Teaching aggression--right out of the gait!

Your "perceived pedagogical physical presence" (PPPP) in the classroom not all that it could be?  According to new research by Satchell and colleagues at the University of Portsmouth reported by Science Daily, it may well be your . . . gait! According to their study, the way you move your upper and/or lower body may be perceived by students as overly (or micro-ly) aggressive. And we know what that can mean, if your classroom is not a "safe space" today!

Clker.com

In the study, subjects did both a paper test that looked at aggressive tendencies and were video recorded walking on the treadmill. Degree of upper body, lower body movement and gait speed were then correlated with various indices of aggression and gender.  My summary of the results:

Overall tendencies:

• More combined upper and lower body motion was correlated with tendency toward physical aggression.
• More upper body motion was correlated with tendency toward conscientiousness.
• More lower body motion was correlated with tendency toward extroversion.

Male tendencies: 

• More upper or lower body motion was correlated with tendency toward verbal aggression.
• More upper body motion was correlated with tendency toward extroversion.

Female tendencies:

• More combined upper and lower body motion was correlated with tendency toward physical aggression. 
• More upper body motion was correlated with tendency toward conscientiousness.
• More lower body motion or overall speed of gait was correlated with tendency toward agreeableness. 

See how those can add up on you and at the same time become confounded? Viewed and critiqued any video recording of your teaching lately? Regardless of how well your upper or lower body tends to move, whether in class or on the dance floor, regular review of your current PPPP is the only conscientious thing to do! You agreeable to that? 

Citation:
University of Portsmouth. (2016, September 13). Link between walk, aggression discovered. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 26, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913125309.htm

On developing excellent pronunciation and gesture--according to John Wesley,1770.

Have just rediscovered Wesley's delightful classic "Directions Concerning Pronunciation and Gesture", a short pamphlet published in 1770. The style  that Wesley was promoting was to become something of the hallmark of the Wesleyan movement: strong, persuasive public speaking. Although I highly recommend reading the entire piece, here are some of Wesley's  (slightly paraphrased) "rules" below well worth heeding, most of which are as relevant today as were they then.

 Pronunciation

• Study the art of speaking betimes and practice it as often as possible.
• Be governed in speaking by reason, rather than example, and take special care as to whom you imitate.
• Develop a clear, strong voice that will fill the place wherein you speak.
• To do that, read or speak something aloud every morning for at least 30 minutes.
• Take care not to strain your voice at first; start low and raise it by degrees to a height.
• If you falter in your speech, read something in private daily, and pronounce every word and syllable so distinctly that they may have all their full sound and proportion . . . (in that way) you may learn to pronounce them more fluently at your leisure.
• Should you tend to mumble, do as Demosthenes, who cured himself of this defect by repeating orations everyday with pebbles in his mouth. 
• To avoid all kinds of unnatural tones of voice, endeavor to speak in public just as you do in common conversation.
• Labour to avoid the odious custom of spitting and coughing while speaking.

Gesture

• There should be nothing in the dispositions and motions of your body to offend the eyes of the spectators.
• Use a large looking glass as Demosthenes (again) did; learn to avoid all disagreeable and "unhandsome" gestures.
• Have a skillful and faithful friend to observe all your motions and to inform you which are proper and which are not.
• Use the right hand most, and when you use the left let it only be to accompany the other.
• Seldom stretch out your hand sideways, more than half a foot from the trunk of your body.
•  . . . remember while you are actually speaking you are not be studying any other motions, but use those that naturally arise from the subject of your discourse.
• And when you observe an eminent speaker, observe with utmost attention what conformity there is between his action and utterance and these rules. (You may afterwards imitate him at home 'till you have made his graces your own.)

 Most of the "gesture" guidelines and several of those for pronunciation are employed explicitly in public speaking training--and in haptic pronunciation teaching. Even some of the more colorful ones are still worth mentioning to students in encouraging effective speaking of all sorts. 

Haptic solutions: [i] versus [I] - Not even close to a close vowel!

Clip art: Clker

Got any students who have difficulty making or hearing the distinction between [i] and [I] or [u] and [U]? In articulatory and perceptual terms, those two pairs of vowels are problematic for learners from many different L1s. Phonetic descriptions refer to [i] and [u] as close vowels; the other two are said to be done with the tongue "not so close" to the roof of the mouth.

Advice to learners on how to produce the differences ranges from "Smile more on [i]" or "Round your lips more on [u]," to "Tense your jaw more on one," etc. Vowel charts typically have them located very close together visually, often in the same high-front or high-back box. (Why the IPA chart or something close to it is used for learners has always been a mystery to me. Probably something to do with the linguists who set it up?) As explored in several earlier blogposts, even the choice of the left to right (front to back) lay out of the vowel chart is apparently arbitrary--and from a phonaesthetic perspective, probably backwards. (EHIEP does go right-to-left, in fact.)

