Required reading! (New book on Embodied Cognition in Teaching and Learning)

Put this one on your list:  Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning, edited by Macrine, S. & Fugate, J., MIT Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.001.0001

From the promo: "Experts translate {at least some of} the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy." (Braces, mine!) There are "only" 18 chapters, 330 pages, and the topics covered are not exhaustive, of course, but several, including the opening section on theories of embodied cognition are well worth a careful read. That is especially the case since it is FREE, open access!

In addition to the excellent concluding section, my favorite chapter thus far, one that connects very directly to the KINETIK Method and haptic pronunciation teaching is: "Embodied Classroom Activities for Vocabulary Acquisition," by Gomez, L. and Glenberg, A. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.003.0011

Enjoy! Embody it all! 

Bill

The Thrill of the Drill in Pronunciation Teaching! (The First Hapticanar is coming!)

 Here is the full "Hai(ptic)ku" (And here is the link to the June 8th Hapticanar: www.actonhaptic.com)

• The thrill of the drill
• Springs up in sound instruction
• Instead of the shrill!

The "Godfather" of language teaching, Jack Richards, consigned the poor, hapless practice of drill in language teaching to the category of "mechanical and meaningless" forever with notes such as this:

"Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using. Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed to practice use of particular grammatical or other items. Activities of this kind are of limited value in developing communicative language use."

(Just in case you have forgotten or never been really taught the types of drill, Juicy English has a concise of what drill is.)

Actually, I'd have to agree with Richards if drill is done in the context of " . . . without necessarily understanding the language." In haptic pronunciation teaching, drill is used but with language that is part of the course content, generally pulled out temporarily from a story or text or dialogue, not just a random list of words or grammar structures. 

However, what we have learned over the years from our student-teachers who are "trapped" in systems that allow no leeway in what is done in class is this:  Even if your textbook and your curriculum demands  "decontextualized" drill of the type Richards is describing, just performing those activities "haptically" with gesture and touch can make a real difference in student engagement and ability to remember at least more of the words and patterns being, and impact the mood and energy of the class. In one of the upcoming hapticanars I'll have an interview with a teacher who demonstrates just how that works!

Join us Tuesday!

KINETIK (Pronunciation Teaching) Method: Embodied cognition-centered, the way kid's learn . . . math!

One of the most intriguing parallels to haptic pronunciation teaching is with embodied math instruction with children. In a 2021piece in Frontiers in Psychology by Berman and Ramani, Integrating Embodied Cognition and Information Processing: A Combined Model of the Role of Gesture in Children's Mathematical Environments, of University of Maryland, propose a comprehensive model that also applies in very interesting ways to the new KINETIK Method. Beginning from an embodied cognition perspective (that is the learning experience must be understood as anchored in both the body and the "outside" milieu, the social context,) it connects more explicitly the critical role and function played by the hands-on methodology in that problem-based context, to math concept learning. 

The contribution of the haptic (gesture, plus touch) techniques of the KINETIK method, especially the several ways in which the hand engagement defines what an object is and how it relates other objects and the focus of the task "at hand," provides a framework for interpreting the place of the various components of the gesture and touch based techniques. 

To see more about just how that framework connects to classroom instruction in pronunciation with children and adults, join us at the weekly haptic webinars (Hapticanars) beginning on June 8th! For more information on the (free) Hapticanars and sign up, go to www.actonhaptic.com. 

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.650286/full

Glutin' your way to better pronunciation!

This is the second of a series of posts introducing and exploring aspects of the new (RHYTHM-FIRST) v 5.0 haptic approach to pronunciation teaching. Most of the new system can be used with or without gesture and touch, in part because it begins with the feet! The technique described here is not part of the current system, but it may well be later, particularly in teacher training. It is certainly  . . . different. I "discovered" it very much by accident . . . literally!

Had to go to physio because of an overuse injury to my right glute caused by trying to run faster than my legs would allow in a 10k. One of the prescribed exercises was to stand up and alternatively tighten and relax each glute, while stepping to either side, about 18 inches. While doing it one afternoon I just happened to sync or dance along with a song on the iPhone, sort of glutin'

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on the stressed words.

