Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: musical texture

Showing posts with label musical texture. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Expressiveness in pronunciation instruction

Clip art: Clker

A few blog posts back I assembled a set of musical terms that could be used to characterize speaking performance. For example, as part of a set up for the mood of a dialogue, you could indicate something like "con spiritu, a placere" (with spirit, but need not follow strict rhythm pattern). Another term, espressivo (expressively), appears (as "expressiveness") commonly, for example, in rubrics used in public speaking or classroom presentations, etc. I have over the years done several workshops with titles like "Expressive pronunciation," the idea being that if you can get learners to be more "expressive" (however that is defined) you should be better able to move them to fluency and integration of focus-on-form targets. What is "expressiveness?" Here is 2005 a study by Fabian and Schubert that looked at how that concept was unpacked and used in a study of listener judgment of two versions of a Bach violin concerto. Some of the parameters of expressiveness and related criterion used in the study were:

Clip art: Clker

Phrasing (Continuous, Legato, Articulated, Detailed)
Tone Production (Vibrato, Intensity, Straightness, Lightness)
Rhythm (Grouped, Strict, Measured, Flexible)

Subjects were also asked to rate each performance on more global criteria : Romantic Expressiveness and Baroque Expressiveness. Not surprisingly, each of those two correlated quite directly with very differing subsets of the three "linguistic" categories. The point of the study was to demonstrate that expressiveness can be understood from a set of parameters such as those and that its realization in any piece or context will depend upon the style in which it is situated. The same goes for oral production or interpretation of any text used in pronunciation-focus work: By systematically and explicitly varying those or similar parameters, learners can be assisted in speaking "expressively" within their own personal L2 expressive style or identity, whether more "Baroque-like" or more "Romantically." Just because the learner seems relatively over-"buttoned down," rigid or emotionally constrained does not mean that he or she cannot develop genuine, authentic expressiveness. In other words, If it's Baroque, don't (be too quick to try to) fix it!

Friday, August 3, 2012

The texture(s) of pronunciation (haptic-integrated) teaching

Clip art: Clker

Earlier posts have reported on recent research on the neurophysiology of touch, essentially showing that the brain responds to texture-based words and phrases, such as rough, smooth, hard, soft, slippery, sticky, prickly, slimey, etc., in very much in the same way as it does to actual, physical touch sensations. Combing that sense of texture with the way it is used in music, that is the sum of what is going on in a musical presentation at any moment in time, you have a very helpful framework for designing effective pronunciation teaching techniques and interventions. From the music perspective, among other things, a great deal is going on in haptic-integrated instruction:

Sound is being generated by the vocal chords
Resonance throughout the upper body is being "experienced" vividly
The articulatory apparatus of the mouth and upper throat are engaged
Hands and arms move across the visual field to a fixed point identified with a specific phonological target
Hands touch on stressed or focused elements
The orthographic representation is probably being visualized
The meaning of the word or element is probably (ideally) being linked in memory
The general context of usage for the word is (ideally) being consciously attended to

From the physical/metaphorical texture perspective, there are several different textures of touch that may be experienced when the hands touch either each other or some point on the upper body or torso. Among them:

"Rough" on lax vowel-based pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs)
"Smooth" on tense vowel-based PMPs
"Prickly + gliding" on tense vowels w/off-glides or R+vowel combination-based PMPs
"Soft and hard" tapping on unstressed and stressed vowel-based PMPs
"Slippery" gliding or strong downward pressure on intonation contour-based PMPs
"Smooth gliding" on fluency-based PMPs
"Hard, rough squeeze" (on fuzzy tennis ball) during fast-speech PMPs

It's not hard to grasp at all . . .

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What is haptic pronunciation teaching?

Basically, it is using gesture, touch and movement to teach pronunciation of English (or any language). What makes this method unique is that it is based on controlled and systematic use of gesture in doing that. (Often the problem with gesture use in language learning is that it can be "crazy" or random or intimidating or inconsistent, or not well-developed and tied to clear outcomes.)

