplexity AI; all confirmed for general relevance to the section appended

Conerly, B. (2026, January 20). Combining AI and human judgment in strategic business decisions. Forbes. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2026/01/20/combining-ai-and-human-judgment-in-strategic-business-decisions/)

Deloitte. (2026, March 3). 2026 global human capital trends. Deloitte Insights. (https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/human-capital-trends.html)

Frontiers Editorial. (2024). Using genAI in education: The case for critical thinking. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11564148/)

Larson, L., et al. (2024). *Critical thinking in the age of generative AI. Academy of Management Learning & Education. (https://research.vu.nl/files/382320511/larson-et-al-2024-critical-thinking-in-the-age-of-generative-ai.pdf)

Lee, J. (2025). The impact of generative AI on critical thinking. Microsoft Research. [(https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf)

Stamford American International School. (2025, November 5). AI in the classroom: Using technology to support, not replace, critical thinking. (https://www.sais.edu.sg/school-life/our-news-events/ai-in-the-classroom-using-technology-to-support-not-replace-critical-thinking/)

TechClass. (2026, January 30). How to blend AI insights with human judgment for better outcomes? (https://www.techclass.com/resources/learning-and-development-articles/how-to-blend-ai-insights-with-human-judgment-for-better-outcomes)

University of South Florida St. Petersburg. (2025, April 30). How educators are using AI to enhance, not replace, experiential learning. (https://www.stpetersburg.usf.edu/news/2025/how-educators-are-using-ai-to-enhance-not-replace-experiential-learning.aspx)

University of South Florida. (2025, July 13). USF equipping K–12 teachers with tools for an AI‑powered future. (https://www.usf.edu/education/news/2025/usf-equipping-k-12-teachers-with-tools-for-an-ai-powered-future.aspx)

University World News. (2026, January 27). Over 90% of faculty say GenAI is killing critical thinking. [universityworldnews](https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20260128145305278)

Center for Engaged Learning. (2025, March 24). Unlocking the link between generative AI confidence and critical thinking skills. (https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/unlocking-the-link-between-generative-ai-confidence-and-critical-thinking-skills/)

EDUCAUSE Review. (2025, March 5). AI as a thought partner in higher education. (https://er.educause.edu/articles/2025/4/ai-as-a-thought-partner-in-higher-education)

The New York Times. (2026, January 25). Why A.I. can’t make thoughtful decisions.(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/opinion/ai-human-judgment.html)

LinkedIn. (2025, December 15). AI as thinking partner, not answer machine.(https://www.linkedin.com/posts/leslie-ngugi-328a7313_ai-learning-criticalthinking-activity-7406611724923187200-AiiA)

wracton@gmail.com

williamacton.legalshieldassociate.com (Check this out both for both legal and ID protection, plus a promising small business opportunity!)

Context, AI voice technology, haiku and (pronunciation) teaching

Two studies just published and summarized by ScienceDaily.com together illustrate how critical context is to understanding and (pronunciation) teaching. One is on the impact of voice technology; the other, on AI-assisted or created Haiku. 

In the first, How voice technology influences what we reveal about ourselves, by Melzner, Bonezzi, and Meyvis, published originally in the Journal of Marketing Research, it was revealed that customers, not surprisingly, will reveal more about themselves, directly or indirectly when responding by speaking to automated systems, rather than interacting on the keyboard with text messaging. Some of that "revelation" is actually paralinguistic (voice characteristics such as pitch and pacing) and background sounds. In other words . . . context. 

In the Haiku study, Basho in the machine: Humans find attributes of beauty and discomfort in algorithmic haiku, by Ueda at Kyoto University Institute for the Future of Human and Society, discovered, basically, that subjects rated haiku created by humans collaborating with AI higher, in general, than Haiku created just by AI or humans, but, if they suspected the engagement of AI in the process, the ratings went down. (Exactly how subjects were prompted to check for that is not indicated, but just the very suggestion of possible AI "meddling" had to have a pervasive effect, undermining the validity of the study, potentially skewing the perceptions and expectations of the subjects . . . )

(Full disclosure, having lived in Japan for a decade, I came away with a great appreciation for haiku, such that it gradually became both my preferred genre for reading pleasure and poetic expression.) 

