Emphatic prosody: Oral reading rides again! (in language teaching)

Clipart: Clker.com

Two friends have related to me how they conclude interviews. One (a) asks applicants "Napoleon's final question" (that he would supposedly pose to potential officers for his army): "Are you lucky?" and (b) has them do a brief, but challenging oral reading. 'A' provides most of what the first needs to know about their character. 'B', the other says, is the best indicator of their potential as a radio broadcaster--or as language teacher. I occasionally use both, especially in considering candidates for (haptic) pronunciation teaching.

One of the "standard" practices of the radio broadcasters (and, of course, actors) on their way to expertise (which some claim takes around 10,000 hours), I'm told, is to consistently practice what is to be read on air or performed, out loud. Have done a number of posts over the years on "read aloud" techniques in general reading instruction with children and language teaching, including the Lectio Divina tradition. Research continues to affirm the importance of oral work in developing both reading fluency and comprehension.

Recently "discovered" a very helpful paper 2010 paper by Erekson, coming out of research in reading, entitled, Prosody and Interpretation, where he examines the distinction between syntactic (functioning at the phrasal level) prosody and emphatic prosody used for interpretation (at the discourse level.) One of the interesting connections that Erekson examines is that between standard indices of reading fluency and expressiveness, specifically control of emphatic prosody. In other words, getting students to read expressively has myriad benefits. Research from a number of perspectives supports that general position on the use of "expressive oral reading" (Patel and McNab, 2011); "reading aloud with kids"  (De Lay, 2012); "automated assessment of fluency" (Mostow and Duong, 2009); "fluency and subvocalization" (Ferguson, Nielson and Anderson, 2014).

The key distinction here is expressiveness at the structural as opposed to discourse level.  It is one thing to get learners to imitate prosody from an annotated script (like we do in haptic work--see below) and quite another to get them to mirror expressiveness in a drama, whether reading from a script without structural cues, as in Reader's Theatre, or impromptu.

Oral reading figures (or figured) prominently in many teaching methods.  The EHIEP (Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation) system, provides contextualized practice in the form of short dialogues where learners use pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs), gestural patterns to accompany each phrase which culminate with hands touching on designated stressed syllables. That is the most important feature of assigned pronunciation homework. Although that is, of course, primarily structural prosody  (in the Lectio Divina tradition) we see consistent evidence that oral performance leads to enhanced interpretative expressiveness.

I suspect that we are going to see a strong return to systematic oral reading in language teaching as interest in pragmatic and discourse competence increases. So, if expressiveness is such an important key to not only fluency but interpretation in general, then how can you do a better job of fostering that in students?

Ready?

Read out loud, expressively: "Read out loud expressively and extensively!" 

Aesthetic (haptic) touch

Clip art: Clker

For many, the idea of attending to touch is considerably outside of their conceptual box and comfort zone. Linked above is a nice piece from a sculptor, Rosalyn Driscoll, that helps to inform our understanding of the way in which the creative use of touch can be experienced. One dimension of her art is that the audience actually touches the pieces or projects and in that manner comes to interpret and appreciate it. The felt sense of that process--and HICP work, I might add-- ought to to be an attitude or mindset of curiosity, sensitivity and appreciation. When it is, being able to later recall and integrate what was in focus is much more than just a nice "aesthetic touch"--it is the essence of sound learning. Our students as well ought to be "touched" by our EHIEP instruction and theirs.