Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Workshop at Cornerstone University!

If you are in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area on April 5th, please join us for a day-long training workshop on haptic pronunciation teaching at Cornerstone University. I'd especially recommend the workshop if you have little or no experience in teaching pronunciation (and little or no money!) And, as the subtitle proclaims, it will be FUN and INTERACTIVE! (I promise!)

13th Annual ESL Conference Details:

The ESL Conference at Cornerstone University is held to provide practical training opportunities for teachers in a variety of teaching situations. These workshops are appropriate for volunteer tutors and professional teachers, for K-12 and adult ESL teaching contexts, and for those teaching in academic, community, or church-based programs.

This year’s conference will feature a Haptic Pronunciation Instruction Workshop (making extensive use of movement, touch, and fun) for those with little or no training in pronunciation teaching. Whether you are a teaching novice or expert there will be something for everyone as we focus on new and exciting ways of teaching English to our students. Please join us for a day of learning, fellowship and encouragement!

Each participant will receive a teacher's guide with DVD, continental breakfast, and a boxed lunch. 

Schedule:

9:00 am	Haptic Learning
10:00 am	Vowels & Word Stress
11:00 am	Vowels & Phrasal/Compound Noun Stress
12:00 pm	Lunch (with breakout sessions)
1:00 pm	Rhythm and Rhythm Groups
2:00 pm	Intonation
3:00 pm	Consonants & Conversational Fluency
4:00 pm	Close

Cost:

Before March 14th, 2014: $50 regular rate/$30 student rate

On or after March 14th, 2014: $60 regular rate/$35 student rate

TESOL-Portland 2014 "Haptic" Schedule!

Let's just call Thursday, Haptic Pronunciation Day, this week at the TESOL convention!

9:30 -11:15 - Convention Center, F152 - Workshop: Essentials of haptic (kinaesthetic+tactile)-integrated pronunciation instruction (Kielstra, Baker, Burri, Rauser, Teaman and Acton)

11:30 - 12:45 - Convention Center, Room F152 - Research-oriented session: Exploring research supporting haptic (movement + touch) pronunciation teaching (Rauser, Acton and Burri)

1:00 pm–2:45 - Convention Center, D134 - Workshop: Teaching basic English intonation by non-native English speaking teachers (Lam, Hong, and Takatsu)

3:00 pm–3:45 - Convention Center, B110 - Practice-oriented session: Speak fast; speak easy: The Fight Club technique (Kielstra and Teaman)

Situated, epistemologically "HIP," pronunciation teaching!

Clip art:
Clker

Hat tip to fellow Haptician, Angelina VanDyke of Simon Fraser University, for this great quote from Brown, Collins and Duguid (1998): 

"A theory of situated cognition suggests that activity and perception are important and epistemologically prior at a non-conceptual level - to conceptualization, and that it is on them that more attention needs to be focused. An epistemology that begins with activity and perception, which are first and foremost embedded in the world, may simply bypass the classical problem of reference-of mediating conceptual representations." (Brown, Collins and Duguid (1998) Situated Cognitions and the Culture of Learning, pp. 28, 29.)

Is that not us (HIP - Haptic-integrated Pronunciation)? Trying to successfully bypass the amount of "hyper-cognition" and "talk about" that often represents itself as sufficient or legitimate, effective pronunciation instruction can be a challenge. 

It's the old (live) chicken and egg (head) conundrum. By the time you finish your explanation (no matter how elegant, engaging and worthy of noticing it be), it is probably too late. 

Enough said . . . 

What students want: Real-time, on-the-spot, impromptu correction of pronunciation!

Credit: © Terence Mendoza
 / Fotolia

We just finished putting together a proposal to do a conference workshop:

Conducting On-the-spot Corrections of Rhythm, Stress and Intonation: Haptic Baton! 

