Back to the future of (haptic) pronunciation teaching: beginning June 23rd!

The 2025 summer English Accent and Pronuncition Improvement Course (EAPIC) begins next month on the 26th. (The Spring course materials and videos are still available here.) I asked Perplexity about it, since it will figure in very prominently in all lessons of the new course:

"The English Accent and Pronunciation Improvement Course (EAPIC), built on Acton’s haptic pronunciation teaching, is notably effective for English learners of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds due to its unique integration of movement, touch, and embodied practice. Unlike traditional pronunciation methods that rely heavily on auditory and visual cues, haptic pronunciation teaching (HaPT) systematically incorporates gesture and touch, creating a multisensory learning experience that enhances memory, recall, and confidence in spoken English.

This approach draws inspiration from voice training, embodied oral reading, and kinesthetic learning, allowing learners to physically anchor sounds and patterns in their bodies. Such “haptic anchoring” supports deeper integration of new pronunciation habits, much like muscle memory in sports or music training.The method is adaptable, making it accessible to learners regardless of age, native language, or prior phonetic knowledge. Regular, structured practice—both in and out of class—ensures that improvements are not only rapid but also sustainable, while the engaging, movement-based activities boost motivation and make learning enjoyable.

Ultimately, Acton’s haptic method empowers learners to internalize English pronunciation in a way that is memorable, meaningful, and effective across diverse learner profiles."

Could not have said it better myself . . . (In fact most of those terms and phrases are extracted directly from the blog and publications I have been involved with!) The embodied oral reading of the course will be all AI generated--by the students themselves--to provide the optimal context and personal connection between the genre, vocabulary and proficiency level of the learner and the practice materials. 

The weekly, 30-minute course training videos are free, on Youtube and Vimeo. Enrolment in the 60-minute live feedback sessions is optional ($250 USD). 

Join us next month! 

Using gesture and movement to avoid "Pop Outs" in (pronunciation) teaching!

I like this study. One of the biggest obstacles in effective teaching (of anything) are sudden distractions, when what should have "popped in" easily in a lesson . . . doesn't . . . because of what just "popped out or up." Interesting piece of research by Klink et al,  on visual distraction--and a potential strategy for dealing with it, summarized by Neurosciencenews.com, Trained Brains Rapidly Suppress Visual Distractions. Title of the original study, published on PNAS: Inversion of pop-out for a distracting feature dimension in monkey visual cortex, (Ignore that term "monkey" in the original there!)

In essence the "subjects" were trained as followed (from the summary):

"The researchers trained monkeys to play a video game in which they searched for a unique shape among multiple items, while a uniquely colored item tried to distract them. As soon as the monkeys found the unique shape, they made an eye movement to it to indicate their choice. After some training, monkeys became very good at this game and almost never made eye movements to the distractor."

So what is a potential application of that "discovery" in teaching? What visual distractions are your students subject to in the classroom? On a task by task basis, how do you maintain student attention to the focus of the activity? 

For example, in haptic pronunciation teaching, instructor and students do a great deal of repeating words, phrases, sentences and dialogues together (not repeating after) while using speech-synchronized gestures continuously. In this choreographed technique, what we call "movement, tone and touch techniques" (MT3s) it is essential that instructor and student gesturing is constantly synchronized, throughout. You can "SEE" just how disruptive a visual distraction in the room in the visual fields of students could be. 

On the flip side, however, you can also "SEE" how MT3 training, itself--or even typical gesture use in teaching or communication, whether designed or impromptu, can, in principle, serve to enhance general visual attention in the classroom. 

How free of distraction or immune to it is the visual field in your classroom? Can you manage it better, more "movingly?" 

Source: Klink, P., Teeuwen, R., Lorteije, J. and P. Roelfsema. (2023). Inversion of pop-out for a distracting feature dimension in monkey visual cortex. PNAS February 22, 2023  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2210839120

Killing (Pronunciation) Learning 16*: Move (with) it or Lose it!

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Fascinating new research--with intriguing implications: "Hand constraint reduces brain activity and affects the speed of verbal responses on semantic tasks,“ by Onishi, Tobita and Makioka of Osaka Metropolitan University, one that gives the metaphor to "sit on your hands," neuroscientific validation . . .almost!

In the study, subjects sat at computers and had to make judgments as to the relative size of different objects on the screen. In one condition, subjects viewing objects that entailed the use of the hands, such as a broom, were not allowed move their hands as they responded. That significantly slowed down brain processing, compared to responding to objects, such as a house, which do not involve as direct hand engagement or learning experience, where the restraint on their hand movement had no discernable effect. 

From the perspective of embodied cognition theory that makes sense, where, in principle, all learning . . and thought is inexorably bound together with the entire body in multiple dimensions. Some of that interconnectedness derives from when something is learned; some, from the primal notion that all experience is embodied, that is grounded in what the body is doing either in saving to memory or memory access. 