How does this all tie together with pronunciation teaching? In both studies, context is critical. In fact, haiku only works when the context is either provided in advance and often explained in great detail OR where the subjects have grown up in . . . well . . .Japan, where the form is encountered from infancy. Great haiku as an art form, itself, generally recreates context (or possible contexts) in the mind of the devotee/reader. In both cases, comprehension is grounded in context, not in the form, itself. 

So it is with pronunciation teaching as well. It is possible to work with pronunciation out of explicit context and the sounds or patterns be later available in spontaneous language use, but the treatment has to have almost "haiku-like" in salience for the learner. On the other hand, the immediate context of let's say attention to a consonant, as in the AI voice study, is encoded along with the targeted sound, e.g., the voice characteristics, including stress and disruptive performance markers of student and model, the room ambience, and the neurology and biomes of learners and instructors all--and all either enabling or disabling recall later. 

In other words, unless context, in several senses, is working for  you or being proactively generated in pronunciation work, the odds are not with you. For that reason, in part, the KINETIK method approach and others like it are designed to consistently embed pronunciation in regular, good course content or personally memorable, engaging narrative of some kind, where the chances of the focus of the work being remembered should be at least better, or at least with less clutter. 

O AI, eh? Aye!
O the story is long but . . . 
The tail is longer

Sources: 

American Marketing Association. (2022, November 30). How voice technology influences what we reveal about ourselves. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 20, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221130114606.htm

Kyoto University. (2022, December 2). Basho in the machine: Humans find attributes of beauty and discomfort in algorithmic haiku. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 20, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221201122920.htm

Now we are REALLY talking (with students about pragmatics with meta-pragmatics!)

More big news! Our latest research report, our second, "Role-play and dialogic meta-pragmatics in developing and assessing pragmatic competence," is now officially in press with Pedagogical Linguistics, coming out later this fall, hopefully! Here is the abstract: 

Role-play as a bridging and integrating practice in language teaching and development of pragmatic competence in learners is well-established. In an EAP classroom (Van Dyke & Acton, 2021) explored the impact of one fluency protocol, Cooperative Attending Skills Training, by which students were trained to listen attentively to shared personal stories, working toward more sophisticated strategies of conversational interaction. That system included dialogic, pragmatics-focused, spontaneous analysis and instructor-student discussion of interactional discourse features. With that experience, further modeling and conceptual input, participants in this study engaged in six role-plays, each involving a problem requiring pragmatic accommodation. The data from transcribed role-plays were analyzed in terms of pragmatic discourse functions and NVivo-based thematic threads. The generally successful application of the targeted skills and concepts by course end most likely resulted from the engaging meta-pragmatic interactions preceding the role-plays, and the formal and informal instructor feedback related to implicature, prosody, implicit understandings, direct conversation strategies, grammar, and vocabulary.

This is a follow on to the previous piece, probably the second of three or four: 

Van Dyke, A. & Acton, W. (2022). Spontaneous classroom engagement facilitating development of L2 pragmatic competence: A naturalistic study. Pedagogical Linguistics 3(1) 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.20011.van

As reported in a previous blogpost, we'll be doing a pre-convention institute at the 2023 TESOL convention next March in Portland, based on our research. By then the next phase of the analysis, centering on prosodics and pragmatics should be in "presentable form." See you there! 

Unemotional, improvement in conscientiousness in school (and homework and pronunciation) !!!

Here is a pair of studies just too good to believe which suggest that you can train subjects (students?) to become more conscientious without much if any conscious buy in, but (SURPRISE) to train somebody to greater emotional stability takes genuine commitment on their part. Part of the "trick" apparently is to do the conscientiousness training very carefully and incrementally (and unemotionally?) so that subjects don't catch on and react negatively. 

A quick summary of the studies by Hudson of Southern Methodist University, as further summarized by our friends at Sciencedaily.com. In the first study, college students were, in essence, asked which personality trait they'd like to improve, conscientiousness or emotional stability. They were then randomly assigned to one type of treatment without being informed as to why. The "conscientiousness" training included tasks such as being better organized. 

Regardless of the students initial selection those who were trained in conscientiousness reported improvement. In a second study, students were asked the same question but some were, instead, purposely assigned to "greater emotional stability," even though that was not their choice. Believe it or not, that intervention did not work for some reason . . . 