A few days later, working with an advanced ESL student with serious problems related to rhythm and stress placement in English, I had her try glutin' along with first a word list and then on the stressed words in a scripted dialogue, and then just before we finished, had her do some of the same as she was spontaneously describing to me an event that had occured the previous day.

The immediate impact on her speaking style was dramatic; the change over the next two weeks, at least in retelling stories and simple, informal conversation, was equally remarkable, transformational. Have since tried out glutin' with half a dozen other students with pretty consistent results. Have not worked on how to teach it to a full class of students, but I'm working on it.

The technique actually mirrors several other procedures we use that induce the body, especially the upper torso to sync to phrasal and clausal rhythm. I'd do a video of this, but there would, of course, be nothing to "see" without the right/tight, revealing camera angle on a well-gluted speaker wearing potentially distracting fashion tights . . .

In the interim, just for fun, try it out, yourself, then with some students and report back.

How watching curling can make you a better teacher!

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Tigger alert: This post contains application of insights from curling and business sales to teaching, certainly nothing to be Pooh-Poohed. 

The piece linked above by Dooley on Forbes.com, How watching curling helps you sell better, explores the potential effects of ongoing attention to sales, brushing away obstacles, influencing the course of "the rock." Most importantly, however, it emphasizes the idea of constantly examining and influencing the behavior of your customers (your students.)

It sounds at first like that analogy flies in the face of empowering the learner and encouraging learner autonomy, let alone questionable manipulation . . .  Not quite. It speaks more to instructor responsibility for doing as much as possible to facilitate the process, but especially the whole range of "influencing" behaviors that neuroscience is "rediscovering" for us, many times less explicit and only marginally out of learner awareness, such as room milieu, pacing, voice characteristics, timing and even . . . homework or engagement with the language outside of class.

Marketers, wedded to the new neuroscience (or pseudo-science) consultants, are way out ahead of us in some respects, far behind in others. What are some major "rocks" that you might better outmaneuver with astute, consistent micro-moves, staying ahead, brushing aside obstacles? One book you might consider "curling  up with, with a grain of salt" is Dooley's Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing.

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!

The business of correcting and remembering pronunciation

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Doing a workshop today on correcting pronunciation with Rebeka delaMorandiere, based on her recently completed MA Thesis at the BC TESOL annual conference in Burnaby, BC. The conference attendees are generally public school teachers, so the focus is on classroom correction strategies for key pronunciation problems. Will see about posting some version of the Powerpoint later.

One  new addition to the overall framework is the inclusion of a (somewhat) common sensical 5-point framework from Business Insider website piece entitled "5 strategies for remembering everything you learn". That, in turn, is based on a neat book, Make it stick: the science of successful learning that I have linked to in earlier posts. The key strategies, along with my read on the application to pronunciation correction, are:

• Force yourself to recall (Before you provide a student with the correct pronunciation, see if they can do it themselves first.)
• Don't go easy on yourself (Practice a new word or sound like mad, especially in homework.)
• Don't fall for fluency (Just because a student can recall the right pronunciation or you can get them to do it in class, don't assume that the change will take without practice and conscious work on it.)
• Connect the new thing to the old things (Very important to connect a corrected word or corrected sound to as many other words with it in it as possible. That can be done many ways, but it is generally essential for there to be consistent uptake.)
• Reflect, reflect, reflect (Especially with older learners, from middle school on, research shows that they have to be meta-cognitively in the game, managing at least some of their practice and exploring ways of improving at their own initiative, or you may be wasting your time.)

That is a pretty cool list. Using the 5 tips. see how quickly you can memorize it . . . and recall it later!

And, of course, keep in touch!

 

Are you an "upstanding" pronunciation teacher?

If not, you should be, but take your time . . .  (We'll give you 4 weeks, in fact!) More evidence as to why, when doing pronunciation work, you should at least get your students on their feet as much as possible (or, of course, just switch to haptic pronunciation teaching (HPT) where almost all training is done standing, regardless!)

I have reported on this topic and the work of the researchers at Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health previously. Here is a quick summary of their latest study, summarized by Science Daily (full citation below).