"This workshop focuses on a haptic (movement + touch) technique for correcting and modelling pronunciation during any classroom activity—using a pencil, much like an orchestra conductor. The key is to include a set of “haptic anchors,” where the baton touches the other hand on stressed syllables of problematic words."

The point of the workshop is to develop a (haptic) technique that " . . . can be done in a relatively unobtrusive manner, a brief pause that provides clarity but will not seriously disrupt the flow or coherence of the classroom activity or lesson." Just ask your students if they'd like more impromptu correction of pronunciation . . . 

 

Now who knows if it will be accepted. (Haptic pronunciation proposals have about a 50/50 chance of being accepted. We still need to get the word out!) But a new study by Smith, Boomer, Zakrzewski, Roeder, Church, and Ashby of University of California, Santa Barbara.. "Deferred Feedback Sharply Dissociates Implicit and Explicit Category Learning," just summarized by Science Daily seems to add support to the use of "real-time" interventions--if done right, of course! 

In essence, what the research suggests is that deferred feedback does not connect well with implicit learning. (Well, actually, there is a great deal more to it than that! The research is actually looking at the nature of the two cognitive systems that we use to learn with, one explicit; the other, implicit.) When ongoing feedback on performance of a sorting task was suppressed or absent, implicit learning was dramatically impeded.

Your in-class, pronunciation teaching feedback protocols in need of a little correction? 

Keep in touch!

NEW! Put some "PIP!" in your Pronunciation! (AH-EPS, one-on-one, Pronunciation Improvement Program!)

New! Acton Haptic Individual (1x1), online Pronunciation Improvement Program (AH-PIP)

In this program (AH-PIP) you do a module in AH-EPS with workbook and DVDs or on Vimeo.com, and then can connect up with an AH-EPS instructor to review what you have done and discuss what to do next. (Followed up by an email report on the consultation within 24 hours.)

We recommend doing an optional 30-minute SKYPE consultation after each module, at least at the beginning of the program.

Course package ($129 CAD, plus shipping) includes: 

(1)  A set of Teacher DVDs, plus one download of the Instructor's Guide.

(2)  A set of Student DVDs, plus one download of the Student Workbook. (You do need a hard copy of the workbook to do the course.) A hardcopy of the workbook is also available for $20 plus shipping: https://www.getonic.com/Popshop/130062/7535

(3)  One Initial, introductory 30-minute SKYPE consultation to evaluate your pronunciation work and explain the program.  

(4) The first, 30-minute SKYPE consultation (To be done after Module #1 work is completed.) 

One module takes about a week to complete, 1.5~2 hours. It is best to do one module per week, followed by an optional consultation, but do at least one module every two weeks.  SKYPE consultations are an additional $25 each. Total cost for the program, doing consultations after every module is $350, plus shipping. 

Also available is the AH-EPS Accent Reduction program for nonnative English speaking professionals and instructors.
For more information, email: info@actonhaptic.com

Anchoring with touch in haptic pronunciation teaching

Sometimes it becomes necessary to define what a method or system is NOT.(See Changing Minds list in that regard.)  In a recent discussion on a professional discussion board, EHIEP was characterized as involving excessive "interpersonal touching!" Nothing could be further from the truth. Even a cursory reading of the blog or the website (which the contributor had obviously not had time to get to) would dismiss that idea. In a nutshell (no reference to the earlier comment, of course) touch dramatically increases the efficacy of gesture, among other things. Here is a list of all the touching that goes on in EHIEP:

Learner's

Clip art: Clker

• Hands touch each other, sometimes with one hand holding a baton or pencil.
• Hands touch either the shoulder or fore arm.
• Hands may occasionally touch the chin or voice box.
• Holding a coffee stirrer or tongue depressor, hands may touch lips, teeth or tongue. 

Even self-touch is "touchy" in all cultures, with many different interpretations and constraints. As you can see, the EHIEP pedagogical movement patterns (PMPs) set, where touch occurs on stressed syllables for the most part, is pretty safe stuff. We have spend years figuring out PMPs that are generally appropriate in the cultures we have worked in. So far so good.