Assuming that general principle holds--and I am absolutely convinced that it does from about 50 years in the field of pronunciation teaching--how does impact our understanding of the function of body movement in the classroom? For one, requiring students to sit near motionless, especially in language learning, let alone elementary school classrooms, is a killer, best case. Just being able to move around a little, keeping loose and responding easily and with all your body (and being) means something, literally. That is something we all know intuitively, of course, but what the study shows is that at some level a body constraint is a "thought" constraint as well. 

In (haptic) pronunciation teaching, virtually all basic instruction is based on gesture-synchronized speech, where all speech production can be accompanied by gesture, and body awareness of constant motion and synchrony between body and speech rhythm develop throughout the process. The hands and arms play prominently in the method. For more on that: www.actonhaptic.com

Do a video of your class (any class) sometime. Is it moving? It should be . . . 

*This is number 16 in the series of blogposts highlighting factors or variables that can seriously interfere with learning and teaching pronunciation. 

Source:
Onishi, S., Tobita, K. & Makioka, S. Hand constraint reduces brain activity and affects the speed of verbal responses on semantic tasks. Sci Rep 12, 13545 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17702-1

Embodied (and great) learning of pronunciation: Exploring Arthur Lessac!

Once in a while, we should go back to the source, what inspired us to be in this field, just to understand better where are at the moment. Two months ago, I recommended to you a new book, Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning, edited by Macrine, S. & Fugate, J., which represents some extraordinary progress is getting the body systematically back into instruction. Lessac had it figured out over 75 years ago. 

His work is not widely known outside of the fields of speech and drama, in part, because it is so "body-centered," requiring students to learn to explore themselves, their place in the world--and their voice through something similar to what we now know as "mindfulness" but also in persona of an actor to inhabit any number of other agents . . . or even musical instruments and animals, let alone metaphor upon metaphor. In other words, in theater, he had found a path back to fully engaged--and joyful use of the body and voice. 

What is so evident in Macrine & Fugate (2022) is that embodiment is key, but how you get there may vary widely . . . and neuroscience has explored a myriad ways in which that can happen effectively, many of them seem straight out of Lessac's work. 

From my perspective, in terms of a complete system, an accompanied, experiential guide to embodied "learning (through constant) exploration" (as he would characterize it), his two classics, Body Wisdom, and The Use and Training of the Human Voice, are almost without peer. 

Of course, to follow Lessac through the system, or through the courses available through the Lessac Institute, takes time, maybe six months or so before you get there, where you and your body have become wonderfully "reintegrated," as you were when you were a child. To the post-modern mind, from the "outside," it appears as though you have simply given yourself over to the whims of body, but in fact, what as happened is you and your body are just communicating together as a team. 

But to get there, generally requires going back to square one, exploring the experience of speaking and moving again, setting aside temporarily the layer upon layer of words and experience that determine what we are allowed to sense and understand. To Lessac, it was all about "exploration," being perpetually in that state of discovery with the body as the "territory," and the mind as being the map being constantly created out of experience-- not the reverse. 

In other words, to quote Lessac, train the body first. KINETIK does that. Join us this fall. (www.actonhaptic.com) or email me directly: wracton@gmail.com for custom programs, etc. 

It's good to be back. More on the KINETIK project, "KINETIK (embodied speaking and teaching) Method" soon! 

Required reading! (New book on Embodied Cognition in Teaching and Learning)

Put this one on your list:  Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning, edited by Macrine, S. & Fugate, J., MIT Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.001.0001

From the promo: "Experts translate {at least some of} the latest findings on embodied cognition from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to inform teaching and learning pedagogy." (Braces, mine!) There are "only" 18 chapters, 330 pages, and the topics covered are not exhaustive, of course, but several, including the opening section on theories of embodied cognition are well worth a careful read. That is especially the case since it is FREE, open access!

In addition to the excellent concluding section, my favorite chapter thus far, one that connects very directly to the KINETIK Method and haptic pronunciation teaching is: "Embodied Classroom Activities for Vocabulary Acquisition," by Gomez, L. and Glenberg, A. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13593.003.0011

Enjoy! Embody it all! 

Bill

Improved pronunciation "in the blink of any eye!"

How important is general/not directly task-based body movement, especially the lack of it, to learning pronunciation, creativity or just learning? In haptic pronunciation teaching learners are encouraged or required to move almost constantly, primarily through speech-synchronized gesture, but also through "Mindfulness-like" practices that monitor the state of the muscles and posture of the body, along with breathing patterns. 

But what about the impact on learning when students' bodies are held more in check, with restricted motor engagement? A new study by Murali and Händel of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting, summarized by ScienceDaily.com, not only affirms our intuitions about the central role of embodiment in thought and learning, but suggests something more: even while seated, a little movement appears to go a long way in maintaining creativity and attention. (What a shocker, eh? Hope you were sitting down when you read that!)

Ciker.com

The actual protocols of the research, which involved measurement of eye "blinking" responses as indices of degree of engagement, are not described in the summary, but the title of the original piece is interesting. To quote from the summary of the study: "Our research shows that it is not movement per se that helps us to think more flexibly," says neuroscientist Dr Barbara Händel from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany. Instead, the freedom to make self-determined movements (emphasis, mine there) is responsible for it." 