They looked at call center employees who either used a desk where they could stand while working or didn't. Not surprisingly, those who could stand up performed better. After about a month the effect kicked in, making them about 46% more productive! Earlier studies looked at cognitive function, gluteus maximus.

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attention, health benefits, etc., coming to pretty much the same conclusion: we are not design to work best parked too long on our

What is interesting in that study for us is that it apparently took a while, about a month for the subjects to become "acclimated" to the new desk structure. Their evidence for that explanation is purely speculative, however. How the "full body" process of speaking and thinking and problem solving is enhanced just by standing is a fascinating question that is not really addressed. (I work on my feet for at least an hour every morning with coffee. Not sure it is always my best stuff, but in terms of organization and clarity, it often seems so.)

We have seen something analogous in HPT. Assuming the typical pacing of a course, one 30-minute module plus about 90 minutes of homework per week, it is typically after Module 4 that it all "clicks", when generally everybody "gets it", and begins to see tangible progress. Look at the sequence:

Week 1 - Introduction to haptic learning (50% done while standing)
Week 2 - Short vowels and word stress (about 75% standing)
Week 3 - Long vowels and word stress (about 75% standing)
Week 4 - Rhythm and phrase stress (almost entirely done while standing)
Week 5 - "Aha, I get it!"

I have always assumed that it, the "Aha! I get it!" point, was primarily because of the path of the syllabus or that the patterns and techniques had become more second nature. But there may be more going on there, perhaps much more.

If you think that you got the answer . . . stand up!

Full citation:
Texas A&M University. (2016, May 25). Boosting productivity at work may be simple: Stand up: Research shows 46 percent increase in workplace productivity with use of standing desks. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 5, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160525220539.htm

Rethinking gesture use in technology and (pronunciation) teaching

Personal digital communication technology is revolutionizing our understanding of the critical role played by touch in accessing "data" and thinking. As students rely more and more in school and out on handheld devices, the designers and promoters of those interfaces are far out ahead of educators in systematically exploiting the "haptic" (movement plus touch) possibilities, what Sinclair and deFreitas term "tangible gesture". Not all gesture involves tactile engagement, of course, but that which does in cutting edge haptic technology has much to teach us about the effective use of gesture, especially in pronunciation teaching.

A recent paper by Sinclair and de Freitas focusing on "tangible gesture" provides a helpful framework for understanding better the value of systematic haptic gesture work. Quoting the abstract:

" . . . This re-thinking of gesture returns to the principle of indexicality found in Peirce’s material semiotics, and develops this principle through the work of Gilles Châtelet and Gilles Deleuze around hand-eye relationships. Drawing on the work of Jürgen Streek, we propose and discuss the notion of the tangible gesture, in the context of mathematical explorations of young children with a multitouch iPad environment designed to promote counting on and with the fingers."

Allow me to translate that: As research in haptic learning has long established, what touch does is create a more efficient, integrative bridge to meaning that gesture alone may not accomplish. In effect the point of touch by the hand can drastically narrow the focus of attention and enhance the bonding together of the concept or symbol and object or process underway.

More practically speaking, a gesture involving strategic touch in pronunciation teaching on a stressed syllable, for example, should be substantially more effective in promoting the acquisition or access to memory of the targeted sound, word or phrase than the same gesture done without the haptic anchor.  

Tangible gesture. Nice concept. More on it shortly. Keep in touch.

Citation:
Sinclair, N. and de Freitas, E. (2015). The haptic nature of gesture: Rethinking gesture with new multitouch digital technologies. Gesture 14:3, 351-374.

Lost in space: Why phoneme vowel charts may inhibit learning of pronunciation

In a recent workshop I inadvertently suggested that the relative distances between adjacent English vowels on various standard charts, such as the IPA matrix or those used in pronunciation teaching were probably not all that important. Rather than "stand by" that comment, I need to "distance myself" from it! Here's why.

Several posts on the blog, including a recent one, have dealt with the basic question of to what extent visual stimuli can potentially undermine learning of sound, movement and touch (the basic stuff of the haptic approach to pronunciation teaching.) I went back to Doellar and Burgess (2008), "Distinct error-correcting and incidental learning of location relative to landmarks and boundaries" (Full citation below.), one of the key pieces of research/theory that our haptic work has been based on.