The importance of spatial positioning in anchoring conceptual and emotional "closeness" has just been highlighted in a new study by Maglio at the university of Toronto-Scarborough and colleagues, briefly and informally summarized by our friends at ScienceDaily.com: " . . . something that feels close in one way, such as physical distance, will also feel close in time, probability, and social similarity." 

In the case of haptic vowel positioning, the opposite should apply; those perceived as more haptically dissimilar should be easier to distinguish and produce. In the EHIEP system, those pairs of vowels are experientially "distanced" by: 

1. Being visually distinct: [i] is represented as [iy]; [I], as [I]

2. Pedagogical movement patterns that are very different. On [iy] the left hand had brushes by the right hand (positioned at 1 o'clock in the visual field) and continues on to just above the middle of the forehead at the hair line. On [I], the left hand lightly taps the right hand, positioned at 2 o'clock. 

3. The typical student reaction to learning the haptic distinctions between close and non-close vowels  involved being something like "Those vowels are really not that close at all!" Exactly. 

See demonstrations of double smooth (tense vowel + off-glide) and single rough vowels (simple lax or tense vowel) there on Vimeo.com or on the AH-EPS website. If a demo is password-accessible only by the time you go to look at it, email info@actonhaptic.com for temporary access.

Stay close; keep in touch. 

Haptic Pronunciation Teaching (AH-EPS) Materials and Courses!

We now have 14 AH-EPS haptic pronunciation teaching packages. They are listed below and also available at the Haptic Pronunciation Teaching blog:

1. AH-EPS Basic Instructor Package ($200)
2. AH-EPS Teaching Video DVD set ($75)
3. AH-EPS Student Workbook and DVD set ($35)
4. AH-EPS 12-pack, Student Workbook and DVD sets ($400)
5. AH-EPS 20-pack, Student Workbook and DVD sets ($640)
6. AH-EPS Independent Study package ($350)
7. AH-EPS Level-1 Student Package ($25)
8. AH-EPS Pronunciation Diagnostic ($100)
9. AH-EPS Instructor Accent Enhancement Program ($960)
10. AH-EPS Consonant DVD ($28)
11. AH-EPS Student Tutoring ($30)
12. AH-EPS Instructor Consultation ($100)
13. AH-EPS One-day on-site Professional Development Workshop ($2000 - for up to 100 participants)
14. AH-EPS One-week training and certification ($2400) at Trinity Western University

For further information, go to the teaching blog or contact us at: actonhaptic@gmail.com

Better looking (and longer) stressed vowels

Linked is a great Linguist list post from 1995 by Laura Koenig that presents just about every way imaginable for getting learners to notice and remember lexical stress (and related vowel lengthening), including several hand clapping variants and using rubber bands. Most are visual/cognitive with no overt use of movement or touch. Judy Gilbert's workshops all come with free kazoo and rubber band. Just in terms of haptic anchoring, stretching a rubber band to anchor vowel length seems to work pretty well. 

Clip art: Clker

One reason that we don't use rubber bands is that the upper torso motion involved, expanding the chest with lateral hand and arm motion as the chin goes up, creates an anchored felt sense that is not generally within the normal range of motion used in spontaneous speaking--unless of course you are at the gym. The anchoring done in the visual field should involve natural, "bobbing-like" torso nods, which serves to coordinate diaphragmatic breathing involved in producing stressed syllables such as in clapping. (In addition, the rubber band touch involved is continuous, often lacking a sharp, defined point of contact for stress anchoring.) 

I do, however, highly recommend the use of chest expanders for general conditioning and developing good upper body strength, breathing and flexibility--and working off stress. 

(With Child L2 pronunciation learning) Haptic or not too haptic?

Clip art: Clker

In this study by Gori et al (2008) we get a glimpse into why children up to the age of 8-10 are more haptic in some contexts. For example, in determining relative size they will tend to rely on relative touch and motion; in figuring out orientation in space, more visual. Beyond that age, modalities are gradually more and more integrated. In working with L2 pronunciation of children with the EHIEP protocols it is striking (but from this research not surprising) how quickly they are able to "get" and mirror accurately the pedagogical movement patterns across the visual field and beyond. And, at the same time, they learn the haptic anchoring of sounds and recall them without the teacher even mentioning what is going on.

Later, as we have seen, as adults the senses are capable of working together or in opposition, depending on a number factors. To the old canard, "learn like a child," we can here see why it can be so difficult to get into that state--and how we may be able to construct frameworks that do allow occasional access to more uni-modal, direct learning when necessary.

Seen from that perspective, haptic is not just for kids.