Bill Acton's Embodiment Blog: touch therapy

Showing posts with label touch therapy. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Touching tactile tactics for tapping new pronunciation?

Clip art: Clker

Previous posts have alluded to the fact that students working with haptic-integrated pronunciation change often report beginning to "listen" with their bodies, as if they have recorded a word or phrase by "moving" with it or mirroring what was said. (Recent research on mirror neurons of course strongly supports that observation.) Two fascinating studies summarized by Science Daily address the underlying mechanisms which may be involved. One was conducted by researchers at Yale in which subjects were trained using a robotic device attached to their jaws to pronounce new sounds. As they did, they became substantially better at hearing them as well, noting that " . . . Learning to talk also changes the way speech sounds are heard. . . " Wow. The other, by a team at the University of British Columbia, basically "confused" subjects into thinking what they heard were aspirated consonants (when they actually heard voiced, unaspirated consonants)--by gently hitting them in the back of the neck with a small burst of air on targeted sounds. (That's right. Got to try that sometime!) The first was a bit more kinaesthetic than tactile; the second, decidedly more tactile. In both cases, the haptic or tactile "anchoring" dramatically affected perception of sounds. That is also the intent of the haptic-integrated protocols of the EHIEP system. The idea is to train learners to anchor haptically new sounds or patterns, what we call "MAMs" (more appropriate models--using movement and touch along with articulating the sound) at places in the visual field that are as "proprioceptively," visually and perceptually as distinct as possible from the learner's "inaccurate" or less appropriate current version of the sound. The summary of the latter study begins with this great line, "Humans use their whole bodies, not just their ears, to understand speech . . . " Really.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Touching: relieving the pain and stress (of pronunciation work!)

Clipart: Clker

EHIEP protocols make use almost exclusively of self-touch, generally at the terminal point of a pedagogical movement pattern by one or both hands across the visual field. Among the many "touch therapies," Jin Shin Jyutsu is well known for its healing and restorative power. In a recent study, where Jin Shin Jyutsu was used with cancer patients, summarized by Science Daily, it was discovered that " . . . in each session patients experienced significant improvement in the areas of pain, stress, and nausea . . . During a Jin Shin Jyutsu session, patients receive light touches on 52 specific energetic points called Safety Energy Locks as well as fingers, toes, and midpoints on the upper arm, upper calf and lower leg in predetermined orders known as "flows." Setting aside for the moment the cultural, hygiene and interpersonal (especially "inter-gender") issues involved in having learners touch each other in class, what we might call "pair anchoring" does have real potential--especially if I can figure out how to use some of those "safety energy locks!" By that I mean, for example, one learner safely touches the hand of another on stressed elements in words, phrases and sentences. I have experimented some with "tag teams" (kind of a nice analogy there to teams in professional wrestling, in fact.) I have done that occasionally when I have had couples studying with me or by using gloves, pencils, tennis balls and other "interfaces" during student-on-student anchoring exercises. That seems to at the very least relieve some of the pain and stress! Generally speaking, it is also very motivating in making pair work, work. In one protocol, in fact, having students use boxing gloves to develop better rhythm (See my earlier, relatively goofy, Youtube "Fight Club"!) seems to be amazingly effective. Unfortunately, boxing gloves are expensive, hard to get on an off and also relatively unsanitary by today's standards. But you get the idea. In time, with virtual reality haptic systems, "tag team haptic anchoring" will be more pedagogically acceptable, I'm sure. In the meantime, try a few of the protocols with your BFF, "manno-a-manno!"

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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.)