(Really) great body-enhanced pronunciation teaching

If you are interested in using gesture more effectively in your teaching, a new 2016 study by Nguyen, A micro-analysis of embodiments and speech in the pronunciation instruction of one ESL teacher, is well worth reading. The study is, by design, wisely focused more on what the instructor does with her voice and body during instruction, not on student learning, uptake or in-class engagement.

The literature review establishes reasonably well the connection between the gesture described in the study and enhanced student learning of language and pronunciation. I can almost not imagine a better model of integrated gestural use in pronunciation teaching . . . The instructor is a superb performer, as are many who love teaching pronunciation. (Full disclosure: From the photos in the article I recognize the instructor, a master teacher with decades of experience in the field teaching speaking and pronunciation.)

From decades of work with gesture, myself, one of the most consistent predictors of effective use of gesture in teaching is how comfortable the instructor feels with "dancing" in front of the students and getting them to move along with her. The research on body image and identity and embodiment are unequivocal on that: to move others, literally and figuratively, you must be comfortable with your own body and its representation in public.

Knowing this instructor I do not need to see the video data to understand how her personal presence could command learner attention and (sympathetic, non-conscious) body movement, or her ability to establish and maintain rapport in the classroom. Likewise, I have not the slightest doubt that the students' experience and learning in that milieu are excellent, if not extraordinary.

The report is a fascinating read, illustrating use of various gestures and techniques, including body synchronization with rhythm and stress, and beat gesture associated with stress patterning. If you can "move" like that model, you got it. When it comes to this kind of instruction, however, the "klutzes" are clearly in the majority, probably for a number of reasons.

The one popular technique described, using stretching of rubber bands to identify stressed or lengthened vowels is often effective--for at least presenting the concept. It is marginally haptic, in fact, using both movement and some tactile anchoring in the process (the feeling of the rubber band pressing differentially on the inside of the thumbs.) In teacher training I sometimes use that technique to visually illustrate what happens to stressed vowels or those occurring before voiced consonants, in general. There is no study that I am aware of, however, that demonstrates carry over of "rubber banding" to changes in spontaneous speech or even better memory for the specific stressed syllables in the words presented in class. I'd be surprised to find one in fact.

In part the reason for that, again well established in research on touch, is that the brain is not very good at remembering degrees of pressure of touch. Likewise, clapping hands on all syllables of a word or tapping on a desk but a bit harder on the stressed syllable should not, in principle, be all that effective. That observation was, in fact, one of the early motivations for developing the haptic pronunciation teaching system.  By contrast, isolated touch, usually at a different locations on the body, seems to work much better to create differentiated memory for stress assignment. (All haptic techniques are based on that assumption.)

I, myself, taught like the model in the research for decades, basically using primarily visual-kinesthetic modeling and some student body engagement to teach pronunciation. The problem was trying to train new teachers on how to do that effectively. For a while I tried turning trainees into (somewhat) flamboyant performers like myself. I gave up on that project about 15 years ago and began figuring out how to use gesture effectively even if you, yourself, are not all that comfortable with doing it, a functional . . . klutz.

The key to effective gesture work is ultimately that the learner's body must be brought to move both in response to the instructor's presentation and in independent practice, perhaps as homework.(Lessac's dictum: Train the body first!)  Great performers accomplish that naturally, at least in presenting the concepts. The haptic video teaching system is there for those who are near totally averse to drawing attention to their body up front, but, in general, managed gesture is very doable. There are a number of (competing) systems today that do that. See the new haptic pronunciation teaching certificate, if interested in the most "moving and touching" approach.

Citation:
Nguyen, Mai-Han. (2016). A micro-analysis of embodiments and speech in the pronunciation instruction of one ESL teacher. Issues in Applied Linguistics. appling_ial_24274. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/993425h1

Why research on (pronunciation) teaching is often irrelevant to my method and my classroom

In 1994 Kumaravadivelu sounded what has turned out to be something of the death knell for the usefulness of much research on English language teaching for the individual classroom entitled: The Postmethod Condition: (E)merging Strategies for Second and Foreign Language Teaching. At the time, it seemed liberating from many perspectives, but the intervening two decades have often proven otherwise. A recent, very revealing article in Education Week by Tucker goes a long way toward explaining why: Why Education Research Has So Little Impact on Practice: The System Effect.

Clker.com

In essence, what Tucker argues, based on a piece by Kane in Education Next, is that a technique (or variable) generally cannot be judged in terms of effectiveness outside of the system in which it functions. And, most importantly, research that attempts to isolate one procedure and then generalize to multiple learner populations is epistemologically invalid (the wrong question!) For a range reasons which Tucker outlines, such as time, resources, tenure and culture, especially North American researchers do not (or cannot) evaluate a variable, such as ability in the context of the method or system in which it is embedded--or compare that system, with its isolated variable to another nearly identical system with only that variable affected. That is especially true when it comes to studying change over time.

