Mind-body Connections in Pronunciation Teaching

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For most, the systematic use of movement and gesture--or even haptic is now at least of interest (See, for example the work of Thornbury, Gilbert or Chan.) You really can't be very successful in this business without some somatic (body-based) technique to support or reinforce classroom instruction, even if that just means clapping hands occasionally to emphasize stress placement.

Show me an instructor who loves doing pronunciation work, however, and I'll almost always show you one who is at least an enthusiastic "gesticulator" but probably also a musician of some kind or avid exerciser! Every time I do that informal poll at a conference, the agreement is near 100% in the audience.

Still the best place to get a general understanding of the integration of mind and body in education and therapy is in psychotherapies such as Somatic Therapy: Somatic Therapy: Using the Mind–Body Connection to Get Results. (To access that 7-page primer, however, you'll have to sign on to Psychotherapynetworker.org; go to the "Free reports" tab and download a copy. No need; I've done that for you. I'll be reporting in later blogposts on some innovative and applicable techniques from that source.)

 It is instructive to read comments by clinicians who work in such holistic paradigms, especially to better understand why what we do works. In the piece, Wylie (p. 7) makes the following "prophetic"point--which applies to this field as well: " . . . somatic approaches may become sufficiently ordinary and acceptable that the line between “body psychotherapy” and “talk psychotherapy” may one day disappear entirely."

With emerging video and hapic methodology and technology, I'd only substitute "will" for "may"--and "very soon" for "one day!"

Spirituality the key to pronunciation teaching?

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Absolutely . . . were you a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doing English for medical purposes (EMP) pronunciation classes on the side, according to a study by Shi of Beijing Normal University and Zhang of Southwest Minzu University, as summarized by Science Daily. The holistic, mind-body-spirit approach of TCM is said to account for its effectiveness, so unfathomable to much of Western medicine.

In the West, in language teaching, we get the mind-body idea, at least in theory, but the whole notion that we might have to throw in a little spirituality as well does not sit well with most "Post-modern-post-methodology." There is currently a strong resurgence of interest in spirituality in higher education which will inevitably translate into and influence language teaching as well.

Of course, one of the earlier "affective" methods, Counseling/community language learning, was created by a Catholic priest, Charles Curran, with a very much Christian-centered spiritual growth model at its core. Likewise, for those of us who teach at faith-based institutions, something analogous to the holistic TCM perspective on spirituality is pretty much business as usual--or at least should be! What bringing spirituality into the mix does, in part, is to make the Cartesian mind-body distinction or separation even more irrelevant to effective instruction and learning, transcending both and requiring that the learner be the primary focus, not his or her language. Talk about embodiment (or incarnation)! Try it sometime . . . at least in spirit!

Moving to a different drummer!

EHIEP is essentially a rhythm-driven system. The practice phase of a protocol is typically done either to music or a basic percussion track of some kind. If you have watched any of the linked videos off this blog, especially the various versions of the Warm Up Protocol, you'll enjoy this Youtuber of a "Drums Alive!" workout. It even begins from the same general perspective and includes most of the pedagogical movement patterns in some form. Being myself a big fan of Japanese Taiko drumming--for any number of reasons,

I'd love to find a way to include drums into the EHIEP system. (Clapping on the desk or hammering on the student next to you just doesn't get it, but I have seen new electronic drum systems that would work were they not still so pricey.) The core and upper torso stretching and movement is a perfect fit for optimal body-state work. Have got to figure out a way to work in some of this into the initial warm up! Your pronunciation work getting a bit "hum-drum" lately? 

Walkabout talk: The TalkaboutWalkabout

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While in Japan, while teaching speaking classes of 50+, I developed an effective (primarily kinaesthetic) technique called the "TalkaboutWalkabout," inspired by the movie, Crocodile Dundee. (It has been cited in several methods texts.) Basically, students prepared a couple of good 3-minute stories that they could tell to fellow students using an attending skills format (See earlier posts.) as homework. In the two-hour class the next day, after some initial warm up, students walked around the perimeter of the room continuously for the next 90 minutes or outside in a larger fixed loop around campus, telling their stories and listening to the story of another student--switching partners every 8 minutes (about 10 times). In effect, each student told each of two stories four times and heard eight others.

Back then I was not working with explicit haptic anchoring but it was remarkable how the pace of the walking came to regulate the rhythm of speaking, and how relaxed and fluent the conversations became. By the end, students were invariably struck by how "good" they felt about speaking English. The "felt sense" of the walkabout that they had "discovered" became our model or metaphor for how good discussions should "feel" as well.

There are, of course, any number of possible explanations for why that technique may work, several have been introduced here earlier, including jogging, but this quote from a holistic medicine website, connecting up to the function of the (somewhat mythical) Australian walkabout of Dundee,  presents an interesting perspective on some of what is involved: " . . . a journey of healing and rediscovering the link between mind, body, and spirit." The effect in your class might not be quite that heavy duty or "anchored," but I can guarantee that it will at least provide a great deal to "talk about!" 

The inner game of pronunciation learning

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The "ancient" Taoists and Lessac had it right, when it came to rehabilitation--among other things. The central concept was to focus on managing what was going on in the body and begin the healing/learning process there, being far less concerned with external appearance and incoming sounds.

In the last two years or so, as you can see from the  near 700 blog posts, I have been reporting on research that looks at learning that is less aural (listening-based) and visual (relying on sight as the lead system in learning new sounds). In a very real sense some of the key insights have come from research and practice in rehabilitation methodologies developed for the blind (haptic computer interfaces), deaf (sign and haptic systems) and physically disabled (especially tactile-enabled prosthetics and robotics). Much of the genius of Lessac was his ability to interpret to the Western mind (and body) how to also learn from the inside out. We may yet be able to rehabilitate pronunciation teaching!