The "touch-ture" of haptic pronunciation teaching

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A new study by researchers from Laboratoire de psychologie et neurocognition (LPNC) (CNRS/Université Pierre Mendès France/ Savoie University) in collaboration with Geneva University's Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation and Les Doigts Qui Rêvent (Dreaming Fingers) in Talant (Côte-d'Or, France), reported by Science Daily, demonstrated the positive impact of variable texture on image comprehension in blind children. In essence, by providing materials with different, distinctive surface textures for the hands to survey, subjects were able to learn and recall more effectively. Research has long established that the blind develop superior touch-based senses that serve to replace visual--often in the same areas of the visual cortex as the sighted use.

The same principle should also apply to the application of touch and movement in our work. In the EHIEP (Essential haptic-integrated English pronunciation) approach, there are "roughly" a dozen distinct types of touch, each having its own texture. In principle, the "touch-tures" are related to the phonaesthetic and somatic qualities of the sound or sound process. For example:

For lax, or short vowels (such as: I, ae, a, Ə, U), the "touch-ture" is a light tap of both hands

For tense vowels+off glide (such as iy, ey, ay, ow, uw), the "touch-ture" is a brushing motion of one hand across the other as the first part of the vowel is pronounced. The moving hand then continues on to a location in the visual field associated with either glide, w or y.

We often have learners close their eyes or use eye tracking as they execute various pedagogical movement patterns across the visual field in presenting or correcting pronunciation. More focused attention to the "felt sense" or "touch-ture" of the hands in the process and the attendant vocal resonance has always been understood to be very important. Here is more evidence why. Keep in touch. 

In search of a "touch" for pronunciation teaching

Scott Thornbury, of the New School, recently gave a plenary at TESOL-Spain that at least had a great title: The Human Touch: How we learn with our bodies. (His blog, An A-Z of ELT, is a good read; one of his 2010 posts on embodied cognition I have linked to earlier.) From the abstract, it is clear that the "touch" in "human touch" is the more general, metaphorical use of the word, although the tactile dimension will certainly figure into his comments, particularly as developments in this area have begun linking more and more to the neurophysicality of touch (See earlier blog on the texture of touch in haptic pronunciation work, for example.) Hopefully we can get access to the text or video of the plenary. Thornbury is always a "moving" speaker.

In HICP work the application of touch, within the larger notion of embodied cognition,  is in connecting vocal resonance with some type of pedagogical gesture, what we call: pedagogical movement patterns. For some time I had been puzzled as to why there wasn't more--or much of any--research on the use of touch in teaching, distinct from movement and gesture in general.

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What I have only recently discovered, in preliminary "re-reviews" of some seminal gestural research is that touch, as a component of gesture, is often reported almost as an aside or simple descriptor in studies of gesture-synchronized learning or vocal production. In other words, some gestures involve touch; some do not. (One of the early influences on the development of HICP was the observation that in American Sign Language (ASL) the predominance of signs that carry high emotional loading also tend to involve touch.)

In other words, interesting "data" on the effect of touch within gestural systems seems to be there, buried in earlier research. As far as I can tell, it has for the most part just not been isolated and examined as a relevant variable in learning or expression. My current research reanalyzing earlier language-teaching related gestural studies already shows promise. (More on that in subsequent blogposts and other publications, I'm sure!)  If you know of published research that unpacks that role of touch, please link it here! In the meantime, KIT!

Haptic cinema and EHIEP-tic pronunciation training

My discovery of "haptic cinema" and that approach to experiential entertainment and teaching about 6 years ago was a game changer. The integration of the senses, especially the place of perceived texture in that media became the phenomenological model for "haptic-integrated clinical pronunciation," and still is. Here is a great example, "Haptic cinema: a sensory interface to the city."  It is about 11 minutes long. Put on some earphones, sit someplace where you'll have no visual distractions and experience it. 

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That is what it should feel like, the felt sense of haptic anchoring in EHIEP instruction, when the learner articulates a sound or word with rich vocal resonance as hands move across the visual field (with some degree of eye tracking) and the hands touch on the stressed vowel--possibly followed by a short continued movement completing an intonation "denouement." 

To prepare for watching it, you might go outside and hug a tree first . . . 

A touch of gender in (haptically anchoring) English vowels

Image: Wikipedia

Image: Wikipedia

Grammatical gender is a prominent feature in many romance and germanic languages. In some cases there is a correlation between it and masculine or feminine attributes but it is as often as not just random. 2011 research by Slepian, Weisbuch of the University of Denver, Rule of the University of Toronto, and Ambady of Tufts University, summarized by Science Daily, ends in this "touching" conclusion: "We were really surprised . . . that the feeling of handling something hard or soft can influence how you visually perceive a face . . . that knowledge about social categories, such as gender, is like other kinds of knowledge -- it's partly carried in the body."

Ya think? Subjects basically held something tough or "tender" as they were asked to make judgements on the gender of people in pictures, and, not surprisingly the texture of the object affected their "gender detector," or something to that effect. As noted in earlier posts, in the EHIEP system, each vowel type as it is articulated is designed to be accompanied by a distinct sign-like touch that has very distinct texture. (See also earlier posts on the neurophysiological correlates of textural metaphors.) Turns out we may have unwittingly created masculine and feminine vowel anchors! No wonder they work so well!

