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.

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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 . . .

20 Ideas for TESOL 2017 haptic pronunciation teaching proposals!

Time for doing proposals for TESOL 2017! The deadline is June 1st. If you are interested in being on a team that does a workshop, poster session, demonstration or paper, please let us know. We almost always work with teams of 2 or more and invite those who are not trained hapticians but want to be to sign on to a proposal. With the new v4.0 Haptic pronunciation teacher training program (out soon) you can be quite up to speed by next March!

Hopefully, we'll also have a booth this coming year for the first time to promote v4.0. (With that comes a couple of Exhibitor's sessions on the program as well.) Here are some of the proposal ideas we have been discussing of have presented or published on earlier. A formal proposal could, of course, be a combination of topics with a haptic "core"!

HaPT-E v4.0 -Serious Fun!

1. Pre-convention institute or workshop on haptic pronunciation teaching
2. Spontaneous and incidental correction (using haptic techniques)
3. Haptic teacher training certification course
4. Haptic phonetics (working on that one already)
5. Haptic techniques for vocabulary development
6. Haptic homework (working on that one already)
7. (Ch)oral reading (haptic-anchored) 
8. Changing fossilized pronunciation (haptically)
9. Haptic consonant workshop (working on that one already)
10. Contrastive (haptic) analyses (e.g., Chinese, Korean or major dialects)
11. Fluency training (Rhythm Fight club)
12. Haptic accent reduction techniques
13. Haptic-anchored attending skills
14. Haptic techniques for basic literacy training
15. Haptic discourse strategies/markers
16. Haptic phonics
17. Brain Research on haptic learning
18. Expressive (haptic) pronunciation teaching
19. Haptic linking techniques
20. Haptic techniques for vowel reduction, unstressed and secondary stressed vowels 
21. Haptic-anchoring of online pronunciation instruction

"Classless" pronunciation teaching and "miscue-aggression"?

Attended a delightful, engaging, stimulating and very well presented workshop on teaching pronunciation last week--by a charismatic, former drama teacher who had been teaching a twice-weekly pronunciation course for college ESL students for well over a decade. After the session, in the hall, one of the less experienced participants remarked: "Phenomenal presentation . . . but I couldn't possibly use any of those techniques in my class!" No kidding. Why not?

One of the most "striking" techniques demonstrated was when the teacher or student would comically hit a student over the head with an artificial daisy whenever he or she made a pronunciation miscue. The presenter remarked, in fact, that in all her years of teaching pronunciation she had never had a student complain about being corrected. And, after just an hour in the presence of that presenter, I don't doubt that . . .for a minute.

Two reasons most of what was presented was pretty much "in-applicable" to most of us in the audience. First, rapport. The presenter was one of those gifted teachers who almost instantly creates a safe and yet wildly creative milieu where learners will engage in extraordinary risk taking and not be threatened in the least. Second, and related, was the fact that many of the techniques demonstrated required that kind of "wide open" classroom setting to work effectively and especially--efficiently, in the first place.

The point: so often what can be done in a dedicated pronunciation class or language lab, with all its relational and situational constraints and social contracts, cannot be done in an integrated classroom setting where pronunciation is taught or attended to only piecemeal or occasionally or on a more impromptu basis. As research has demonstrated convincingly, instructors and students alike do not generally feel comfortable with much of how pronunciation is taught today. With good reason.

Photo: Dartmouth.edu

The affective and emotional context of pronunciation teaching is critical, even more so than for many other aspects of language teaching. In a dedicated "dramatic" class, strange things may work well; in an integrated "classless" setting, the rules and consequences can be very different. The "take way" from the dramatic, engaging workshop: Very little . . .

John Rassias (1925-2015) where are you when we need you?

44 features of effective homework!

I'm doing a workshop this weekend, "Do your homework!" at the BCTEAL Clker.com Regional Conference in Victoria, British Columbia, that focuses on good homework practices in English Language Teaching. Although there is some obvious overlap in the 44 parameters that we pulled from research on homework in general, much of it from North America and Europe (See Reference Section), it is still a helpful inventory. Here is an adapted version of the workshop handout. Just for fun, go through it and see just how many features are evident in your courses (or at least your thinking!) If you can think of more, please add them as comments! Some parameters of effective homework	You do it?
1. Differentiated (for individuals)
2  Can be done independently (with no help from parents or other students)
3. Get started on homework in class
4. Students understand the purpose and value
5. Developmentally appropriate
6. Allows students choice(s) in what to do
7. Students can stop when they believe they understand the  concept well enough
8. Graded (but not figuring in to course grade)
9. Comments requiring follow up
10. Subject matter differences evident.
11. Optimal hours per week? (max 2 per day/night)
12. Integration with lesson(s) recognizable and consistent
13. Student autonomy encouraged
14. Time management required or encouraged
15. Scaffolding implicit or explicit
16. Mentoring/coaching function evident
17. “embodied practice” (Do something other than sit and think and take notes.)
18. Data management system supplied
19. Multi-modality practice
20. Overlearning (especially for beginners)
21. Homework practice interviews done with instructors

22. Tasks that cannot be performed in class
23. Predicted time required indicated
24. Tracking actual homework task time
25. Homework counts toward grades
26. Homework packets provided
27. Recognized benefits to students & teacher presented and acknowledged
28. Effective in class follow up (i.e., checking homework orally; checking homework on the board; and collecting and grading homework)
29. Student “enjoyment” of homework
30. Online applications and storage
31. Cultural expectations met or moderated
32. Gains (8 ~ 31%) evident
33. Reflective practice required
34. Meta-cognitive (planned practice)
35. “learning lexicon” developed over time by students and/or instructor
36. Incidental study recognition
37. Portfolio review
38. Student recommendations, evaluations of homework effectiveness
39. “Filing” system required and reviewed
40. Homework ethnography (f2f interviews focusing on more than just practice)
41. Group homework proposals and review
43. Demonstrates competence
44. Is aesthetically pleasing

Selected references

Cooper, H., Robinson, J., & Patall, E. (2006). Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Research, 1987–2003 Review of Educational Research 76:1, 1-62.

Galloway, M., Conner, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools, Journal of Experimental Education, 81:4, 490-510.

Ozkan E., & Henderson, D.  (2011). Are we wasting our children’s time by giving them more homework?, Economics of Education Review Economics of Education Review, 30:5, 950-961.

National Education Commission on Time and Learning (1994). Retrieved February 2, 2016, http://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeeecoedu/v_3a30_3ay_3a2011_3ai_3a5_3ap_3a950-961.htm.

The Hechinger report (2015). Retrieved from

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/05/study-homework-matters-more-in-certain-countries

Rosario, P., Nunez, J., Vallejo, G., Cunha, J., Nunes, T., Suarez, N., Fuentes, S., & Moreira, T. (2015) The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' EFL performance: a randomized-group design http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528/full.

ASCD (2007). The case for and against homework. Retrieved February 4, 2016,

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar07/vol64/num06/The-Case-For-and-Against-Homework.aspx.

Challenge Success (2012). Retrieved February 2, 2016, www.challengesuccess.org.

Vatterott, C. (2016). Retrieved February 2, 2016, http://www.homeworklady.com/.

Safakova, Z. (2015). Reasons for doing/not online homework: insights from EFL students, A. & Cubri, M. (Eds).  ECEL2015-14th European Conference on e-Learning, 510-518.