If your find a PMP in the Demo list on the website that is potentially objectionable in some culture, PLEASE, let me know! (Will give you a free month's Vimeo.com access as a reward!)

Keep in touch!

Deep learning: Giving (haptic) pronunciation teaching a hand!

A little applause, please! In a 2014 University of Chicago study by Novak and colleagues, reported in UChicago News by Ingmire (Sorry that I can't afford to pay the 6-vente-latte-equivalent to get the original article!), kids who hand-gesture more (of a certain kind) gain a " a deep understanding of the {math} problems they are taught . . . " That did not happen if they, instead, did some kind of "acting" or mime while trying to solve a math problem, however. Furthermore, “Abstract gesture was most effective in encouraging learners to generalize the knowledge they had gained during instruction (italics, mine), action least effective, and concrete gesture somewhere in between . . ."

The protocols of the study as described in the summary look like they were ripped off directly from our haptic-integrated pronunciation teaching pedagogical movement patterns: movements that had some symbolic meaning that connected to the problems at hand. (In HPT the connection is to sounds and sound patterns.)

One of the key issues in understanding how gesture works in supporting learning of any kind is unpacking in more "depth" just how/when the gesture is contributing or directing the process. In earlier posts I have looked at research in haptics that basically positions haptic as the "exploratory" sense. In this study we see how gesture itself--without explicit reference to whether touch--was involved: linking not just to abstract concepts but apparently facilitating later generalization from the event. Haptic anchoring--and I'm certain there was some of that involved--would further intensify the effect of the gestures.

As we get more field tests and research on the basics of haptic pronunciation teaching, we should also feel continually "freer" to generalize from research in several other fields as to the power and efficacy of haptic engagement.

Keep in touch!

Power Pronunciation: Posing as a confident English speaker!

Clip art: Clker

Power your way to better pronunciation? We have been aware for some time that one of the EHIEP protocols, what we often informally refer to as the "Rhythm Fight Club," is pretty potent stuff. Learners often report that using the technique, which requires one to play the role of something of a pugilist, not only helps them to speak more rhythmically, often within a day or so, but also increases confidence. A couple have even reported that they thought it was instrumental in helping them develop more assertive personas, in general. Now we know why . . .

You may have heard about the well known work of Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard School of Business. Here is a TED talk she gave earlier and a recent article on her by Business insider. In part because I am an avid weight lifter, I have been using power posing for some time, myself, especially when I am away from the gym.

Add haptic anchoring to Cuddy Power Posing and you have an unbeatable combination. Literally!

In fact, I just get better all the time . . .

Keep in touch.

Getting pronunciation off your chest . . .

Photo: Vimeo via Telegraph.com

This one is too good to pass up. (Hat tip to Brian Teaman!) Leave it to the MIT Media lab (and Heibeck, Hope and Legault) as reported by Kinder at the Telegraph to come up with a vest that will allow you to feel the emotional states of the characters in a book, what they call, "Sensory Fiction." Such "haptic vests" have been around for quite some time but this one is more closely tied to a narrative that can serve "pedagogical" purposes. With the vest on, you experience something of what the character is feeling through a combination of temperature and pressure changes.

All you need for our work is to plug in the audio track and stick on a few mini-speakers around the upper body to make it a great tool for getting the "felt sense" of a sound. Deliver that with a great voice with rich resonance (George Clooney?), especially in a text with a bit more emotional zip than your average pronunciation book. (No great challenge there, of course!) Finally, connect it up to the EHIEP pedagogical movement patterns (gestures + touch) and you have the perfect "Haptic Friction."

Got to get me one of those!

Keep in touch!

You can't beat (?) Haptic pronunciation teaching!