Kumaravadivelu identified the last "system" in language teaching, the last prevailing method where internal changes could be judged in terms of effectiveness: the structuralist "Audio-lingual" paradigm. It has (thankfully) nearly disappeared today. Its problems with generalizability were legend, but something also was lost: a common method where individual variables and techniques could be credibly assessed for effectiveness. Tucker's argument speaks clearly to our problem today.

Problem? Well, maybe it is also an opportunity for individual instructors to maintain perspective when reading research studies focusing on one variable or technique before trying it out on students--and more importantly trying to figure out whether something worked or not. ("Research" has overwhelmingly established that it is always far more difficult to learn from our successes than our failures.)

What is the solution? My guess is that a new paradigm, a more iconoclastic method--for teaching pronunciation in this case--will emerge from the chaos. What would that look like? Like ALM, it will at least initially show promise to provide a highly systematic model, a more comprehensive and complete set of tools for a wide range of learning populations and classrooms.

At the moment I can (not surprisingly) only think of one . . .

Love of fatigue-inducing drill and perfect pronunciation

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

There had to be a term for it. From a 2011 study by O'Hara, FRCS, summarized by Science Daily: "functional dysphonia (FD), a voice disorder in which an abnormal voice exists with no vocal pathology." Two of the key contributing factors were excessive perfectionism and fatigue. Apparently the symptoms of FD can be of several types from change in voice pitch to serious pain. Had any perfectionist students in your classes that (nearly) burned themselves out striving for an unachievable native-speaker model? What that suggests, of course, is not that the targeted model or accent is the sole source of the problem as much as the perfectionist attitude of either the learner or the methodology. Some earlier structuralist or audiolingual pronunciation approaches do, in retrospect, seem to fit that profile. The contemporary default response of resorting, instead, to ad hoc "near peer" models (although they may have the edge on almost everything but desired accent, according to Bernat) or conscious decisions to stop short of what is considered "acceptable pronunciation" by the learner on similar grounds (of fluency or shift in priorities) is probably not the answer either. Talk about functional "dys-pronunciation" . . . 

Guidelines for being good "Outer Circle" English speakers (and doing HICP with them!)

Here is a handout from a 2009 TESOL-France Plenary by Ur In it is a very interesting set of guidelines for Outer Circle English users which raises a number of issues for HICP/EHIEP work. It is, I think, in some sense, rather "cutting edge" (but also, possibly rather "outer edge" as well!) The bracketed comments are mine. Here they are in abbreviated form:

Clip art: Clker

" . . . Aim to

[1]  . . . be 'English-knowing bilinguals,' [rather than true balanced dual-language "native speakers"]

[2] . . . learn internationally acceptable English rather than a particular native variety [She probably means something approximating what is now termed, English as a lingua franca.]

[3] . . . try not to think in English . . . [God forbid you should actually think like an Englishman or American!]

[4] . . . accept that we are native speakers of our own language, and use it, where appropriate, to help us learn English better (compare, translate etc.)" [I like that one, where appropriate, of course.]

I could do a blog post on any of those but one overriding issue emerges. Given that framework, what conceivable model (verbal and nonverbal) would be acceptable for use in the classroom? The video-based program of EHIEP, which teaches everything through haptic video, uses a great looking model (yours truly!) to train learners and instructors in how to learn and anchor (and provide corrective feedback in class for) vowels, stress, rhythm and intonation.

The pedagogical movement patterns (PMP) have been developed to be as "internationally acceptable," as humanly and critically pedagogical as  possible--but the basic "felt sense" of the sounds presented and facial expression on the video are still undeniably "Inner Circle-ish." Apparently, however,  as long as learners consistently try to not think in English, we should be ok.  Now that I think of it, that may be the case with the system already, in fact. (Only in the Don't think! Just do it! sense, of course!) I'll have to think about that, too,  and get back to you . . . 

Whole person and whole body learning

For decades, the concept of "whole person" involvement in language learning has been a given. The HICP perspective in pronunciation instruction, and that of many body-friendly methodologies in this and related fields, is that the full body, as represented in multiple-modality-based procedures, must be engaged as well.

Image: Egoscue.com

The well-known Egoscue method for body alignment and functionality has for some time provided not only a great way to keep your body loose and aligned, but also an excellent heuristic and metaphor for our work. (The Egoscue website is also linked in the right column of blog.)

Especially for the instructor, conscious control of the body as both a model for students and an a basis for optimal delivery of speech and general interpersonal nonverbal communication as presented in body movement, is an essential skill set. The Egoscue method, through a highly integrated set of exercises, creates a fascinating, integrated body balance and alignment and sense of well being. In that framework, especially awareness of  the rhythm of English seems to be greatly enhanced.

Pronunciation work can be a pain in the neck . . . but not if you have done your Egoscue that morning before class!