Now setting aside the "silly" second study, that you can train students to better emotional stability without their active commitment, the idea that getting students to improve in terms of conscientiousness without their active buy in is, of course, worth considering. Highly successful instructional systems all accomplish that. 

The question is how do you "unemotionally" but effectively and consistently promote conscientiousness, especially more autonomous engagement from that perspective, even when that is not initially a conscious priority for leaners? How does your course presentation and instructional system make that work? How does culture play into that type of discipline? Let us know!

In haptic pronunciation teaching, and especially the v6.0 KINETIK Method, effective homework is critical, at least a total of two hours weekly, to achieve substantial improvement. That is accomplished, in part, by first foregrounding disciple as a key feature of the system in the course introduction and then by proscribing almost minute-by-minute, 20-minute practice routines to be done daily, best case. Be delighted to tell you much more about that, in fact: www.actonhaptic.com/KINETIK

 

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CPR for Pronunciation homework and teaching . . . that works!

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Excellent study by Martin, "Pronunciation Can Be Acquired Outside the Classroom: Design and Assessment of Homework-Based Training," a real MUST READ for you if you are serious about pronunciation teaching, demonstrating that at least one kind of (computer-mediated)  homework system is not only effective, but may work as well as classroom-only instruction. 

The basic process in the homework phase was what is termed, iCPR, computer-based, intelligibility focused cued pronunciation reading. Learners are provided with explicit instruction, explanation and then both perceptual and production training and practice, with feedback in the perceptual phase/practice only. 

The study involved adult learners of German, extending over 10 weeks, with the equivalent of about 30 minutes of instruction either in class or out of class. The in-class lessons seemed to closely mimic the process and time allocation of the homework. From a number of perspectives, either treatment showed equally significant improvement and student satisfaction. Methodologically, the project seems tight, although the use of the term, homework, is probably a little misleading today when the learner never really "leaves" the web in some form during the day except for sleep . . . 

In corresponding with the researcher, my only question was: How (on earth) did you get the students to DO their homework? Surely it  had something to do with the "sell" up front, the allocation of grade points (easily accounted for in the computer-mediated system) and (probably) early student awareness to some degree of the program's efficacy. So . . . it looks well conceived, a highly detailed blueprint of how to set up a similar system. 

Setting aside the question of just how readily the process can be adopted and adapted for the moment, what this shows or means is that Martin has given us another intriguing picture of the future of pronunciation teaching: pronunciation work handled outside of in-class instruction. 

To paraphrase Lincoln Steffens: "I have seen the future (of pronunciation teaching) and it works. [remark after visiting the Soviet Union in 1919]” or maybe even Marshall McLuhan: "If it works, it's obsolete." . . . The field is changing fast. Pronounced change, to put it mildly!

Source: 

The Modern Language Journal, 0, 0, (2020) DOI: 10.1111/modl.12638 0026-7902/20/1–23 National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations

50+ ways to touch on and remember better pronunciation

Fascinating study by Hutmacher and Kuhbandner of the University of Regensburg  (summarized by ScienceDaily.com) that helps us better understand the possibilities and potential of haptic engagement in integrated learning and recall: Long-term memory for haptically explored objects: fidelity, durability, incidental encoding, and cross-modal transfer. 

In that study, blindfolded and not blindfolded subjects were asked to consider the texture, weight and size of 168 everyday objects--by handling them. The first group were told to memorize the objects since they would be tested later. (post-test accuracy of 94% ) The second group was instructed just to evaluate each item on its aesthetic qualities without further clarification as to what that meant.

In the follow up tests a week later subjects (blindfolded) were given half the items accompanied by similar items varying in only one parameter (texture, weight or size). Both groups demonstrated remarkable ability to distinguish the targeted objects (79% ~73% respectively). The point of the study was to explore both the extent of information recall in the purely haptic condition, as opposed to the visual-haptic experience, and the relative impact across modalities.

The parallel to haptic pronunciation work is striking: identifying differences in sounds or sound patterns that are, in reality, very similar and initially difficult to both perceive and produce for the learner--based to some extent on both touch and touch plus conscious visual appreciation of the objects. 

