Full-body and voice burn out prevention workshop for language teachers!

Clker.com

If you will be at BCTEAL regional conference on 11/16, please join Angelina Van Dyke and me for the "Full-body and voice burn out prevention warm up". (If not, it will be recorded and available off the blog shortly thereafter.) In all modesty, this will be a great session, not just because I'm in it, but Angelina, an accomplished concert and recording artist and voice teacher, has just finished an advanced diploma in voice science and will be sharing some amazing new techniques for "saving your pipes" as we say!

Here is the abstract from the program:

Feeling sluggish, stressed or caffeine deprived? This session, created by voice and pronunciation specialists for the language teacher (and students), should help. The carefully scaffolded, “restorative” exercises activate and focus body and vocal tract in less than 10 minutes. No meditation, medication or mendacity required.

My part of the party, body activation and preservation, takes about 15 minutes. Here is the list of the quick exercises involved: (Note: In some cases the name of the technique is more creative than descriptive, but you get the idea!)

1.     Mandibular massage

2.     Jaw shaker

3.     Neck slow header

4.     Trapezes circles

5.     Rotator cup “rolls”

6.     Hand/Forearm/Finger stretcher

7.     Shoulder and upper body boogie
7.5. Temple wings!

8.     Lateral leanings

9.      Glute Glutin’ 

10.   Core Belly Dance roll up (or plank or Dead Bug)
1.   Hip rotation girations

12.  Progressive lunge (with chair)

13.  Quads lifts (with chair)

14.   Hamstring swing (with chair)

15.   Adductor/abductor swing (with chair)

16.  Progressive mini-squats (with chair)

17.   Upper and lower Achilles tune ups (with chair)

18.   Calf and shin rock (with chair)

19.   Cursive ankle alphabet (with chair)

20.   Visual field scan and full-arm fluency (on the compass)

21.   Hyper lipper (8 vowel tour)

22.   Back and arms hyper stretch (3x) to vocal cone

23.   Chest and mouth hyper stretch (3x) from maximum pucker!

With the video you should be able to do both parts of the workshop any morning you need to get tuned up for the day. See you there or later!

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Gollum Speak: Making language improvement less stressful by talking about me

Bill is impressed with a new study by Moser et al at Michigan State University, reported by Science Daily, entitled Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. In fact, he finds himself talking about himself thinking about it in the 3rd person constantly . . . He has even given it a name: Gollum Speak. If you are not a fan of Tolkien, you might want to go here, to get a sense of what that sounds like! One implication of the study is that you can use Gollum-like grammar to control emotion--without interfering with "cognitive" functioning. (Really?) The longer term effects of becoming gradually more "Gollum-like" by talking like that are not examined, however.

Bill's local psychotherapist informs him that some form of that technique, making the patient temporarily distance themselves either verbally or visually is a long established trick in the field. Works well sometimes but should NOT be just tossed out as an option for those not supervised or not  up on how to "talk themselves out of it", too. In other words, do NOT try that at home!

On the other hand, Gollum Speak used with language learners may have possibilities. It is, in effect, after all not all that far from role play and drama work, taking on not just the language of the character but the "voice" or perspective as well. Even in working metacognitively with learners on their progress or problems, being detached and "objective" has it merits--although that type of talk can easily devolve into deeper "Gollum": neurotic, uncontrolled self-reflection and . . . doubt. 

Bill has tried a bit of that already and will do it again with a class in a couple of days. His current read on the use of Gollum in the classroom is that students so far have found it hysterically funny--and grammatically a great game-- but were also apparently able to talk with a little more ease about themselves, just as Moser et al would predict. See just how "Gollum-able" you and your students are!

He looks forward to his follow up report--and yours!

KIT

Michigan State University. (2017, July 26). Talking to yourself in the third person can help you control emotions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 7, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170726102906.htm

Excellent audio-aural-only pronunciation learning? Really?

Yes. Have been meaning to do this post for some time now. Perhaps the best known of the audio-media based programs is the Pimsleur Method, which is basically audio recordings that learners hear, repeat after and respond to. (There is more involved, of course, but the essential learning mechanism is straight, non-visual, (non-haptic!) engagement.)

So, given what this blog is about, how could that be possible? Simple. There are some learners for whom that is perfect, and, as in the Pimsleur approach, it (oral/aural competence) can be done exceedingly well, scaffolding in material and delivered in voices that--for many reasons--seem to "stick" in the brain of the learner. Pimsleur, like Asher (TPR), was first focused on the mechanisms of memory: optimal content, timing and voice delivery parameters.

What is of particular interest in HICP is the latter, the impact of the felt sense of the voice, both the learner's and the instructor's in anchoring in memory. One of my favorite models in that regard has always been that in the book, My voice will go with you, a compilation of the therapeutic/teaching stories of the great hypnotherapist, Milton Erickson. As in any memorable song, speech, sermon, comment or conversation, a great voice with perfect timing can deliver a message that you (almost) never forget. Just takes a little more lesson planning . . . Hear what I'm saying?

What we can learn from (at least) one model of Hypnosis

Credit: The Milton Erickson
Foundation

One of the most important influences on my understanding of how language works, especially the use of voice in therapeutic change and clinical process, was Milton Erickson, considered by many to be the founder of modern hypnotherapy. To quote from the website, "In Ericksonian hypnosis, language is used to direct the attention inwards on a search for meaning or to verify what is being said." Whereas many therapies make extensive use of the visual field with movement or "gadgets,"

Erickson was a paraplegic, who was also apparently somewhat dyslexic, color blind and tone deaf-- and had only one tool to work with: his voice! A book of his collected therapeutic stories, My Voice will go with You, remains a favorite. Note the focus of Erickson's work: (a) direct attention inward . . . and (b) verify what was said. In effect, it is focusing with extraordinary attention on the felt (auditory, kinaesthetic and resonant) sense of a word, phrase or experience.

As earlier posts have explored, the interplay between external visual stimuli and "internal" haptic and auditory is critical to effective anchoring, especially in moderating the effects of both internal and external visual distraction and (often) persistent mispronunciations tied to orthography. In pronunciation teaching (and especially HICP), systematic control of both instructor and student voice quality and expressiveness is key to sound learning. But, as Erickson might have suggested, I need not bother trying to convince you of that . . . you feel (and speak) that way already . . .