In essence, that study demonstrated that we have two parallel systems for learning locations, in two different parts of the brain, one from landmarks in the visual (or experiential) field and another from boundaries of the field. Furthermore, boundaries tend to override landmarks in navigating. (For instance, when finding your way in the dark, your first instinct is to go along the wall, touching what is there, if possible, not steer through landmarks or objects in the field in front of you whose relative location may be much less fixed in your experience.)

Most importantly for us, boundaries tend to be learned incidentally; landmarks, associatively. In other words, location relative to boundaries is more like a map, where the exact point is first identified by where it is relative to the boundary, not the other points within the map itself. Conversely, landmarks tend to be learned associatively, relative to each other, not in relation to the boundary of the field, which may be irrelevant anyway, not conceptually present.

So what does that imply for teaching English vowels? 

• Learner access in memory to the vowels when still actively working on improving pronunciation is generally a picture or image of a matrix, where the vowels are placed in it. (Having asked learners for decades how they "get to" vowels, the consistent answer is something like: "I look at the vowel chart in my mind.")
• The relative position of those vowels, especially adjacent vowels, is almost certainly tied more to the boundaries of the matrix, the sides and intersecting lines, not the relative auditory and articulatory qualities of the sounds themselves. 
• The impact of visual schema and processing over auditory and haptic is such that, at least for many learners, the chart is at least not doing much to facilitate access to the articulatory and somatic features of the phonemes, themselves. (I realize that is an empirical question that cries out for a controlled study!)
• The phonemic system of a language is based fundamentally on relative distances between phonemes. The brain generally perceives phonemic differences as binary, e.g., it is either 'u' or 'U', or 'p' or 'b', although actual sound produced may be exceedingly close to the conceptual "boundary" separating them. 
• Haptic work basically backgrounds visual schema and visual prominence, attempting to promote a stronger association between the sounds, themselves, and the "distance" between them, in part by locating them in the visual field immediately in front of the learner, using gesture, movement and touch, so that the learner experiences the relative phonemic "differences" as distinctly as possible.
• We still do some initial orientation to the vowel system using a clock image with the vowels imposed on it, to establish the technique of using vowel numbers for correction and feedback, but try to get away from that as soon as possible, since that visual schema as well gives the impression that the vowels are somehow "equidistant" from each other--and, of course, according to Doellar and Burgess (2008) probably more readily associated with the boundary of the clock than with each other.

 (Based on excerpt from Basic Haptic Pronunciation, v4.0, forthcoming, Spring, 2016.)

Doellar, C. and Burgess, N. (2008). "Distinct error-correcting and incidental learning of location relative to landmarks and boundaries", retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/content/105/15/5909.long, December 19, 2015.

How YOU elocute is how I elocute: Collaborative haptic motor skill (and pronunciation) learning

For a glimpse into the future of instruction, have a look at Chellali, Dumas and Milleville-Pennel (2010) "A Haptic Communication Paradigm For Collaborative Motor Skills Learning." Their WYFIWIF (What you feel is what I feel) model illustrates nicely just what haptic technology is, in essence using a computer-mediated interface to guide movement, using basically pressure translated through some kind of device such as a glove. In the study, subjects were guided to better performance on a focused manual task, moving a needle, by a haptic-assisted instructor. Not surprisingly, the control group, the visual or verbally-guided only group, did not perform as well. 

Another example of haptic communication, as defined in WYFIWIF, might be an instructor first leading a learner through a gesture pattern with haptic technology and then continuing to provide haptic guidance as the learner attempts to practice and master the pattern. The researchers note that in a virtual environment, as in haptics-assisted surgery or training, " . . . haptic communication is combined (more and more with complementary) visual and verbal communication in order to help an expert to transfer his knowledge to a novice operator."

Although the haptic application to our pronunciation work does not involve haptics technology, but rather hands touching on target or stressed sounds--following the visual and spoken guidance of an instructor or peer--the parallel is striking. It is the collaborative haptic-embodied task (instructor and learner engaged in a tightly linked, synchronous, communicative, embodied "dance") that greatly enables and facilitates learning. 