In other words, messing with the body's incredible range of what appear to be random movements, apparently unassociated with the task being consciously in focus, may have dramatic consequences. An extreme analogy might even be talking with friends who are somewhere on the autism or ADHD spectrums. Their body and eye movements seem to suggest that they are not pay sufficient attention when in fact that is not the case at all. 

Now I am not saying that "thinking more flexibly" at any moment in instructional time is necessarily a good thing, of course, but the principle of allowing the body to also think and create on its own on an ongoing basis, in some sense "non or extra-verbally," if  you will, certainly is. On behalf of all elementary school boys on the planet who have had to sit in/through years of class to learn with girls when we should, instead, have been outside learning with our hands and whole bodies, I can only say, AMEN! 

Think about it. While you were reading this blogpost, what "else" was your body doing? If you can't remember . . . Q.E.D (quod erat demonstrandum)

Keep in touch!

Bill

Original source: 

Supriya Murali, Barbara Händel. Motor restrictions impair divergent thinking during walking and during sitting. Psychological Research, 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01636-w

Managing distraction in (haptic pronunciation) teaching: to block or to hype . . . or both!

New study by Udakis et al:  Interneuron-specific plasticity at parvalbumin and somatostatin inhibitory
synapses onto CA1 pyramidal neurons shapes hippocampal output, characterized by Science Daily as a  . . . a breakthrough in understanding how memories can be so distinct and long-lasting without getting muddled up." Normally, I wouldn't take a shot at connecting research in basic neuroscience to haptic pronunciation teaching, but this one, describing the basic mechanisms by which some memories get stored so that they are recalled vividly later, points to a couple of principles that should underlie all instruction, not just haptic pronunciation teaching. 

In essence what were identified are two key "circuits," in effect, one that basically intensified the event and another that served to block out distraction, or put another way functions to inhibit other "learning" that might cover over or undermine an experience. One interesting implication of that model is that the brain, in some sense, is "intentionally" managing distraction. Now the conditions that have to be in play for an experience to be "protected" are, of course, myriad, but the concept that highly systematic attention to distraction, not just increasing excitement or emotional engagement in a "teachable moment" is critical is worth considering. 

Clker.com

In the comment on the earlier post on distraction, the observation was made that, at least in one program, distraction was not seen as having any relevance in instruction, whatsoever. My guess is that that is the case in many systems as well. In our haptic pronunciation teaching workshops one of the questions we must explore is how teachers explicitly and intentionally deal with in class distractions, of all kinds, but especially extraneous kinetic (movement in the room), visual (elements in the visual field of learners), auditory (any noise coming in from outside or being generated in the room), olfactor (odors), airborne (pollution, etc.), temperature fluctuations and furniture comfort and distribution. 

Any one of those can seriously undermine instruction, of course. In haptic work which is based on systematic control of movement and gesture and utilization of the visual field, you can see how any distraction, in addition to just naturally "wandering students minds" can undermine the process. Consequently, we attend to ALL of them in our initial assessment of the classroom setting that learners are about to enter. 

Just the use of gesture and movement synchronized with speaking will capture the attention of learners at least temporarily mediating the surrounding potentially distractions, but the idea is that in addition to learners being "captivated" by the lesson content, activities and instructor delivery, attention to or control of select environmental features may be extraordinarily important. Assuming you can not control everything at once, I'd suggest you use our basic heuristic: adjust . . . at least just one or two intentionally . . . each class--without letting learners know what you are up to.  Then maybe do some kind of warm up, maybe not like this one of mine, but you get the idea!

Source: 

University of Bristol. (2020, September 8). Research unravels what makes memories so detailed and enduring. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 1, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200908131139.htm

Becoming a great (haptic), "good looking" pronunciation teacher: Modeling

If your are in the Vancouver, British Columbia next month, join us at the joint 2020 BCTEAL and Image Conference. Always a great get together.

If you haven't done a video of yourself teaching in the last couple of years, you might do that before you read the rest of this post. Better still, doing pronunciation or conversation work where you, up front, are providing at least some of the pronunciation models. (I have a rubric for that for my grad students. If you'd like a copy, email me.) 

I'll be doing a new workshop, "Modeling and correcting pronunciation in and out of class," based on the idea that as an instructor, really any kind, but especially one doing (haptic) pronunciation, your dynamic pedagogical body image (DPBI) e.g., Iverson, 2012, your visual model, your physical presence, movement and gesture in the classroom, from several perspectives, are worth considering carefully. How you dress, your pronunciation and accent, the coordination of your speech with your overall body movement in providing models of language and general postural presentation, all have meaning. When, as in haptic pronunciation work, you are asking students to synchronize some of their speech and gesture with yours, the nature of what is in front of them visually, can obviously contribute to or detract from instructional effectiveness.

In haptic work, in principle, all aspects of pronunciation can be represented/portrayed or embodied using gesture and body movement. From that perspective then, just modeling a word, or phrase or clause, or passage, involves choreography, demonstrating both the sound but also the gestural complex that represents it. (to see examples of the earlier v4.5 version of the haptic system, check out the models on the website).