The earlier "Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) approach," now KINETIK, does a better job of enhancing presentation, modelling, feedback and correction. The method is simple and easy to follow. Once a 30-minute module is finished, teacher and students have a set of techniques to use in class anytime a pronunciation problem or opportunity comes up!

Haptic Preliminaries

I often begin workshops or papers with the comment that in about 40 years in the field I have had just one idea: that the systematic use of body movement is essential to effective and efficient pronunciation instruction. That has never been more relevant than today, with the general deemphasis on pronunciation and introduction of technology into the field. From both perspectives, the "haptic" perspective approach developed here offers great promise. I can at least promise you a "moving" experience!

What is the KINETIK Method?

KINETIK is the name of the new v6.0 haptic pronunciation teaching system. About six years earlier we were using the acronym, "Haptic Integrated Pronunciation for Other/Extended Circle English Speakers" (HIPOECES)--still there in the url of this blog!

Haptic-integrated clinical pronunciation is:

A different way to learn pronunciation, based in part on Arthur Lessac’s notion of “Training the body first.” It is also based on research in the use of movement and touch in learning and training. It:

Looks somewhat like a combination of aerobics, sign language and Taichi

Provides a basic foundation for continued, self-directed pronunciation learning and classroom instruction

Designed for use by relatively untrained teachers but appropriate for all teachers (and learners) of all levels

Focuses on pronunciation used in conversation (not all words in English)

Is a highly “brain-and-body-friendly” system that promotes efficient learning of integrated tasks in general

Designed to promote integrated classroom pronunciation instruction and enable integration of conscious pronunciation work into spontaneous speaking.

Introduction

This blog was formerly named: HIPoeces (pronounced 'hI-pƏ-cIs), basically an approach to teaching English pronunciation to speakers of "outer and expanding" circle Englishes (including that population commonly termed: non-native speakers) but also compatible with the use of local models other than simply Standard" American" or RP. Using Kachru's "Inner, expanding and outer circles" model to characterize the breadth of Englishes and speakers of those, HIPoeces (now HICP) systems focus on developing haptically-centered pedagogical models and methods which can be adapted for teaching the pronunciation of various Englishes as they are spoken and taught by "owners" of those varieties.

In theory, the underlying principles can be applied to teaching the sound system of any language. Most language instructors intuitively use a great deal of movement and tactile anchoring in the classroom. The essential question is how to use that resource systematically, especially so that those learners who are less "haptic" in nature are also "moved" by the method.

Simply put, the HICP model/method is based on the idea of speaking along with arm and hand movement, not all that different from that used in sign languages. Most movement patterns are taken from either typical classroom pronunciation instruction practice or from related fields, such as psychotherapy or sports.

Most blog posts link to research that relates to the general HICP model, that is studies dealing with the role of gesture, touch, movement, learning modalities, learning in output, use of the visual field in learning, and experiential learning.

DEFINITIONS:

"Haptic" techniques- procedures that involve both movement and touch (Obvious examples include clapping hands, tapping feet, or holding an object and shaking it to the rhythm of a poem.)

"HICP techniques" - procedures that are haptic and also explicitly coordinated with phonological structures and/or discourse prosody (For example, clapping hands on primary stressed syllables in multi-syllable words, or doing a dance step on key words in conversational turns.)

"Haptic integration"- The haptic dimension probably functions as much to anchor visual and auditory material as it does to assist the learner in getting the "felt sense" of the sound or sound process. Lack of integration into spontaneous speech being such a serious potential shortcoming of instruction, haptic engagement seems a promising bridge to more accurate fluency.

"Visual field" - in HICP extensive use is made of the visual field in front of the learner. (For example, a modified version of the IPA vowel chart is anchored haptically in the imagination of the learner, directly in front of the upper body, and used for several purposes throughout the program.)