Believing in pronunciation teaching -- at least at the beginning!

Have believed for . . . a long time . . . that early pronunciation instruction and learning is not only a higher calling, but  in some sense qualitatively different than later language acquisition. Once some "quorum level" of sounds and patterns are acquired, it is a different process or at least teaching problem. Hence, we see the often confused debates as to what degree pronunciation work is "physical" or more "conscious/cognitive." I believe two recently published studies help unpack the dichotomy or paradox. '

 A new study, Implicit pattern learning predicts individual differences in belief in God in the United States and Afghanistan, by Weinburger et al, has interesting, albeit somewhat indirect implications for pronunciation teaching.  Sciencedaily describes the focus of the study, quoting the researchers:  

"This is not a study about whether God exists, this is a study about why and how brains come to believe in gods. Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment {emphasis, mine}may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," 

In a relatively straight-forward design, the research "correlated" relative ability to unconsciously identify language and symbolic patterns with stronger, fundamentalist religious belief in the two cultures/faith traditions, Christianity and Islam. Subjects more adept at pattern recognition tended toward stronger belief. (There are not just a few potential cross-cultural and methodological issues with the research, but I really like the conclusion!) 

And then this study on early versus later learning of Mandarin by Qi and colleagues at the University of Delaware, Learning language: New insights into how brain functions.  Their conclusion, focusing on brain function, summarized in Science Daily:

"The left hemisphere showed a substantial increase of activation later in the learning process -- the right hemisphere in the most successful learners was most active in the early, sound-recognition stage. . . "

Now granted, learning Mandarin may require a little more right hemisphere than English, as has been shown in previous studies, but the basic concept, pattern recognition, a more specialized function of the right hemisphere, is a key feature of early or initial learning of sounds. The researchers also note that more right hemisphere engagement was also key to eventual success in the language as well. Implicit pattern recognition . . .not explicit, left-hemisphere-like processing. 

There are no studies that I am aware of which correlate fundamentalist religious beliefs with acquisition of  L2 sound systems, but the connection between more right hemisphere based unconscious or inductive learning and early pronunciation teaching and learning is striking. That suggests that more experiential techniques and procedures, even drill, when carried out in ways that allow the brain time and input to "intuit" or acquire the somatic patterning involved, are essential to efficient instruction. So how do we do that well? 

Better pray about that . . . but will get right back to you!

Bill

Sources: 

University of Delaware. (2019, May 8). Learning language: New insights into how brain functions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 18, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190508093716.htm

Adam B. Weinberger, Natalie M. Gallagher, Zachary J. Warren, Gwendolyn A. English, Fathali M. Moghaddam, Adam E. Green. Implicit pattern learning predicts individual differences in belief in God in the United States and Afghanistan. Nature Communications, 2020; 11: 4503 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18362-3

Three mistakes pronunciation instructors may make (especially if they play guitar badly)

Clip art: Clker

 It is not a coincidence that language instructors who gravitate toward speaking and pronunciation instruction tend to be musical. (My guess is that they play or have played an instrument or are singers of some sort as well. That connection is mentioned in several studies but I can find no systematic research on it.) Being a guitar player, one of the sites I stumbled on, Guitarscalesystem.com, has a list of 3 mistakes to avoid and 6 principles to practice. (Unfortunately, to get to this list you have to sign up for the newsletter, etc.!) The "translation" to pronunciation work is very straightforward . . . if you play an instrument, especially the merging of motor learning and meaning (My extrapolations are in italics):
Mistakes:
1. Too many scales and keys without ever deeply mastering a single scale - Acting like simply "pointing out" problems is effective technique.
2. Not making real music out of the scales - "Rich" repetition of targeted sounds, with haptic-integration and/or engaging expressiveness is the antidote.

Clip art: Clker

3. Mindlessly repeating scale patterns - If you do "mindless" repetition, without multiple-modality involvement, you should be teaching something else, not pronunciation. 
Principles of good practice:
1. Memorize your scale patterns - Yes, teach learners how to memorize more efficiently, based on their personal cognitive style preferences.
2. Learn to jump to anywhere on the neck - Link target sounds across lexical sets and exemplars. (Pedagogical movement patterns, based on haptic research in several areas, should do that.)
3. Learn to switch direction in the blink of an eye - Use the visual field for anchoring targeted sounds consistently. 
4. Know the building block shapes and how they interact together - Yes . . . the "sense" half of "felt sense" means having very concise, clear cognitive and rule schemas for learners as well.
5. Learn your scales on single strings, as double stops and beyond . . . This is critical, focusing on targeted sounds with maximal attention, in an "uncluttered" visual and emotional setting in class.
6. See the entire keyboard as one "monster pattern!" - Both instructor and learner need to understand how the whole system functions, instructors at a theoretical level; learners, by being equipped with a simple set of explanations, practices and anchoring procedures--especially the latter. 

Time to face the music on how you manage drill, repetition and anchoring? 

Pedagogical movement patterns in pronunciation teaching

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Based on the work of Newman and others in the field of nursing, this 2011 study by Picard looked at, among other things, the relationship between creative movement (something analogous to modern, expressive, interpretative dance) and pattern recognition (of various life experiences and personal constructs of identity.) "There was congruence between creative movement and narrative in terms of engagement with the environment and range of response. Movement was experienced as integrative and led to pattern recognition . . . The construct of movement in expanding consciousness was examined in terms of flow, turbulence and dialectic within pattern." (Note the nice "textural" metaphors there!) To translate that into haptic-integrated pronunciation teaching, what movement is facilitating, among other things, is the ability to manage fluency and accuracy, moving back and forth--in dialectic fashion (keeping both in attention) between focus on form and conversational narrative. (See earlier "Change the channel fallacy" post.) The other feature of the research, keeping creativity in play as patterns are considered and conceptualized is also essential. Pattern drill in pronunciation often appears to have a half life of seconds, at best (3 second in fact!) Movement and gesture are valuable tools in pronunciation teaching, to be sure, but only when applied with intelligent design . . .