The same goes for in-class correction or required homework on the form attended to in class or self-correction by the student. The instructor may present the more appropriate form first, choreographed, and then have the student or students "do" the targeted piece of language/text together (never "repeat after me", always "let's do that together.") All key, necessary pronunciation work is to be embedded, practiced, synchronized with gesture for at least a week or so as homework to insure some degree of anchoring in memory and spontaneous speaking, or at least aural comprehension.

For most kinds of instruction what you look like and how you move can be pretty much irrelevant--one of the reasons I love online teaching!!! For some, however, it does, even if it means just cutting down on "clutter" in the visual field up front.

v5.0 will be out before long. This is, nonetheless, a good first step . . . continually taking a "good look" up front at the dynamic model you are providing for your students, and yourself.

OLOA! Pronunciation Teaching Lagniappe!

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When the "oral reading baby" was for a time tossed out with the structuralist reading and pronunciation teaching "bath", a valuable resource was temporarily mislaid. New research by Forrin and MacLeod of Waterloo University confirms what common sense tells us: that reading a text aloud or even verbalizing something that you need to remember (get ready!) actually may help. Really? In that study the "production effect" was quite significant. From the Science Daily summary:

"The study tested four methods for learning written information, including reading silently, hearing someone else read, listening to a recording of oneself reading, and reading aloud in real time. Results from tests with 95 participants showed that the production effect of reading information aloud to yourself resulted in the best remembering . . . And we know that regular exercise and movement are also strong building blocks for a good memory."

There have been any number of blogposts here advocating the use of oral reading in pronunciation teaching, but this is one argument that I had not encountered or was not all that interested in, in part because I had an Aunt who read and thought aloud constantly and very "irritatingly"! (And who, it appears not incidentally, had a  phenomenal memory for detail.) You may well have an aunt or associate who uses the same often socially dysfunctional memory heuristic.

One often unrecognized source of lagniappe (bonus) from attention to pronunciation, especially in the form of oral reading in class or as personalized homework, is this production effect, which is the actual focus of the study: any number of actions or physical movement may contribute to memory for language material. The text being verbalized still has to be "meaningful" in some sense, according to the study. In haptic work we use the acronym OLOA (out loud oral anchoring), targeted elements of speech accompanied by gesture and touch. 

That can happen any time in instruction, of course, but the precise conditions for it being effective are interesting and worth exploring. One of the procedures I have frequently set up in teaching observations is analyzing the extent and quality of OLOA (In Samoan: one's labor, skill or possessions!) See if you can remember to use more of that intentionally next week in class and observe what happens. (If not, try a little OLOA on this blogpost!)

Citation:
University of Waterloo. (2017, December 1). Reading information aloud to yourself improves memory of materials. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 6, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171201090940.htm

Motor-mouth language (and pronunciation): learning through "sleep napnia"

"Give me a break!" (This is your brain talking after a hard day of learning.) One of the fundamental
principles of hypnotherapy, and many similar frameworks, is that at critical points in the process, conscious attention to learning must be suspended. Unless it is, little or nothing will be retained or integrated. One of the ways we do that, of course, is sleep. (In hypnosis that is done very intentionally.)

Clker.com

A fascinating "rat" study, summarized by Neuroscience News, “Neural reactivations during sleep determine network credit assignment” by Gulati, Guo, Ramanathan, Bodepudi and Ganguly of University of California - San Francisco, explored how the brain consolidates motor learning during sleep. Let me translate the conclusion hidden in that title for you. 

They found that deep sleep was required for the brain to, in effect, sort out what was relevant and functionally important in learning a complex motor task, separating out and discarding all the false starts and exploratory moves required to finally get it "right." They could actually watch the motor area of the brain "playing" with the new pattern repeatedly in sleep. Upon waking, if the rats who were allowed to "sleep it through", their performance was correct. If the deep sleep activity was, in effect, injected with a little static that did not let the extraneous "moves" be backgrounded efficiently, the pattern was not readily available to the rat when conscious again. 

Hope that long "unpack" did not put you to sleep! The research on the function and necessity of sleep for learning is long established. Here is one takeaway for pronunciation teaching, or the use of gesture in language teaching in general

In our highly physical, "motorized" experiential work in haptic pronunciation teaching, we long ago recognized that learning how to use the pedagogical movement patterns (specifically created gestures tied to sound patterns) took time--and time off. In other words, you work on the movements for a few minutes and then set it aside, without even THINKING about mastery. That comes later, days later, pretty much without you even thinking about it. For the perfectionist and control freak, the haptic system can be quite a challenge initially.

We can't require that students get a good night's sleep or even a nap occasionally. There is also probably no feasible way right now to research that, but the principle is important. At least efficient, simple motor learning requires sleep to sort things out. In addition, the learning experience has to be relatively free of extraneous static being encoded or absorbed along with it as it is happening.

One of the primary contributions of touch in the haptic system is strong, temporary focusing of attention on the coordinated sound and gesture being learned. That should include enhanced body awareness and decluttering of the visual field. When the brain then works on the pattern that evening in the sack, it should have even a little less interference to play with and work through.