Haptic pronunciation teaching, not surprisingly, involves extensive use of about a half dozen types of touch. If we count based on technique/type x location, there are something like 400+ actual instances of the hands touching in various ways, various other "body parts." The ability to discriminate between types of touch appears to be the key--a valuable feature of  all pronunciation teaching but especially haptic work.

It works something like this. The targeted sound, a vowel, for example, is associated with:

• a position in the visual field 
• a position of one hand at that point in the visual field (at a azimuth on the compass)
• a trajectory of the other hand from in front of the larynx (voice box) to touching the other hand that varies in terms of speed and course (straight or curved) 
• some type of touch (See description of touch types below.) That is part of the information encoded with the sound which should contribute to production and recall. 

The idea, the fundamental principle of haptic pronunciation work, is that learners can more accurately recall the sound while performing the haptic "move" that accompanies it. (Research on gesture-enabled recall is compelling and extensive in several perceptual domains.)  In fact, to be most effective, when corrective feedback is provided, generally the leaner first sees the instructor perform the gestural move, termed a "pedagogical movement pattern", without the sound before performing the "haptic complex" of sound plus movement and touch themselves.

Representative haptic (variable touch-plus-gesture) gesture types and visual properties involved:

• light tap of finger tips in middle of palm 
• hold (full hands touch; no movement) 
• finger tips touch: then push in one direction 
• open hand moves/rolls around fist 
• finger nails scratch across palms 
• light touch of ball in hand 
• strong squeeze of ball in hand 
• middle fingers slide from finger tips to heel of other hand 
• finger tips tap deltoid muscle 
• finger tips tap bachio-radialis above elbows 
• feet contact with floor, either to syllable stress or heels raise on rising pitch
• hands to various points of contact on the face, collar bones, abs, etc.
• tongue, teeth, lips touched by wooden stick or hands to mark points of articulation

To see demonstrations of those haptic pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) and learn more about haptic pronunciation teaching, join us at the next webinars on May 17th and 18th. For reservations: info@actonhaptic.com.

Source:
Association for Psychological Science. (2018, November 27). Touch can produce detailed, lasting memories. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 22, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181127092532.htm

Feeling distracted, distant or drained by pronunciation work? Don't be downcast; blame your smartphone!

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It all makes sense now. I knew there had to be more (or less) going on when students are not thoroughly engaged or seemingly not attentive during pronunciation teaching, mine, especially. Two new studies, taken together, provide a depressing picture of what we are up against, but also suggest something of an antidote as well.

Tigger warning: This may be perceived as slightly more fun than (new/old) science. 

The first, summarized by ScienceDaily.com, is Dealing with digital distraction: Being ever-connected comes at a cost, studies find, by Dwyer and Dunn of The University of British Columbia. From the summary:

"Our digital lives may be making us more distracted, distant and drained . . . Results showed that people reported feeling more distracted during face-to-face interactions if they had used their smartphone compared with face-to-face interactions where they had not used their smartphone. The students also said they felt less enjoyment and interest in their interaction if they had been on their phone."

What is most interesting or relevant about the studies reported, and the related literature review, is the focus on the impact of digital smartphone use prior to what should be quite meaningful f2f  interaction--either dinner or what should have been a more intimate conversation--THE ESSENCE OF EFFECTIVE PRONUNCIATION AND OTHER FORMS OF INSTRUCTION! Somehow the digital "appetizer" made the meal and interpersonal interaction . . . well . . . considerably less appetizing.

Why should that be the case? The research on the multiple ways in which digital life can be depersonalizing and disconnecting is extensive and persuasive, but there is maybe something more "at hand" here.

A second study--which caught my eye as I was websurfing on the iPhone in the drive-through lane at Starbucks--dealt with what seem to be similar effects produced by "bad" posture, specifically studying something with head bowed, as opposed to doing the same with the text at eye level, with optimal posture: Do better in math: How your body posture may change stereotype threat response” by Peper, Harvey, Mason, and Lin of San Francisco State University, sumarized in NeuroscienceNews.com. 

Subjects did better and felt better if they sat upright and relaxed, as opposed to looking down at the study materials, a posture which according the authors . .  "is a defensive posture that can trigger old negative associations."

So, add up the effect of those two studies and what do you get? Lousy posture AND digital, draining distraction. Not only do my students use smartphones WITH HEAD BOWED up until the moment class starts, but I even have them do more of it in class! 