In the conclusion of the study, there is a truly striking recommendation for further research: the impact on haptic communication of the "verbal communications between the instructor and the leaner." We have  over a decade of experience--and a few dozen blogposts--with that! Now "needle-less" to say,  if we can just get our hands in some of those gloves . . .

Full citation:
Amine Chellali, C ́edric Dumas, Isabelle Milleville-Pennel. WYFIWIF: A Haptic Communication Paradigm For Collaborative Motor Skills Learning. IADIS. Web Virtual Reality and Three-Dimensional Worlds 2010, Jul 2010, Freiburg, Germany. IADIS, pp.301-308, 2010.

Been there, done that: One-shot (pronunciation) teaching and learning!

When  or how does pronunciation work STICK--quickly?

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Here is a fascinating new, seemingly counter-intuitive study on what people do with some types of new information they encounter - by Lee, O’Doherty, and Shimojo of CALTECH: Neural Computations Mediating One-Shot Learning in the Human Brain. Summarized by ScienceDaily.com - Full citation below, whose title I like: Switching on one-shot learning in the brain. Essentially what they found was:

"Many have assumed that the novelty of a stimulus would be the main factor driving one-shot learning, but our computational model showed that causal uncertainty was more important . . . If you are uncertain, or lack evidence, about whether a particular outcome was caused by a preceding event, you are more likely to quickly associate them together."

For example, if a learner immediately associates or links a pronunciation correction back to some (probably conscious, cognitive) aspect of previous instruction, the brain may just switch off the "one-shot" learning circuits and activate "been there, done that" processing instead. In other words, taking the "time" even if involuntarily to connect back mentally to a previous schema or visual image can actually inhibit "quick" learning. Any number of studies over the decades in several fields have established the concept that in some contexts, the faster something is learned, the better. (That was, in fact, the motivation behind early development of Total Physical Response teaching.)

So when might quick or "one-shot" learning happen? My two favourite questions for speaking/listening/pronunciation classroom teachers are: (a) How (if at all) do you follow up in class after you present and (maybe) practice some aspect of pronunciation? (b) How (if at all) do you do spontaneous correction of pronunciation in class?

 . . . I'll wait a minute while you answer those questions, yourself . . . The general answer, in one form or another, is: Not much, if at all. Frequent reasons for that: (a) Don't know how. (b) Don't have time. (c) Not necessary, as long as I do a first rate job of presenting and practice in class and (d) Learners are pretty much responsible once I have done "c"!

Bottom line: One of the reasons that gesture works--and that haptic works even better by adding systematic touch--is that to some degree it bypasses conscious cognitive "cause and effect" processing. (Asher described that more or less metaphorically as by passing the left hemisphere in favour of the right, which was earlier said to much more holistic, more consciously analytic, etc. As a shorthand, I'm ok with that but in reality it a gross oversimplification and probably creates more problems than it solves today.)

I'm not saying that we should do away with formal instruction in pronunciation, including books, explanation, drill and contextual practice in class--just adding another "quick change channel."

Using EHIEP (Essential haptic-integrated English pronunciation) pedagogical movement patterns (PMP, a gesture anchored by touch associated with a sound of sound pattern) generally will not interrupt the flow of conversation or narrative as a correction is performed. It is, in effect, operating on another channel, more outside of language awareness, not disrupting as much speaking and thought. That assumes that learners have been earlier introduced to the kinaesthetic patterning of the PMP; haptic "signalling" during classroom instruction or during homework can be exceedingly effective and seamless to the course of the lesson and on other modalities.

In some sense, mindless drill doesn't engage the cognitive side of the house either--but it also can easily deaden all the senses instead if not done very carefully with as much somatic engagement as possible. (A very good example of doing drill well, however, is Kjellin's approach which I often use when anchoring a specific sound articulation.)

Haptic pronunciation teaching--Give it a shot! (A perfect place to start is here, of course!)

Full citation:
California Institute of Technology. "Switching on one-shot learning in the brain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 April 2015. .