Pronunciation, as motor-based as it is,  is certainly nothing to lose sleep over!

Definitions of motor-mouth!

"Napnia" (a neologism) defined: Taking a nap to learn in or by!

Original source:
UCSF (2017, August 11). Deep Sleep Reinforces the Learning of New Motor Skills. NeuroscienceNew. Retrieved August 11, 2017 from http://neurosciencenews.com/Deep Sleep Reinforces the Learning of New Motor Skills/

Why using music helps learning pronunciation even when it doesn't!

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How did we ever teach or solve problems before neuroscience--or as we occasionally refer to it here: "near-ol'-science"? It is axiomatic that even when an experiment or study goes no place, or worse, it is still scientifically valid as long as it was well designed. (Try telling that to your tenure and promotion committee, however, or try and get a "no results" report published sometime, although that is changing when it comes to replicating well-known studies.)

Neuroscience has certainly added a new dimension to our work. Sometimes, for instance, it highlights a change in brain structure related to some experimental process, even if the treatment in the study didn't work as predicted.

Here's an example with particular relevance for pronunciation teaching, a "no discernable difference in main effect but related changes in the brain anyway" study, relating sound and movement. To misquote one of my favorite quotes from Bertrand Russell: A difference that doesn't make a difference . . . DOES make a difference in this case. Perhaps significantly.

In the study by Moore, Schaefer, Bastin, Roberts and Overy, summarized by Science Daily, Diffusion tensor MRI tractography reveals increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in arcuate fasciculus following music-cued motor training, subjects were trained in a pattern of finger movements either accompanied by music or not, and, of course, fMRI'd as well. The music treatment did not result in any significant difference in learning the skill but in the area of the brain connecting sound and movement, there was a striking increase in activity and activated "white matter". The music had still facilitated the learning in some sense, just not enough--but enough to suggest to researchers that the music-connection is indeed valuable in enhancing motor skill development.

My guess (based on common sense and the experience of generations of teachers who use music for this purpose and others) is that had the experiment involved a more complex skill and possibly more time, the gain by the music group would have been more evident. Another possibility is that the way that the skill was measured did not get at some other aspect of the process or look at it over a long enough time period. Perhaps had a second, related skill been learned next, the enhanced sound-movement connectivity would have been more "pronounced" . . . The researchers suggest as much in their conclusion.

The significance of the study, according the researchers was that: "The study suggests that music makes a key difference. We have long known that music encourages people to move. This study provides the first experimental evidence that adding musical cues to learning [sic] new motor task can lead to changes in white matter structure in the brain." Again, that key difference was in the brain, not in the hands. But if they are right, and I'm certain they are, it points to five important principles:

• Music facilitates (at least motor and sound connected) learning.
• The effect may be more cumulative, rather then evident in controlled "one time" studies.
• Pronunciation learning, especially early in the process is in many respects is a sound-motor problem for the learner.
• Evidence that training is consonant with brain development should be understood as more systemic, affecting and supporting other analogous processes in language learning as well.
• There is much we do now that we lack clear empirical evidence for but experience argues strongly for it. Before abandoning it, connect up fMRIs to students and see what is actually going on in the brain. You may be making all kinds of progress that will be evident soon, or a bit later. 

Publish it, using this study as your model! It's a (no) brainer!

Source:
University of Edinburgh. (2017, July 6). Learning with music can change brain structure: Using musical cues to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain, according to a new study. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 13, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170706113209.htm

What (a window into the brain of) the mouse can teach us about learning pronunciation

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Trigger warning: If you are especially attached to your mouse, you may want to skip over the third, italicized paragraph below . . . 

Fascinating research by Funamizu, Kuhn and Doya of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, "Neural substrate of dynamic Bayesian inference in the cerebral cortex", originally published in Nature Neuroscience, summarized by Science Daily as, "Finding your way around in an uncertain world". (Full citation below.)

Basically, the study looked at how the (mouse's) brain uses movement of the mouse's body in creating meaning and thought. Reading the research methodology is not for the faint of heart. Here is a piece of the Science Daily summary describing it:

The team performed surgeries in which a small hole was made in the skulls of mice and a glass cover slip was implanted onto each of their brains over the parietal cortex. Additionally, a small metal headplate was attached in order to keep the head still under a microscope. The cover slip acted as a window through which researchers could record the activities of hundreds of neurons using a calcium-sensitive fluorescent protein that was specifically expressed in neurons in the cerebral cortex . . . The research team built a virtual reality system in which a mouse can be made to believe it was walking around freely, but in reality, it was fixed under a microscope. This system included an air-floated Styrofoam ball on which the mouse can walk and a sound system that can emit sounds to simulate movement towards or past a sound source.(ScienceDaily, September 16, 2016).

Got that? They then observed how the mice "navigate" the virtual space under different conditions, including almost complete reliance on body movement, rather than with access to any visual or auditory stimulus. The surprising finding (at least to me) was the extent to which kinesthetic memory or engagement took over, directing the mice to the "reward." There is much more to the work, of course, but this "window" into the functioning of the cerebral cortex is really consistent with a wide range of studies that point to "body-based" meaning creation and control.