Sit up and take note, eh!

Citations:
American Psychological Association. (2018, August 10). Dealing with digital distraction: Being ever-connected comes at a cost, studies find. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 12, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180810161553.htm

San Francisco State University (2018, August 4). Math + Good Posture = Better Scores. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved August 4, 2018 from http://neurosciencenews.com/math-score-posture-9656/

Mesmerizing teaching (and pronunciation teachers)

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The topics of  attention salience and unconscious learning have come up any number of times over the course of the history of the blog, beginning with one of my favorites on that subject back in 2011 on Milton Erickson. In part because of the power of media today and the "discoveries" by neuroscience that we do, indeed, learn on many levels, some out of our immediate awareness, there is renewed interest in the topics--even from Starbucks!

A fascinating new book (to me at least) by Ogden, Credulity: A Cultural History of US Mesmerism, summarized by Neuroscience News, explores the history of  "Mesmerism" and a bit about its contemporary manifestations.(QED. . . . if you were not aware that it is still with us!) Ogden is most interested in understanding the abiding attraction of purposeful manipulation or management of unconscious communication, attention and learning. One fascinating observation, from the Neuroscience News summary is:

" . . . that one person’s power of suggestion over another enables the possibility of creating a kind of collaborative or improvisational performance, even unintentionally without people setting it up on purpose."

Get that?  ". . . collaborative or improvisational performance . . . created "unintentionally" Are you aware that you promote that or do any of that in your classroom? If you are, great; if not, great, but is that not also an interesting characterization of the basis of interaction in the language teaching classroom, especially where the focus is modeling, corrective feedback and metacognitive work in pragmatics and usage? In other words, suggestion is at the very heart of instructor-student engagement in some dimensions of the pedagogical process. Unconscious learning and relational affinities were for some time contained in Chomsky's infamous "black box," but are now the subject of extensive research in neuroscience and elsewhere.

And there are, of course, any number of factors that may affect what goes on "below decks" as it were. Turns out there is  (not surprisingly) even a well-established gender dimension or bias to unconscious learning as well.Ya think? A 2015 study by Ziori and Dienes, summarized by Frontiers in Psychology.org, highlights a critical feature of that cognitive process keyed or confounded by the variable of "attentional salience."

In that study, "Facial beauty affects implicit and explicit learning of men and women differently", the conscious and unconscious learning of men was significantly downgraded when the task involved analyzing language associated with the picture of a beautiful woman. Women, on the other hand, actually did BETTER in that phase of the study. The beautiful face did  not distract them in the least, it seemed, in fact to further concentrate their cognitive processing of the linguistic puzzle.

Now exactly why that is the case the researchers only speculate. For example, it may be that men are programmed to tend to see a beautiful woman more initially as "physically of interest", whereas women may see or sense first a competitor, which actually sharpens their processing of the problem at hand.  It was very evident, however, that what is termed "incentive salience" had a strong impact or at least siphoned off cognitive processing resources  . . . for the boys.

There are many dimensions of what we do in instruction that are loaded with "incentive salience", fun or stimulating stuff that we suppose will in essence attract attention or stimulate learners to at least wake up so we can do something productive. Pronunciation instruction is filled with such gimmicks and populated by a disproportionate number of former cheer leaders and "dramatic persona." The combination of unconscious connectivity and "beautiful" techniques may actually work against us.

In haptic work we figured out about a decade ago that not only how you look but what you wear can impact effectiveness of mirroring of instructor gesture in class. The fact that I am old and bald may account for the fact that students find me easier to follow than some of my younger associates? Take heart, my friends, the assumed evolutionary advantage of "beautiful people" may not only be waning, but actually be working against them in the pronunciation classroom at least! 

Killing pronunciation 7: Talking learners (and instructors) out of pronunciation change

Credit: Anna Shaw

How do you persuade students to work on their pronunciation--or sell them on it, especially pronunciation-related homework?  If you are using more "distal senses" such as sight and/or sound, according to a new study by Elder, Schlosser, Poor, Xu of Brigham Young University, summarized by Science Daily, you may not have the right approach. If, on the other "hand", your method evokes a more "proximal" sense experience (such as movement, touch and/or taste), you are probably on the right track. (I'm sure you can see where this is headed!)

