Dr Bill's Vowel and Consonant Repair Shop at the 2019 TESOL Convention!

If you are going to be in Atlanta for the 2019 Convention next week, stop by the Trinity Western University booth in the exhibition area to at least say "Hi!" In addition to promoting the TWU MATESOL, we'll be offering free, quick, and effective haptic pronunciation teaching "repair" of a vowel or consonant.

In general that only applies to students or student-teachers, but if you speak some English other than North American and would like a minor upgrade, we can probably do that, too.  (Limit: one segmental per day, by appointment, so you could, in principle, get three fixed during the conference.) This is, of course a bit "tongue and teeth and lips and vocal apparatus" in cheek, but for minor, relatively easy fixes like "th" or "r" or "l" or "syllable-final voiced consonants", a quick, 10-minute repair is really quite feasible, as long as you follow up with practice for the next 2 weeks or so.

If you want to know HOW to do such quick, haptic repairs, we will also have information on the basic Haptic Pronunciation Teaching workshop on Friday at the conference (with Baker and Burri), the upcoming Haptic Pronunciation Teaching webinars, May 17th and 18th, and the 4-week, online Haptic Pronunciation Teaching course in July in conjunction with the TWU MATESOL program seminar in Applied Phonology. (More on that shortly!)

Keep in Touch!

Thinking (and learning pronunciation) outside the brain

Clip art: Clker

Dynamic or "external" imagery (imagery accompanied by synchronized, related body movement rehearsal) boosted high jumpers' jumping by an amazing 45%, according to a study by Guillot, Moschberger and Collet. of the Centre de Recherche et d'Innovation sur le Sport of Université Claude Bernard Lyon, summarized in Science Daily. This is a very relevant study for HICP work. Here you have the cognitive/visual "object" or process, in this case jumping over a bar positioned about 7 feet above the ground, explicitly coordinated with external physical "practice."

That is the essence of how effective, haptic-integrated or embodied change in pronunciation in general,  should happen as well. The concept, a sound or word or expression, is well linked to its "felt sense" (what it feels like in the body to say or produce it) and a pedagogical movement pattern that haptically (with movement and touch) not only helps coordinate or link the brain and body, but also, itself, in some way embodies the fundamental character or essence of the target.

For example, the rising pitch of a yes/no question would be accompanied by 

• not just by an ascending gesture 
• but one that is positioned in the visual field by movement and touch 
• such that the height corresponds to relative pitch of the utterance. 

In addition, the prominent vowel in the stressed word in the phrase 

• would have been previously somatically grounded (so that the physical sensations involved are brought strongly to awareness
• and can be described in terms of location and intensity) 
• and practiced,  focusing on its textural quality, e.g., roughness, softness, smoothness, stickiness.  

Not to "raise the bar" too high when it comes to integrated pronunciation teaching, but this is one time when being a bit outside the current, generally "disembodied" approach to what we do is actually something of a "no-brainer!" 

Core Pronunciation: Vowel resonance

My colleague, Angelina VanDyke, a vocal music instructor and performing artist, has been helping me develop a new "resonance" protocol. Here are four random Youtube videos that illustrate the basic concepts that we are working with. (The final EHIEP protocol will probably involve all three with appropriate bridges, haptic anchoring and pedagogical movement patterns.) Each focuses pedagogically on vowel resonance, but, of course, does several other things at the same time. The first  is the lip trill or "motor boating,"  exercise. In addition to loosening up everything, it does an especially good job of anchoring vowel resonance in the front of the face. (That one really works!) This classic voice exercise, focuses on 'ng,' the velar nasal at the back of the throat, focusing on resonance back "there." The third exercise does an especially good job of promoting felt sense of upper chest resonance. This video (from an unlikely "energy" source . . . ) shows one form of simple thumping action, without singing a, low pitch, resonant vowel triad at the same time. Add that to this and you get the general idea for the third piece of the protocol . . . and even the spirit of the EHIEP logo over there on the right!

Teaching (haptically) the English mid-back-central-stressed vowel and friend

Here is a video that shows how to get a near-perfect stressed, mid-back-central vowel in English, a sharp blow to the solar plexus--a version of a technique I have used for years. Instead of a karate kick from a colleague, tighten your abs, relax your face and substitute your right, clenched fist--and just let what vowel comes out, come out! The solar plexus and its chakra has a lot going for it. (The chakra has two alternative colors, black and yellow; we use a dark green.)

In basic EHIEP we do not focus on schwa (or unstressed vowels, in general), but only on the stressed form, although the basic sound is considered the "same" from the learner's perspective. Like in the previous post on haptic linking, with good balance between rhythm and stress intensity, unstressed elements are not as problematic and often gravitate over time to a more appropriate sound form anyway. (If you MUST know, there is a haptic technique for schwa, too, of course, but words can't do it justice . . . and it is classified for the time being! ) Try that. Never fails to be a "hit."

From vowel color to vocabulary recall

Clip art: Clker

Common sense and marketers' and advertisers' collective wisdom suggest that color does have meaning, some of it culturally determined. As noted in the previous post, HICP assumes that the visual field also "contains" quadrants that have different emotional or experiential sensitivities. In very general terms, we associate basic colors with each quadrant: Northeast=yellow, Southeast=red, Northwest=green and Southwest=blue. Depending where in the quadrant, in the articulatory "chart" (a mirror-image of the standard IPA chart) a vowel is located, its intensity or hue may be increased or diminished accordingly. 2006 research by Spence, Wong, Rusan, and Rastegar of the University of Toronto makes a fascinating point as to when the color association must be made for maximum effectiveness.

In that study, various color conditions of natural scenes are used in different timings. Essentially what they discovered was that for best recall, color had to be very focused and associated with basic features or figures of the picture immediately, and not just the overall scene. One implication for our work is that color may work best in conjunction with haptic anchoring if it is introduced "from the beginning" of the process and (probably) limited to the vowel or syllable only and not the entire word, as is the usual practice with color/vowel pedagogical practices. Remember that, next time you need to make your vowels and vocabulary work more memorable, eh!