Micro-aggression in (pronunciation) teaching

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One of the common responses in research as to why contemporary instructors don't deal much with pronunciation or attempt to correct it is what might be characterized as (fear of) committing a "micro-aggression." New term for you?

In a recent workshop, one of the participants stated his reason for being hesitant about correcting pronunciation (paraphrasing slightly): I'm just afraid that I might hurt their feelings or mess with their identity. He had a good point. How do you avoid that?

The topic of micro-aggression is in the news currently after comments by University of California President, Napolitano, claiming that attention to micro-aggression as an essential way to " . .  . build and nurture a productive academic climate." It is defined, according to the UC Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send)  as:

" . . . brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmenral indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, (emphasis, mine) that communicate hostile, de­rogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of colour. Perpetrators of micro-aggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with racial/ethnlc minorities."

Noting that "The context of the relationship is critical," the Tool, nonetheless, lists about two dozen statements and "attitudes" (and interpretations) to be avoided such as these four language-related, examples:

• Asking: "Where are you from or where were you born?” 
• Attempting a compliment: "You speak English very well." 
• Inquiring of a Latino: "Why do you have to be so loud/animated? . . . " 
• Telling an Asian: "We want to know what you think. . . . Speak up more."

There are at least four general types of micro-aggressions, according to the original formulation by Wing, et al. (2007) of Teachers College of Columbia University: (a) micro-assaults, (b) micro-invalidations, (c) micro-insults, and (d) environmental micro-aggressions. 

We could easily add some more potentially micro-aggressive statements of the b, c and d varieties that could "hurt," related to pronunciation instruction: 

"I don't understand what you just said." 

"I have no trouble understanding you." 

"X is a good model for your pronunciation." 

"X isn't a good model for your pronunciation." 

"There is no need for you to sound like Tom or Penelope Cruise." 

"There were several pronunciation problems that came up during the discussion . . . " 

"That's a "th" at the beginning, not "d" . . .  

"Listen to your partner's pronunciation. Write down any mistakes you hear."

"You need to improve your pronunciation a little."

"You have a delightful accent."

"Stick out your tongue . . . "

"That's pronounced X, not Y."

"Repeat that after me, please."

(Nonverbal) Grimace but didn't say anything.

(Nonverbal) Smile, despite unintelligibility. 

All of those could, according to Wing, et al.'s framework,  convey the message that there is something seriously "wrong" with the learner's pronunciation--or identity. How do you insure that the target is only the former, not the latter? Or can you? Or is it better not to take the risk of "micro-agressing in the first place? Look forward to your comments. (No micro- or macro- aggression, please!) 

Full citations:

Sue, D., (2010). Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation, New York: Wiley & Sons.

Wing, S., Capodilupo, A., Toprlno, D., Bucceri,J., Holder, A., Nadlll, K. and Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial Micro-aggressions in Everyday Life: implications for clinical practice, American Psychologist 62:4, 271-286 

The right way to teach the "wrong" pronunciation!

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Library of Congress

One of the delights of having been in the field for a few decades is seeing "new" research seemingly confirm old, out-of-fashion practices. Here's a good example, a 2014 study, summarized by Science Daily, by Herzfeld, Vaswani, Marko, and Shadmehr of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The study focuses on how memory for errors facilitates effective sensory-motor learning.

In essence, they found that the brain seems to have two parallel learning management systems in sensory-motor learning. One is the Experiencer, learning the new skill; the other, something like "the Coach," that uses previous motor patterns in adjusting and perfecting the target skill. And the "surprising" finding: the two systems appear to be much more independent than previously thought, and furthermore, "the memories of errors foster faster learning!"

Wow. Does that mean that drawing attention to a learner's L1-influenced errors in pronunciation may, in fact, be a good thing? Apparently. Exactly how and when that is done is the question, of course. Most experienced speech professionals, especially speech pathologists, are very comfortable with occasional focus on the "error" as a point of departure, but until very recently, use of L1 pronunciation in L2 pronunciation instruction in this field has been, at least, not discussed formally in the literature.

I recently posted a question on a discussion board of pronunciation researchers and methodologists related to L1 use in pronunciation instruction--and got no response, other than some off-list comments to the effect that it is generally not done--probably a holdover from earlier Behaviourist notions of avoiding errors at all costs.

As noted in several earlier posts, in haptic pronunciation work, especially with vowels and intonation, anchoring of L1 structures and pronunciation is often key to quick, effective change. The Herzfield et al. study may help to explain why: haptic work is probably more strongly positioned or experienced on  the sensory-motor side or track of the brain, allowing the L1 to be "used" somewhat more in isolation, causing less potential "interference" there than typical auditory/visual processing and practice.

Now that may be wrong, but (hopefully) helpful, nonetheless!

Citation: Johns Hopkins Medicine. "Memories of errors foster faster learning." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 August 2014. .

I love it (and me) when I say it that way: Affirming pronunciation errors

The role and impact of mispronunciation are multi-faceted, from how society perceives the lack of fit to the L1, to the learner's attitude toward such forms and how it affects everything from identity to ability to recognize the problem and attempts to improve. The stance of most contemporary theorists is to attempt to downplay the need for high levels of accuracy and help the learner feel more comfortable with errors and general risk-taking, especially if they are clearly developmental in nature, reassuring all concerned that either things will get better soon with some attention to pronunciation-- or society will  eventually "mature" and be more accepting.  