The BYU study dealt with the impact of advertising on what type of pitch and/sensory imagery seems to get you to make a commitment to buy sooner, rather than later. The actual journal title, So Close I Can Almost Sense It: The Interplay between Sensory Imagery and Psychological Distance, describes the research well. What they found, not surprisingly, is that imagery connecting to or evoking a "felt" somatic response from the body, in effect, draws you in faster, and more effectively.

That does not mean that you DO something physical, only that the imagery on a screen in this case, may get the customer or learner's brain to respond AS IF actual touch or taste was involved, generating a very real feeling or taste-related memory. That mirroring effect, in part entertained by "mirror neurons" in the brain, is well established in brain research. To the brain under most circumstances the distinction between how we feel when we observe and do can be minimal. Turns out our metaphors are more than metaphors, in other words.

Some of the variability here may have to do with our personal instructional style in bringing learners' attention to, in this case, what they need to do outside of class. How do you do that? A list somewhere in the syllabus? An oral announcement? Something written on the board? A brief oral run through of what is to be done? A brief rehearsal w/students of what is to be done? What is very important here is not the actual classroom activity but the imagery that it evokes. And the key to that is what prior schema the classroom event is linking back to--and how, in the moment, it is delivered and experienced.

Pronunciation instruction done right is both an exceedingly physical and meta-cognitive process. What haptic work attempts to do is achieve that balance consistently. There are other ways to do that, of course, but most student textbooks, for example, either don't or can't, in part because the activities are presented and taught in a purely linear fashion. Haptic is ALWAYS simultaneous--sound, movement, and cognition (haptic) engagement, in effect, communicating more intentionally with learners in pronunciation change in and with somatic (body-based) imagery.

Still not sold? Try rereading the blog in the hot tub or on an exercise ball . . .

Full citation from ScienceDaily.com:
Brigham Young University. (2017, June 28). Now or later: How taste and sound affect when you buy: The way ads play on our senses influences the timing of our purchases. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 23, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170628095858.htm

The "wrong" way to get pronunciation teaching right!

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If you don't get the James Clear newsletter already, go sign up for it, or at least read his latest piece on "inversion": Inversion: The Crucial Thinking Skill Nobody Ever Taught You.  Inversion, or "envisioning the negative things that could happen in life" is not a popular strategy today for any number reasons. People who dwell on the downside may not be all that welcome in any social or professional context, but, as Clear demonstrates, used appropriately such "thinking out of the box" processes such as "If we wanted to kill the company or the program, how might we do that?" often reveal unique and innovative solutions. He gives a number of famous examples. 

I recently experimented with that heuristic on my own model, method and business plan with some striking results and . . . revelations. I had earlier worked with an executive coach for about 6 months  and "inversion" would have been absolutely anathema to that process: Think positive; visualize positive goals and outcomes; consider effective strategies and moves going forward. But what if I, instead, had focused in on the consequences of NOT staying  goal-oriented and upbeat? Actually, I might be further along than I am now . . .

Just for a fun thought experiment, try out questions such as these on your own program, course, system or method:

How could I . . .  

• Provide useless or pointless advice on self correction or self-instruction of pronunciation?
• Disconnect student's from their bodies in pronunciation work?
• Undermine students' development of intelligibility or accuracy?
• Help students develop a deep distrust and aversion to an English or English dialect spoken by any other group? 
• Establish impossible targets of perfection for learners?
• Create enough emotional tension or distraction in the room to seriously interfere with students "uptaking" pronunciation instruction?
• Make sure that students don't do pronunciation homework? 
• Arrange student groups to discourage constructive collaborative work? 
• Use correction to badger, berate or bully students? 
• Seriously mess with learners' identities in teaching pronunciation? 
• Make pronunciation instruction as boring as possible? 
• Make students think their pronunciation is better than it is? 
• Successfully ignore attention to pronunciation entirely? 
• Talk more about pronunciation than actually do anything with it? 
• Be an awful model for my students?
• Teach pronunciation without any training in it?
• Teach pronunciation without using phonetic symbols? 
• Encourage students to go to some "Miracle Accent Reduction" website instead of working with me?. 
• Make students think their accent is bad or could not use a little enhancement

 Based on that exercise, I have made some important changes in how v5.0 of the haptic pronunciation system will look when it rolls out. Now I just have to work through what will happen if that doesn't work, of course!