Executive indecision: pronunciation teaching overthink and attention management

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An essential problem in contemporary pronunciation teaching with adults (as opposed to children) is that it entails both highly "physical" and "cognitive" engagement. I think it is safe to say that most methods, as evident either explicitly or implicitly in available textbooks, leave the question unresolved by presenting both type of exercises and explanations--and letting the instructor and learner figure out how much of what to do when. 

Intuitively, we understand that too much analysis, explanation--or worry--probably does not help all that much in being able to learn how to pronounce or remember a sound or word. I have often poked fun at what I term the "hyper-cogs" in the field who overemphasize meta-cognitive side of instruction, that is insight, planning and explanation at the cost of sufficient attention to the physical side of the process. 

Now comes a fascinating study by Grafton of UC Santa Barbara and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University (summarized by ScienceDaily.com--see full citation below) that identifies the culprit: excessive activity in the frontal and the anterior cingulate cortices of the brain.

In essence what the study demonstrated was that those subjects who learned a task involving identifying patterns and responding by pushing a button FASTEST had significantly less "activity" in those areas of the brain responsible for executive functions, managing thought and critical functions. (Recall that Asher's initial interest in Total Physical Response teaching of language was based on the concept that faster learning was generally more successful as well.) 

There could, of course, be a number of reasons for that finding which probably involves overall mental functioning, but the implication for instruction is interesting: More efficient teaching and learning of skills that involve physical patterning, such as pronunciation, should consider carefully the balance of attention to executive functions (conscious analysis and explanation) and embodied training (kinaesthetic, somatic and tactile involvement). 

Probably the answer for us lies in understanding better the changing qualities of attention (awareness) in the sequential tasks of ongoing, moment-by-moment pronunciation instruction.  From our perspective, haptic work involves almost continuous attention to and monitoring of what bodies are doing during the lesson. Think of that as the baseline that explanation and reflection are then "added on to" and you'll be on the right track. 

Record one of your classes or segments of one and review it from that perspective. And, of course, keep in touch. 

Citation:

University of California - Santa Barbara. (2015, April 6). The brain game: How decreased neural activity may help you learn faster. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 8, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150406121348.htm

Out of sight--but well-filed and managed (English) pronunciation change

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A key feature of haptic pronunciation teaching is homework and practice management. In other words, once a new or improved sound or word has been introduced and anchored in class or someplace, it must be worked on by the learner consistently and systematically. (We typically tell students that it takes a couple of weeks to accomplish that.)

Research by Storm and Stone of UCSD, summarized by Science Daily (See full citation below) suggests that the process can be improved significantly by the learner employing an optimal filing system, one that allows "offloading" work done but with clear pathways back for future reference. What they found was that as long as subjects had confidence that the material learned remained accessible, their ability to go on learn new material was significantly better. If not, performance was equal to that of the control group.

Just for fun, ask your students to show you their pronunciation notes sometime . . .

There are on the market several language learning-specific apps for learning vocabulary, etc., but our experience is that most any word processor with companion filing system will work. As long as students are trained in how to practice, how much and when--and how to file it--the "savings" should be substantial! Nothing complicated, just hierarchically organized folders with "memorable" names!

A forthcoming blogpost will detail some of the alternatives that we have found productive. In the meantime, keep in touch--and clean up all that useless clutter on your hard drive!

Full citation:

Association for Psychological Science. (2014, December 10). Saving old information can boost memory for new information. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 14, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141210080740.htm

Situated, epistemologically "HIP," pronunciation teaching!

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Hat tip to fellow Haptician, Angelina VanDyke of Simon Fraser University, for this great quote from Brown, Collins and Duguid (1998): 

"A theory of situated cognition suggests that activity and perception are important and epistemologically prior at a non-conceptual level - to conceptualization, and that it is on them that more attention needs to be focused. An epistemology that begins with activity and perception, which are first and foremost embedded in the world, may simply bypass the classical problem of reference-of mediating conceptual representations." (Brown, Collins and Duguid (1998) Situated Cognitions and the Culture of Learning, pp. 28, 29.)

Is that not us (HIP - Haptic-integrated Pronunciation)? Trying to successfully bypass the amount of "hyper-cognition" and "talk about" that often represents itself as sufficient or legitimate, effective pronunciation instruction can be a challenge. 