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Now assuming that assuming a more "healthy" attitude toward your errors is beneficial . . .  (Who could argue with that or define adequately what that might mean?) . . . how would you, as instructor, best facilitate that? Recent research by Legault and  Inzlicht of the University of Toronto, and Al-Khindi of Johns Hopkins University, reported in Science Daily, looking at the impact of self-affirmation on response to, and productive engagement with, mistakes, suggests some classroom strategies that may be helpful. In the study, subjects that did a paper and pencil exercise where they listed and briefly justified what they identified were their most important values were subsequently able to perform better on a task that required responding quickly to errors and making appropriate adjustments. (Another treatment group did a similar values-based task but focused, instead, on why the values at the lower end of the ranking were not that significant for them. )

Here is where the Cognitive Phonologists and many contemporary embodiment theorists have it absolutely correct. There are any number of good techniques for setting up that "affirmative" frame of mind or attitude, not just toward errors, but general L2 identity. In AH-EPS, the precision upper body movements and vocal resonance should serve something of the same function. (Our students consistently report tangible changes in self-confidence and "body image.") You're going to love it when you do it this way--make no mistake about it!

L2 "Speech-ture:" Why anchoring pronunciation change with gesture works

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I am often asked why associating a new sound or word with a gesture is an effective and efficient method for changing pronunciation. There was a time when a response of "just common sense" or "30 years of classroom experience"was adequate--no longer. Now the retort is "Well . . . show me your fMRI!" Research just published in Plos One by Straube, Green, Weis and Kircher entitled, "A Supramodal Neural Network for Speech and Gesture Semantics: An fMRI Study," almost does just that.  In essence, the study demonstrated that at the highest level ("supramodally," that is spanning or connecting modalities), gesture and speech production are initiated neurophysiologically in the same neural network--but "after" meaning.

The apparently "obvious" distinction between the meanings inherent in verbal and nonverbal expression is a false or at least very complex one: they both seemingly emanate from the same source. That is consistent with Damasio's notion that the "feeling" (or unconscious intuition or meaning) in some sense comes before the words or cognitive embodiment. More precisely perhaps, in real time, once a meaning has been chosen to be expressed by the brain/mind, appropriate body movement and speech associated with that concept or unconscious response are then activated by the same governing network. It is almost as if we need a new term here, something like: "speech-ture."

That may be one reason why haptic anchoring of L2 sound by L2 learners can work: the sound is associated with a unique "speech-ture," not that of the L1 or the current interlanguage, transitional form that may still be less than comprehensible in context. In part for that reason, in haptic-integrated work, to "correct" a mispronunciation, the emphasis or conscious focus is on the pedagogical movement pattern, not the sound or auditory image produced by the learner at the time. That is perhaps the defining (or most innovative) feature of haptic-integrated clinical pronunciation work. Regular practice of the PMP (and the accompanying oral production) for a week or so, independent of the use of the associated sound in a word or context, should generally establish the "correct" or approximate target sound(s)--with little or no further intervention from the instructor. Not infrequently, in fact,  a learner can initially produce the "correct" sound using its PMP but still not be able to hear the difference or change . . . in a manner of "speech-turing!"

Disgusting mispronunciation

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If there is one unassailable tenet of contemporary language and pronunciation teaching, it is that risk taking and the inevitable miscues and errors which occur are very good things. Furthermore, only mistakes interfering with "intelligibility" should be attended to, the others left relatively untouched. What "minor" differences between the L1 and L2 remain are at least not the responsibility of instruction and to many theorists are near "illegal" to either point to or even react to. In other words, pronunciation errors are for the most part a strong positive, and learners and society at large should not see or experience them as negative--unless you are still for some reason interested in actually changing or correcting them, one of the implications of research by Sherman and colleagues of the Kennedy School of Government, summarized by Science Daily.

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In that study, it was found that subjects who were higher in the personality trait of sensitivity to "disgust" were by nature better able to perceive degrees of difference in objects positioned in the light~dark spectrum. (Light~dark being associated in most cultures with pure and impure.) The effect was not apparent with other personality traits such as sensitivity to fear, etc. In other words, to detect an error or difference requires an appropriate degree of affective or emotional indexing. I think it is safe to at least speculate that the opposite effect "works" as well: encourage love of errors (or suppress negative reaction to them) and learners ability to attend to them or monitor them erodes correspondingly.

Not to sound like a "purist" here, but could it be that some of the current, renewed interest in pronunciation teaching, especially segmental (vowel and consonant) change, is but an unintended consequence of the profession's often uncritical attitude toward "error-ing"?  Disgusting . . . 

Three points: reinforcement for less reinforcement

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Shooting a 3-point shot successfully from 22 feet out in basketball is certainly a "haptic" event, requiring both exquisite (depending on your appreciation of the game) movement and touch. It is a rush of the first order for most, even professionals.Turns out, however, that making one does not predict whether you'll make another--to the contrary. According to this research by Loewenstein and Neiman at the Hebrew University, summarized by Science Daily (Hat tip to Charles Adamson), you have a better chance at making one if you missed on the previous try. In other words, reinforcement is not always the best guide. We learn as much from our mistakes or at least in that context we tend not overgeneralize as much.

That principle, of course, is at the very heart of behaviorist learning theory. Three points from a HICP perspective: (1) repetition does not insure success--anchor it quickly and move on, (2) context is critical--the phonotactic environment of a sound in a word or phrase is all important, not just the felt sense of the sound itself, and (3) the affective or emotional charge that often accompanies our attempts to "just make it fun and enjoyable"--or even communicative--can work against the learner, creating an event that involves so much visual and experiential "clutter" that the essence of the great move is nearly inaccessible later, inapplicable elsewhere. Shoot . . . that makes it a new ball game . . .