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!

 

Great memory for words? They're probably out of their heads!

Perhaps the greatest achievement of neuroscience to date has been to repeatedly (and empirically) confirm common sense. That is certainly the case with teaching or training. Here's a nice one.

For a number of reasons, the potential benefit of speaking a word or words out loud and in public

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when you are trying to memorize or encode it--rather than just repeating it "in your head"--is not well understood in language teaching. For many instructors and theorists, the possible negative effects on the learner of speaking in front of others and getting "unsettling" feedback far outweigh the risks. (There is, of course, a great deal of research--and centuries of practice--supporting the practice of repeating words out loud in private practice.)

In what appears to be a relatively elegant and revealing (and also common-sense-confirming) study, Lafleur and Boucher of Montreal University, as summarized by ScienceDaily (full citation below) explored under which conditions subsequent memory for words is better: (a) saying it to yourself "in your head", (b) saying it to yourself in your head and moving your lips when you do, (c) saying it to yourself as you speak it out loud, and (d) saying the word out loud in the presence of another person. The last condition was substantially the best; (a) was the weakest.

The researchers do speculate as to why that should be the case. (ScienceDaily.com quoting the original study):

"The production of one or more sensory aspects allows for more efficient recall of the verbal element. But the added effect of talking to someone shows that in addition to the sensorimotor aspects related to verbal expression, the brain refers to the multisensory information associated with the communication episode," Boucher explained. "The result is that the information is better retained in memory."

The potential contribution of interpersonal communication as context information to memory for words or experiences is not surprising. How to use that effectively and "safely" in teaching is the question. One way, of course, is to ensure that the classroom setting is both as supportive and nonthreatening as possible. Add to that a social experience with others that also helps to anchor the memory better.

Haptic pronunciation teaching is based on the idea that instructor-student, and student-student communication about pronunciation must be both engaging and efficient--and resonately and richly spoken out loud. (Using systematic gesture does a great deal to make that work. See v4.0 later this month for more on that.)

I look forward to hearing how that happens in your class or your personal language development. If that thread gets going, I'll create a separate page for it. 

Keep in touch!

Citation:
University of Montreal. "Repeating aloud to another person boosts recall." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 October 2015. .

Haptic "hand" and kinaesthetic sky writing for spelling and pronunciation

Clip art: Clker

This video clip on the 5-step protocol of "Guided Spelling" for new readers has all the necessary EHIEP/HICP components: (1) Read the word, (2) Say it, (3) Write it on paper, (4) Write it in the air with pencil, (5) Close eyes and visualize it, and (6) Open eyes and "erase" the image in the air. (The testimonials from the kids are about all the confirmation that's needed.) With a little tweaking, that set could be adapted to do more with pronunciation, especially if some of the steps were done simultaneously. (See earlier post on the "Haptic Dictionary Pronunciation Protocol.)

Many adults anchor the spelling of a word as well when working principally on pronunciation. If you have worked with Japanese you have almost certainly had students who use "haptic hand-writing" on the palm of their hands, spelling out words as a favoured memorization strategy. When done by some learners, in fact, it is almost spell(ing) binding (or anchoring!)

The case for slightly boring pronunciation classes

It is not easy to come up with a reason to justify mind-numbing, repetitive decontextualized pronunciation drill, but maybe here is one . . . This 2001 study by Martin at the University of Missouri, summarized by a UK Daily Mail reporter, "discovered" that if you are having too good a time, it may affect your ability to remember "data." As the summary of the research notes, that could be caused by several factors, but one connection to haptic work is what others refer to as the Hansel and Gretel effect: context is encoded with the stuff to be remembered. If the trace back to a word is only "bread crumbs," chances are you won't get there; if the path back involves getting in a party mood first, that can be almost as bewildering later it turns out.

Clip art:
Clker

Clip art:
Clker

The trick, of course, is to create an event or experience that is anchored as efficiently as possible (with "noticing" in overdrive), with attention limited to the target, not the visual or emotional setting--or even unduly "thick" memories of past events. The immediate linguistic context of a sound or word, however, must also remain as a permanent part of the package. To do that for most learners requires momentary, conscious control of mind, brain, body and immediate surroundings: from our perspective, a "haptic-integrated" felt sense that is both highly energized and relaxed at the same time. In such a heightened state of awareness it is, of course, relatively easy to stay "in touch"-- and nearly impossible to be bored--or miss the party.

Getting pronunciation out of the dictionary in 9 steps . . . for dummies!

With the development of electronic dictionaries, you'd wonder if "dead tree-tionaries" are on the verge of extinction. Not so, not quite yet. The felt sense of a good, print learner dictionary with audio file attached --and there are several on the market now-- is still preferable for most students at earlier stages of pronunciation learning, and for many long beyond that. The combination of the more accessible full visual field of the dictionary entry and the (generally) good color/font layout add considerably to the material available for good encoding and recall. Plus, the "feel" of the physical book and ability to place it in an optimal position in the visual field is hard to match at the moment electronically. (Although probably not for long!)

We have developed a haptic-based protocol for teaching students how to go to the dictionary and have a much better chance of coming away with the pronunciation, grammatical category, meaning and usage. The key, of course, is continuous haptic anchoring and sequencing--not just saying the word or words to yourself or out loud. In the "Public speaking for dummies, 2nd edition"are, in fact, all the basic elements of the protocol (interpreted with a little imagination and translation, of course!), just not quite in this order:

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(a) Identify the stressed syllable.
(b) Identify and anchor the vowel quality in the stressed syllable.
(c) Say the word out loud, anchoring the stressed vowel with emphatic (rise-fall) intonation.
(d) Anchor the grammatical category, doing the emphatic (rise-fall) statement, "It's a X!" twice.
(e) Repeat "c"
(f) Read aloud twice the meaning, using a flat, "robot-like" but good-humored, intonation contour.
(g) Repeat "c"
(h) Anchor the usage example twice with "declarative" or "rising/question" intonation, whichever is appropriate
(i) Repeat "c"one final time.

We'll be doing this next month at the Tri-TESOL conference in Washington, "Haptic Dictionary Pronunciation," and at the TESOL convention in Philadelphia next March (2012). Even if you can't join us to experience it first hand, try that 9-step haptic dance with your students. They'll get a lot out of it.