So, what is the possible relevance of that to pronunciation teaching? (I never thought you'd ask!) Our work in haptic pronunciation teaching, for example, is based on the assumption, in effect, that "gesture comes first" (before sound and visual phonemes/graphemes) in instruction. (Based on Lessac's principle of "Train the body first" in voice and stage movement work.) For the most part today, pronunciation methodologists and theorists still see the role of gesture in teaching as being secondary, at best, an optional "reinforcer" of word-sound associations or a vehicle for "loosening up" learners and their bodies and emotional states-- or even just having fun!

What the "mice" study suggests is that sound, movement and vision are more integrated and interdependent in the brain than we generally acknowledge--or at least that movement is more central to meaning creation and retrieval. There are a number of body and movement-based theories that support that observation. In other words, the use of gesture in instruction deserves much more attention than it is currently getting. Much more than just a gesture . . .

Citation:
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University - OIST. "Finding your way around in an uncertain world." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 September 2016. 

Haptic Pronunciation Teaching - v3.5 TESOL 2016 Special!

Even if you can't make it to Baltimore next week for the TESOL Convention for one of the demos, you can still get the AHEPS "TESOL special" version 3.5 for a limited time (until this September!)

Keep in touch!

Basic cost: $100 CAD for (copying authorized), 12 months unlimited streaming and (the BIG bonus) . . . a half hour SKYPE Chat w/me after you have tried some haptic with your students.  (DVD set is also available for $60 CAD, free shipping). For immediate purchase, go here! For hard copies and special orders, contact: info@actonhaptic.com.

p.s. If you don't want to talk w/me, I'll knock of my "2 cents worth" from the price!

Can't stand teaching pronunciation? You should reconsider!

When you work with pronunciation, how often do you have students on their feet? In both general education and business the benefits of "thinking on your feet" (literally) is well-established. (I'm doing this blogpost, as usual, standing in the kitchen next to the coffee maker!) A new study by Mehta, Shortz and Benden of Texas A&M University, summarized by Science Daily, seems to establish for the first time the specific "neuro-cognitive" basis of that effect.

Based on students' preferences, they were assigned to use standing desks during the experimental study. According to the authors, quoted by Science Daily:

"Test results indicated that continued use of standing desks was associated with significant improvements in executive function and working memory capabilities," Mehta said. "Changes in corresponding brain activation patterns were also observed."

 Wow! That almost deserves a standing ovation! On the blog in the past I've reported on a number of studies that demonstrate the cognitive benefits of exercise on learning and memory and the corresponding enhancement of attitude and motivation that getting students up and moving around produces.

AMPISys, Inc.

In the classroom application of haptic pronunciation teaching (and STRONGLY recommended for haptic independent study) virtually ALL initial training in the core pedagogical movement patterns is done with students on their feet, typically mirroring the the model on the LCD screen at the front of the room. (To preview those, go here.)

Even if your school is not set up with stand up desks, you can at least get students on their feet occasionally, not just for pronunciation but almost any in-class activity (as I'm sure many of you do already.) One of my all time favorites is the "Talkaboutwalkabout!" in fact.

Full citation:
Texas A&M University. "New study indicates students' cognitive functioning improves when using standing desks." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 January 2016. .

How YOU elocute is how I elocute: Collaborative haptic motor skill (and pronunciation) learning

For a glimpse into the future of instruction, have a look at Chellali, Dumas and Milleville-Pennel (2010) "A Haptic Communication Paradigm For Collaborative Motor Skills Learning." Their WYFIWIF (What you feel is what I feel) model illustrates nicely just what haptic technology is, in essence using a computer-mediated interface to guide movement, using basically pressure translated through some kind of device such as a glove. In the study, subjects were guided to better performance on a focused manual task, moving a needle, by a haptic-assisted instructor. Not surprisingly, the control group, the visual or verbally-guided only group, did not perform as well. 

Another example of haptic communication, as defined in WYFIWIF, might be an instructor first leading a learner through a gesture pattern with haptic technology and then continuing to provide haptic guidance as the learner attempts to practice and master the pattern. The researchers note that in a virtual environment, as in haptics-assisted surgery or training, " . . . haptic communication is combined (more and more with complementary) visual and verbal communication in order to help an expert to transfer his knowledge to a novice operator."

Although the haptic application to our pronunciation work does not involve haptics technology, but rather hands touching on target or stressed sounds--following the visual and spoken guidance of an instructor or peer--the parallel is striking. It is the collaborative haptic-embodied task (instructor and learner engaged in a tightly linked, synchronous, communicative, embodied "dance") that greatly enables and facilitates learning. 

In the conclusion of the study, there is a truly striking recommendation for further research: the impact on haptic communication of the "verbal communications between the instructor and the leaner." We have  over a decade of experience--and a few dozen blogposts--with that! Now "needle-less" to say,  if we can just get our hands in some of those gloves . . .