It's the old (live) chicken and egg (head) conundrum. By the time you finish your explanation (no matter how elegant, engaging and worthy of noticing it be), it is probably too late. 

Enough said . . . 

Improving pronunciation in your sleep?

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For any number of reasons, I have always advised students to do their regular pronunciation practice in the morning. I may have to rethink that. Based on a study comparing adults and children in developing explicit knowledge of the structure and sequencing of a complex motor task (pushing up to 16 buttons in the right order), it was demonstrated that in both adults and children, but especially in children, that knowledge emerges much faster and consistently after a night's sleep.

 As reported in Science Daily--and what I could get from looking over a pdf of the tables in the $32 article in the journal, Nature Neuroscience--the study by Wilhelm, of the University of Tübingen and colleagues, demonstrates convincingly that sleep after motor training significantly enhances both facility in doing the motor sequence task later but also development of an explicit, conscious understanding of the patterning involved That kids are better than adults is no surprise, but the additional finding that a night's sleep, as opposed to an intervening day of normal activities in living, was significantly better in facilitating development of a conscious understanding of the underlying patterning is big. (No hint of that was provided during the motor training.)

The interplay in pronunciation work between providing explicit rules for sound change and doing various kinds of implicit oral practice is central to the process. Especially in HICP work, where motor routines are associated with the targeted sounds and linguistic structures, this research has interesting implications, to be sure. Bottom line: At least in some phases of haptic pronunciation work, the time of day when practice is done may make a difference. Will work on that concept and get back to you. Something to sleep on . . . 

Effective (pronunciation) learning techniques

You may have seen a media report on this new research monograph, Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology by Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan and Willingham (published online by Psychological Science in the public interest). If you have the time, it is worth reading through. Here's why. The research focused on 10 learning strategies used by students, mostly in high school and college. By "learning strategies" the authors mean, for the most part, what students do on their own, outside of the "curriculum," in studying (for tests!) and homework.

Credit: AMPISys, Inc.

Among the the "winners" of the 10 are "distributed practice" strategies such as taking practice tests and spreading out study sessions. The bottom three were: underlining, rereading and using "mnemonic devices." The monograph itself is a great piece of work (although at times a bit overly optimistic on what "Cognitive and Educational Psychology" is up to or worth). What was fascinating was the general conclusion that "educators" (not specifically defined) do not do enough with this area. At least some of the blame goes to teacher education where, in the review of current TT textbooks, little or no mention is made of research into learning strategies/techniques and what students do "on their own" and how they learn to do what they do.

EHIEP is based on the idea of providing instructors and students with a range of strategies for anchoring pronunciation work and (by extension) using those outside of class. Although the basic curriculum is designed to be carried out successfully in a classroom setting-without depending on students practicing outside of class in any systematic manner, the optional Student Workbook and accompanying haptic video and audio packet are strongly recommended whenever possible. (The complete system will be available at the 2013 TESOL conference in Dallas for the first time. Some of the new demonstration videos will be linked here off the blog next month.) Keep in touch. 

The pitch for teaching prosody first

Clip art: Clker

There are numerous examples of methods where either intonation is taught first in pronunciation work or shortly thereafter using techniques such as "reverse accent mimicry" or computer assisted verbal tracking or imitating actors without attending to the meanings of words. Anecdotally, they all seem to work. From a research perspective, intonation or pitch change has been employed extensively in exploring neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain "learn" and adapt. For most learners, mimicking simple pitch contours in English is not that difficult. If you examine student course books, what you find is that they all include pitch contour work but where it occurs and how much is done seems completely random.

A new study by Sober and Brainard of UCSF (summarized by Science Daily) of how song birds correct their singing draws an interesting conclusion: they fix the little mistakes and ignore the big ones. The Bengalese finches provide us with an intriguing clue as to how to organize L2 pronunciation work as well: begin with the easy stuff--not the messy articulatory problems or complex phoneme contrasts or conflicts. The arguments for establishing prosody (intonation, rhythm and stress) first are compelling at one level (theoretically) but from the perspective of measuring tangible progress, it is still difficult at best to demonstrate what has been learned, given the tools we have available today.