• When marking/anchoring stress in words or phrases, (a) use rough GUY-touch for lax vowels in isolation or before voiceless consonants, (b) use tender/static GIRL-touch for tense vowels in isolation or in secondary stressed positon in words or phrases, (c) use gouging/dynamic GUY-touch for diphthongs and tense vowels + off-glide, or (d) use tender/dynamic GIRL-touch for lax vowels in stressed syllables before voiced consonants.  
• When marking/anchoring  the prominent syllable in a tone or intonation group, use smooth/gentle/flowing GIRL-touch!
• When marking/anchoring syllables in groups, use gentle tapping GIRL-touch!

Washing your hands of pronunciation teaching

Clip art: Clker

Clip art: Clker

Your students think doing pronunciation work is wrong, find it threatening or just too messy? Have them wash their hands before class. Earlier posts have linked to research related to the benefits of attending to the state of the hands before haptic-integrated work, including my (regular) use of Mary Kay "Mint Bliss" on the hands before having learners work through instructional haptic videos. According to 2008 research by Schnail, reported in Science Daily, "When we exercise moral judgment, we believe we are making a conscious, rational decision, but this research shows that we are subconsciously influenced by how clean or ‘pure’ we feel." For example, "if the jury member had washes [sic] their hands prior to delivering their verdict, they may judge the crime less harshly." In the study reported, undergraduates responded in a similar fashion after washing their hands in a controlled game of "right and wrong." The same principle, as reported earlier as well, also applies in haptic research with various textures influencing unconscious perception and emotional response. Now will that work as well when done before an upcoming half hour of mind-numbing minimal pair drills or before student evaluations are handed out at the end of an especially bad course? Could be . . . Worst case, it'll just be a wash . . . 

The music of (haptic-integrated) pronunciation instruction

Here is a set of musical terms which I have been using for some time to characterize the range of mood, expressiveness, affective setting and felt sense of various aspects of haptic-integrated, pronunciation work:

• abbandonatamente: free, relaxed
• amabile: amiable, pleasant 
• con moto: with motion
• andante: at a walking pace; i.e., at a moderate tempo
• piacevole: pleasant, agreeable
• a piacere: at pleasure; i.e., need not follow the rhythm strictly
• con anima: with feeling
• con spirito: with spirit
• liberamente: freely
• deciso: decisively
• energico: energetic, strong
• enfatico: emphatically
• espressivo: expressively
• facile: easily, without fuss  
• hervortretend: prominent, pronounced
• legato: joined; i.e., smoothly, in a connected manner
• leggiero, leggiermente or leggiadro: lightly, delicately
• mezzo forte: half loudly; i.e., moderately loudly
• mezzo piano: half softly; i.e., moderately softly

Taken together, that is provides a good impression of how the flow of HICP classroom instruction should be experienced. How might you label or describe in those terms your classroom pronunciation techniques and mood? Time to face the music?

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

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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 . . .

Get in the mood for pronunciation work? Try a touch of vowel color!

Clipart: Clker

Clip art: Clker

According to this research by Ackermann and colleagues at MIT, summarized by ScienceNow, touch--expressed in texture and hardness--can not only "color" one's mood but "impact . . . how we perceive the world!" For example, " . . . running your hand over sandpaper may make you view social interactions as more hostile and competitive." In the study, subjects put together either a puzzle with pieces that had sandpaper-like texture or one where the pieces had by contrast, a very smooth surface. Depending on which puzzle they had assembled, their mood in responding to a video clip varied accordingly. So, how is what students touch in your class affecting how they feel about the work? In the EHIEP vowel protocol (a set of techniques for teaching and anchoring the vowels of English), there are four distinct touch-textures: (a) a light tapping (lax vowels), (b) gently dragging the fingernails across the palm of the other hand (diphthongs or tense vowels plus off-glide), (c) holding the hands together gently (tense vowels), and (d) one hand pushing the other hand about 5 centimeters either to left or to the right (lengthened lax vowels before voice consonants). Those pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) are also performed while articulating the vowel with as much "euphonic resonance" as possible, anchoring the sound to the movement and touch-texture. The mood encouraged by those PMPs, based on the sensations experienced on the hands, is at least pleasant (See earlier post.), if not slightly stimulating. (This sense of the potential "coloring" of one's mood by "vowel-texture-touch" is different from but somewhat related to the inherent visual intensity or phonaesthetic quality of vowels in English, addressed in several earlier posts.) Assuming that the class began with something of a full-body warm up, the effect of haptic-integrated touch-on-vowels should at least help learners to perceive the process more positively. It does more than that, of course, but systematic attention to "mood maintenance' is always a nice touch. 

The "touch" of sound quality

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Clip art: Clker

In this summary by Hsu of Live Science  of research relating to touch and decision making, the authors make an interesting observation: " . . . these studies support an idea proposed by Ackerman and his colleagues known as scaffolding, where humans learn to grasp abstract mental concepts by relying upon physical sensations . . ." 

The haptically-anchored pedagogical gestures of EHIEP possess a range of skin-touch sensations, from strong taps or punches to gentle brushing strokes. In addition, those movements may be tightly constrained or broad, sweeping arcs across the visual field. Each pedagogical movement pattern (PMP) is created to be experienced as a unique physical correlate to the sound or sound pattern it represents. Our experience has been that the more learners "rely on the physical sensations," the more rapidly and persistently change in pronunciation takes place. Good decision . . . to rely on haptic grounding in pronunciation work.