Full citation:
Amine Chellali, C ́edric Dumas, Isabelle Milleville-Pennel. WYFIWIF: A Haptic Communication Paradigm For Collaborative Motor Skills Learning. IADIS. Web Virtual Reality and Three-Dimensional Worlds 2010, Jul 2010, Freiburg, Germany. IADIS, pp.301-308, 2010.

Sub-par, gesture-enabled (pronunciation) teaching?

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FORE! Never quite gotten into the "swing" of using movement and gesture in pronunciation, vocabulary, speaking or general instruction? Being an occasional golfer, myself, this promo for Hank Hanley's stuff immediately resonated. I think it will with you as well. Here's what the great golf swing (as taught by Tiger Woods' former swing coach) teaches us about the effective application of gesture (or movement) to teaching, especially pronunciation teaching. (Hanley's 4 principles)

• Find your "swing plane". (Use gestures that are visually and physically consistent, that is track through the visual field on the same path--every time.)
• Tighten your turn. (Carefully manage all other extraneous body movement or random thought during execution of the pedagogical movement pattern.)
• Finish your bunker swing. (Follow through after using a gesture to anchor a sound or sound pattern by instructing learners as to how to uptake the key feature of that "teachable movement" whether by quickly replaying it right then, writing a quick note or practicing it as homework.)
• Don't fight the putter. (Putting is about touch. Touch is the centre of haptic anchoring, using touch to focus attention on the stressed syllable of a word or the multi-sensory experience.)

It should be required for continuing certification, that every professional language instructor practice and continue to improve their "swing," whatever form that takes, whether dance, singing, musical instrument, painting, calligraphy or sport. Doing haptic pronunciation teaching well requires--or fosters--continual refining of the "swing," our physical-pedagogical presence in the classroom.

As we say, "See you in the movies!" (or: Keep in touch!)

Front and back-brained creativity--"monkeying around" with (haptic) pronunciation change!

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One argument against extensive kinaesthetic involvement in general instruction or pronunciation teaching (using gesture and movement) has always been the superiority of "front brain" as opposed to more "back brain" learning -- or the excessive "flamboyance" of many overly "gesticular" promoters of such systems, myself included up to about a decade ago, unfortunately!

That also seemed to be supported by the apparent separation between areas of the brain involved with "higher" executive, cognitive functions such as planning and strategy use (in the prefrontal cortex) from those that have more to do with motor control and learning, for example, the "lowly" cerebellum at the back of the brain. In other words, the more conscious, cognitive insight, control and involvement "up front", probably the better.

But consider this new research by Saggar, Quintin, Kienitz, Bott, Sun, Hong, Chien, Liu, Dougherty, Royalty, Hawthorne and Reiss of Stanford University (longest list of co-authors I have ever seen!) entitled:  Pictionary-based fMRI paradigm to study the neural correlates of spontaneous improvisation and figural creativity. (Full citation below).

According to the Science Daily summary, the researchers have discovered "unexpected brain structures" that connect creativity to motor centres in the brain. In effect, they have demonstrated that motor involvement or embodiment is apparently fundamental to a much wider range of learning and cognitive functioning than thought previously.

And why was this just now revealed? Simple, perhaps. According to the authors, previous models were based primarily on earlier research with primate/monkey brains. Not surprisingly, in retrospect, the connection between thinking and moving in the monkey brain might, indeed, be a bit different than that--in at least most of our students . . . 

The research design was ingenious, using Pictionary/creative drawing tasks with fMRI monitoring of brain engagement. (Being a great fan of Pictionary, that is not surprising!) What was surprising, however, was that the motor centres in the cerebellum remained active and engaged long after the actual body movement activity had subsided, revealing the "embodied" side of what would normally be assumed to be visual/cognitive thought or processing.

In other words, the creative, improvisational activity was being carried on best, at least to some degree, outside of awareness, by what had appeared to be primarily "motor" circuits. Relatively too much pre-frontal involvement in the task was clearly counterproductive. 

One of the section subtitles of the Science Daily summary highlights a very relevant implication of that "discovery" (for haptic or other highly kinasethetic pronunciation work): 'The more you think about it, the more you mess it up' . . . Or, to quote the great Nike slogan: Just do it!

That may explain some of the current ineffectiveness of pronunciation instruction: Too much cerebellum or not quite enough!

Think about it!

Full Citation from Science Daily.com (To appear soon in the Journal Scientific Reports):
Stanford University Medical Center. "Unexpected brain structures tied to creativity, and to stifling it." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 May 2015. .

ADHD and good pronunciation teaching: Move it or lose it?

Have had this "intuition" for decades that most (if not all) great conversation and pronunciation teachers are basically ADHD or close to it. Conversely, great reading and writing instructors (and all tenured researchers in the field) tend to go in the opposite direction.

During my decade in Japan I was fascinated by one of the tenets of the Aikido school of martial arts: Do not block the thrust of your opponent but redirect the energy and movement for your purposes. That is also a first principle of early elementary education, especially in dealing with boys . . .

Now comes a study by Shaver and colleagues at Central Florida University, summarized by Science Daily - full citation below) demonstrating how leaners with ADHD function and learn. In effect, they learn better on cognitive tasks when they "squirm" as they do, to quote the researchers. Apparently what is happening is that the movement is activating areas of the brain controlling executive/control functions to maintain alertness. But here is the more interesting finding:

"By contrast, the children in the study without ADHD also moved more during the cognitive tests, but it had the opposite effect: They performed worse."