Children clearly learn prosody first. (In the EHIEP system intonation is now in module four but I am considering introducing it earlier, in part based on this research.) Practically speaking, doing early prosody work is relatively straightforward and not costly. You can do it for a song, in fact.  

FLASH! Conscious suppression of pronunciation work!

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Conscious Flash Suppression (CFS) technology could well be in the future of pronunciation teaching, based on research by Hassin, Sklar, Goldstein, Levy, Mandel and Maril at Hebrew University, as reported in Science Daily. CFS is described as " . . . one eye is exposed to a series of rapidly changing images, while the other is simultaneously exposed to a constant image. The rapid changes in the one eye dominate consciousness, so that the image presented to the other eye is not experienced consciously." What they discovered was that the material not experienced consciously was still processed and responded to non-consciously in various ways.

Their conclusion: " . . . humans can perform complex, rule-based operations unconsciously, contrary to existing models of consciousness and the unconscious." Avoiding conscious interference with pronunciation change is big. Now that may sound like a candidate for your "Well . . . duh!" file (A finding that is not only common sense but probably not worth the grant money blown on coming up with it.) Two important developments here, however:

• First, so much of what happens between instruction and spontaneous performance in pronunciation work is unconscious--or at least not the subject of research today. Even the focus in HICPR on the "clinical" is still a relative "outlier" in this field, although not in some related disciplines. We should be able to study that more systematically. 
• Second, all methodologists assign a great deal of the work to the "dark side," whether they make that explicit (consciously) or not, some more than others, such as Lozanov . . . or Acton! We need to stop suppressing the use of several great techniques that have been proven by experience to work the subconscious effectively.

Would love to get ahold of some of that CFS technology and try it out with haptic anchoring of academic word list vocabulary in time for TESOL in Dallas. Just imagine the impact of a pedagogical movement pattern accompanying the "constant" image of the acronym "CFS." Hard to suppress the excitement already . . .   

Just blowing smoke or essential pronunciation practice ritual?

(Caveat Emptor: If you as an instructor have serious issues with even reading a model piece from an outfit that provides custom essays for college students for a fee, you may want to avoid the link above! If you have never seen one of these "rhetorical pirates" in action, you may enjoy just checking out the sell, regardless. )

I stumbled onto this stock, freshman English-level essay on "Sacred Pipe Ritual" some time ago on the "Dreamessays.com" site. There are many like it out there. This particular essay does list the  "standard" set of ritual parameters of the pipe ceremony seen in many cultures world wide. What it highlights for us is the structure and functions of ritual in general. As noted in earlier posts, the EHIEP system is, on the one hand, highly ritualistic, using haptic video to lead learners (in the complete system) through around 30, 20-30 minute, fixed routines--8 done in class, 24 done as homework. Within the routines are a number of functions, from general learning readiness to anchoring of the essential sounds and sound patterns of English. Those functions are then readied to be carried over into the classroom or personal practice. Note the parallels between the "pipe" ritual elements and what has been described in earlier posts as the key elements of HICP work:

• The pipe becomes the sole focus or center of attention, representing the center of the cosmos. (That may be stretching the analogy a bit!)
• The design on the pipe bowl often resembles the trachea.
• The gestures in the ritual are predominately pointing, either in the four directions or toward participants.
• The two parts of the pipe, bowl and stem are ritually joined together, creating strong symbolism, especially of connection to nature and potency. (The parallel there to haptic events is striking--and worth a later post!)
• The symbolism of the four directions has many manifestations, but, in essence, East relates to birth; West, to death; South to earth (or female/mother); North, to the sun (or male). From the several earlier posts on the phonaesthetics of the visual field and placement of sound patterns within them, the convergence is striking--assuming that the vowel matrix is positioned so that front vowels are to the right, versus the standard IPA left to right orientation.
• Finally, the physical presence of the smoke can take on any number of symbolic functions in unifying the experience for the participants. (There is a great deal of smoke and mirrors in the field today!)

Going back to the previous post. Once you have articulated your approach to pronunciation systematically, examine the ritual inherent in it and how that should relate to integration into spontaneous speech. That is where we are headed today with the accessibility of virtual technology. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!