 Please feel free to add to the list in the comment section!

KIT

Bill

Killing pronunciation 6: Eliminating distraction (and episodic memory) with gesture!

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Have wondered for years why at times even the most ingenious use of gesture itself may not enhance memory for a sound or word. I assumed that it had something to do with what the learner was paying attention to at the time but had never seen any study that seemed to unpack that problem all that well. We know, for example, that visual distraction can effectively all but cancel out the impact of a haptic (movement + gesture) stimulus or haptic-anchored gesture. But why doesn't gesture generally just reinforce whatever is the focus of instruction or repetition? Turns out that it may be our Achilles Heel. Here's a clue.


A fascinating study by Laurent, Ensslin and Mari-Beffa (2015) entitled, An action to an object does not improve its episodic encoding, but removes distraction, illustrates the potentially double-edged nature of gesture. Without getting into the somewhat complex but innovative research design, what they discovered is that gesture accompanying focus on an object did not enhance episodic memory for the object and the context or surroundings but did strongly curtail distraction. evident in the diminished memory for other elements of the event. (Think of episodic memory as basically potential recall of emotional setting plus the 5 "W"s: who, what, where, why and when of a happening.) 

In other words, gesture accompanying a phrase, for example, should at least cut back on distracting features of the moment or context . . . but, other than that, it may not be adding much to the mix. It may be actually working against you.

At first glance, that may appear to at least to some extent undermine use of gesture in teaching. It does, in fact. Haptic pronunciation teaching, which uses gesture anchored by touch on stressed elements, is based on the principle that gesture that is not carefully controlled and focused with touch is "a wash" . . . it may or may not work. Over enthusiastic gesture use, for example, may not only turn off many of the students, compounded by cultural differences, but, in effect, it can be so distracting in itself that the language focus is lost entirely. 

It took me a couple of decades of working with kinesthetic pronunciation teaching techniques to figure that out. That insight came basically in the form of wildly divergent reports and feedback on gesture effectiveness by classroom teachers. Pronunciation teachers are generally by nature more "gesticular", often highly energetic and "moving" speakers. Perhaps you have to be in many contexts just to motivate students and maintain their attention, but it can, indeed, be our Achilles Heel. Is it yours? 

If so, get in touch (either with us or your local yoga, Alexander Technique, Lessac practitioner or Tai Chi shop!)

Source:
Laurent, X.; Ensslin, A. and  Mari-Beffa, P. (2015) An action to an object does not improve its episodic encoding, but removes distraction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 44(1), 244.

Killing pronunciation 4: Dis-integrated vs prior schema-based pronunciation change

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What does it mean to "integrate" pronunciation work into "regular" instruction? And if you do, how do you know if it "worked"--or why? : Caveat emptor: Without informed, systematic follow up, most pronunciation instruction is probably a crap shoot, dicey at best. 

That thought was again inspired, in part, by a recent article in the new Handbook of  Pronunciation Teaching by Sicola and Darcy entitled: Integrating Pronunciation into the Language Classroom.  

To access the chapter you have to buy the Handbook itself, prices ranging from about $125 to $195USD, plus tax and shipping, or just the online chapter itself for about $35USD--or from about 6 vente carmel frapps up to around 40!

In essence, Sicola and Darcy argue that since there is a range of pronunciation teaching techniques and strategies that have been shown to produce some gain or results in reported practice or quasi-experimental studies, then when integrated into general classroom instruction--as opposed to being taught in a separate class or individualized work online-- they should work in that integrated context, too. Really? I think they are maybe half right, but they have almost no "hard" evidence to support that claim.

An earlier post focused on why figuring out whether or not a method works can be so problematic in education today: basically, integrated instruction can mask the actual impact of individual techniques and procedures, such as homework--or pronunciation. Context of instruction trumps technique, almost always.

The near consensus among researchers investigating in-class feedback and correction, for example, as unpacked in a recent blogpost, is now that for genuine, effective uptake to occur in pronunciation work it must be predominantly in follow up that it occurs not in initial in-class presentation and practice -- or homework, but as it followed up on later and repeatedly (Rosario et al, 2015).