That must apply to adult learners as well. The delicate balance between the  facilitative role of movement and gesture in pronunciation teaching and the potentially disruptive effects is key. Pronunciation teaching is, of course, somewhat unique in that regard, some aspects are more motor-training-centered; others are more cognitive in nature, such as rules and explanations. 

This study helps in understanding more about how movement affects or interferes with some kinds of  cognitive processing--and the obvious aversion to kinaesthetic work by some on the other end of the ADHD scale.  We know that most cannot learn better pronunciation just by talking or thinking about it--or by simple, mindless repetition. It does suggest what an optimal instructional model may look like, however . . .

A modest example: Haptic pronunciation work is based on the idea of managing extraneous, random movement so common in unsystematic (but enthusiastic) use of gesture in the classroom, while at the same time still keeping both mind and body engaged. Try it or something like it. (It is impossible to sit still while you do!)

Full citation:
University of Central Florida. (2015, April 17). Kids with ADHD must squirm to learn, study says. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 22, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.htm

Dance your way to better classroom management (and pronunciation teaching)?

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Here is a moving study--especially if you are a dancer or dance fan (of which I count myself a member) --summarized by ScienceDaily, conducted by Hujala, Laulainen and Kokkonen of the University of Eastern Finland: "Manager's dance: reflecting management interaction through creative movement," published in the International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion. 

The researchers' methodology and conclusion, excerpted from the abstract on Inderscience.com: (To buy this piece would cost $41 CAD, or about 8 Vente Carmel Frappuccinos, so we'll just have to go with what we have here!)

"Four managers and three researchers participated in two creative dance sessions with a dance pedagogue. The sessions were videotaped, and the visual material and reflections of participants were used in the interpretation. The use of creative movement 'revealed' unconscious dimensions of behaviour and the relevance of feelings in management interaction. In addition, the therapeutic outcomes appeared to be an essential part of the study for the participants."

Here is what ScienceDaily pulled from the study (boldface, mine):

"They suggest that creative movement harnessing the whole body may give rise to new knowledge about management interactions. Most intriguingly, they suggest that a person's dance moves might reveal unconscious and unnoticed thoughts about their life and their position in the workplace and so highlight the aesthetic and embodied dimensions of management."

We often characterize what we do in haptic pronunciation teaching as a kind of dance, where instructor and learner move together as they work on new or "correctable" sounds, as if in synchronized dance across the room from each other. We have not, however, formally looked at the class management side of what is going on, that is exerting control over the "whole bodies" of learners as we do that.

The methodology seems pretty straightforward (from what we can get from the abstract). Might be a bit uncomfortable for some, to sit and watch videos of themselves teaching, talking about their feelings during synchronized "haptic dance" and how they managed it, but to paraphrase Garth Brooks, to avoid the "pain" might be to miss the "dance!"

Keep in touch.

Full citation:

Inderscience. (2014, March 6). Hey, boss! Lose yourself to dance, know yourself better. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 9, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140306093615.htm

Why haptic (pronunciation) teaching and learning should be superior!

Wow. How about this "multi-sensory" conclusion from Max-Planck-Gesellschaft researchers Mayer, Yildiz, Macedonia, and von Kriegstein, Visual and motor cortices differentially support the translation of foreign language words (full citation below)--summarized by Science daily (boldface added for emphasis) :

"The motor system in the brain appears to be especially important: When someone not only hears vocabulary in a foreign language, but expresses it using gestures, they will be more likely to remember it. Also helpful, although to a slightly lesser extent, is learning with images that correspond to the word. Learning methods that involve several senses, and in particular those that use gestures, are therefore superior to those based only on listening or reading."

The basic "tools" of haptic pronunciation teaching, what we call "pedagogical movement patterns," are defined as follows:

As a word or phrase is visualized (visual) and spoken with resonant voice, a gesture moving across the visual field is preformed which culminates in hands touching on the stressed syllable of the word or phrase (cognitive/linguistic), as the sound of the word is experienced as articulatory muscle movement in the upper body and by vibrations in the body emanating from the vocal cords and (to some degree) sound waves returning to the ears (auditory). 

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And what bonds that all together? A 2009 study by Fredembach,et al demonstrated just how haptic anchoring--and the PMP should work: in relative terms, the major contribution of touch may generally be exploratory and assembling of multi-sensory experiences. The key is to do as much as possible to ensure that learners keep as many senses in play during "teachable moments" when new word-sound complexes are being encountered and learned. 

Make sense? Keep in touch!

Citations:

Fredembach, B., Boisferon, A. & Gentaz, E. (2009) Learning of arbitrary association between visual and auditory novel stimuli in adults: The “Bond Effect” of haptic exploration. PLoS ONE, 2009, 4(3), 13-20.

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. (2015, February 5). Learning with all the senses: Movement, images facilitate vocabulary learning. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 7, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205123109.htm