So, how do you best set up the key pronunciation schema that you need to use in everyday instruction, in little vignettes or mini-lessons inserted into speaking, listening, reading and writing courses, or . . . in something like the old reliable, stand alone "pronunciation class" that provided the basic training that was then followed up on or used spontaneously during incidental "teachable moments"  by any and all instructors in the program at large?

Where are we headed? My guess: back to good "out of class" experience and basic pronunciation  training, either in the form of specific pronunciation-designated classes or something analogous, such as web-based training,  that is then referred back to by instructors in integrated pronunciation work all over the place and curriculum. In other words, pronunciation techniques should be part of everybody's tool kit but ideally the basic training should occur someplace else, before the problem is addressed in class. Our colleagues who do public speaking and voice training have had this right for decades.

The sooner some of what passes for (one-shot-mini-lesson-in-the-middle-of-something-else-with-no-clear-follow-up-based) integrated instruction disintegrates, the better! (It already has in haptic pronunciation instruction, of course, should you need a great model of how to do it!)

Sources:

Rosario, P., Nunez, J., Vallejo, G., Cunha, J., Nunes, T., Suarez, N., Fuentes, S. & Moreira, T. (2015). The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' EFL performance: a randomized-group design. Retrieved from: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528/full.

Tired of just "horsing around" with pronunciation? Key principles of equestrian training applied to pronunciation teaching

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If you have followed this blog for a bit, you know that some of my favorite models for understanding key aspects of body-biased/haptic pronunciation teaching come from golf (Hank Haney) and horse training (Griffin, University of Kentucky), two disciplines where "training the body first" (Lessac) are a given. Recently I spent a pleasant evening with trainers of "cutting" quarter horses.

The commonality of effective training concepts was striking. One reason for that is that both disciplines require at least understanding of how to train the body, relatively independent of language and meta-cognitive involvement. Here are some of the principles from Griffin's list, along with my informal extrapolation to pronunciation teaching (in italics):

• "Research has shown that horses work harder and maintain higher response rates when reinforcements are not on a predictable schedule. You should avoid becoming routine when reinforcing responses." Question: How do you reinforce appropriate pronunciation? My guess is that you have a very limited repertoire of responses, at best. Record yourself or have a colleague observe you in action . . . weep!
• "Long, concentrated learning sessions are an inefficient method of training horses. A more effective training method is to have more training sessions per week of shorter duration. Work on different maneuvers each day. Refrain from repetitive drilling on a maneuver after the horse has learned it well." This is the gold standard of integrated instruction, especially with multi-level classes, requiring consistent preparation and follow up. That last note is especially revealing, what is known as the "delearning effect." (In haptic instruction that is particularly relevant.)
• "Inherent emotionality is a horse's (general) psychological state.  . . . A good trainer quickly recognizes the emotional state of the horse and adjusts training regimens accordingly." Pronunciation teaching/learning is perhaps the most emotionally problematic aspect of language learning. Research (e.g. Baker, 2012) has established that a surprising number of instructors avoid pronunciation for that reason alone.
• "  . . . An older horse may have a decreased learning performance, most likely because it has learned to ignore the type of stimuli often utilized in learning." This actually goes back to the first point: balance between variety and consistency. Pronunciation techniques have the (probably deserved) reputation of being boring in the extreme, with drill and meaningless "speaking" or oral reading. There are, of course, other ways to anchor new patterns and sounds. (See the right hand column, for instance . . . )
• "Horses have very good memory . . . Recent research in this area has shown that horses learn to learn. The learn-to-learn phenomenon is simple: The more tasks a horse learns to perform, the easier it will be for that horse to learn new tasks. These new tasks may be tasks that the horse will never use, but they will aid in learning ability." This one is critical for pronunciation instruction: It is not absolutely essential that everything presented is recognized by learners as being immediately applicable or "relevant" to their use of the language. Learning, itself, enhances ability to learn, in effect. Recent research on "simple" memorization, for example,  has demonstrated that the very practice itself helps learners develop better memories and aptitude for learning in general--and memory for longer lists of procedural "steps" as well.

The parallel is remarkable. With the advent of more and more web-based instruction, learners are by default being forced to learn more by reading text and listening, along with often exceedingly "disembodied" speaking in response. Haptic pronunciation teaching, of course, is one approach, as are several others, requiring more or less instructor explicit management of body movement and presentation/control.

Saddle up!