A sometimes accurate predictor of a student's ability to catch on to haptic or kinaesthetic teaching is the "baton beat" test. In essence, all the learner needs to do is read aloud a printed dialogue with some words marked in boldface while (a) holding a baton in his or her left hand and (b) tapping the right palm with the baton on the boldfaced words as they are said. (It is not easy; try it!) Some do find it to be exceedingly easy; others couldn't do it well even if their life depended on it. 

Clip art: Clker

In a 2013 study by Tierney and Kraus of Northwestern University, summarized by Science Daily, it was demonstrated that, "People who are better able to move to a beat show more consistent brain responses to speech than those with less rhythm." The review goes on to suggest that rhythmic work may enhance the brain's response to language. Really?

What we do know is that the "baton test," when administered after a couple of months of haptic-integrated pronunciation training, goes much better for most students, demonstrating more fluid upper body motion and speech synchronized gesture. (One of the last techniques in the AH-EPS curriculum is the "Baton Integration Protocol," in fact.) 

You can't beat haptic pronunciation teaching. 

Keep in touch.  

Great moments in pronunciation teaching - "Undercover" haptic burqa work!

Photo credit: socialphy.com

I'm sure that at least some of you have encountered this potential problem. You walk into a room to do some pronunciation work and discover that a significant number of the students are wearing a burqa. That happened to me recently doing 2-hour workshops on basics of haptic pronunciation teaching. The "students" were experienced or in-training teachers. I have often commented that Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) can be especially effective in large classes where you cannot see the lips or even the faces of students clearly. The gestures themselves, in essence, grab hold of the vocal apparatus and guide the learner's facial muscles, jaw, diaphragm and vocal cords in approximating the target sounds. This was a good field test of that idea.

In that 2-hour workshop format, I did a general orientation to a haptic (gesture + touch) approach to English pronunciation, including: (a) a warm up, (b) lax vowels, (c) tense vowels, (d) tense vowels w/off glides and diphthongs, (e) basic English rhythm, and (f) basic English intonation. For all 6 of those topics, the pedagogical movement patterns (PMP) related to sounds or sound patterns are done with arms and hands touching such that the contrast between any two sounds or sound patterns is both physically and visually very distinct.

All burqas involved snug wrist bands that kept the lower arms of the student covered, even when reaching above the head. The visual effect of several covered students following the PMPs during the session, the synchronized, flowing black burqas was stunning. The degree of abandon in moving with the exercises evidenced by some of them was very much unexpected.

In retrospect, it really shouldn't have been. From both inside and outside the burqa, the attention to motion and touch, not just rich, resonant articulation of the sounds, seemed to be greatly enhanced. For whatever reason, they seemed to readily and enthusiastically "get" or (to use our favourite haptic metaphor) "grasp" what the system was about and its potential application to modelling. anchoring vocabulary and correcting student pronunciation.

Obviously have do more research on what is behind the "haptic burqa" effect!

Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Seminar in Vancouver, British Columbia!

A Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Seminar is scheduled for August 4th through 8th, 2014. It is designed for instructors with little or no background in phonetics or pronunciation teaching. The basic Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP) training program is applicable for and adaptable to instruction in almost any teaching context.

The 5-day training includes both the complete Instructor Certification course and a half-day Teacher Training in Haptic Pronunciation Teaching module. Seminar fees include all materials and limited rights to reproduce and distribute haptic-video-based Acton Haptic English Pronunciation System (AH-EPS).  Enrolment is limited to 20.

Participants should plan to arrive on August 3rd and depart on August 9th. It is also very highly recommended that you build in an additional, well-deserved and relaxing week off after the training in Vancouver or British Columbia, too!

Those experienced pronunciation instructors interested in participating in the training should contact me  directly at: actonhaptic@gmail.com.

Complete details on seminar fees and accommodations will be available shortly. Keep in touch!

New Colour Vowel Clock for haptic pronunciation teaching!

We have just revised the AH-EPS v2.0 vowel clock. I say "we" because Karen redesigned the clock to include all of the key words and symbols. I added a new colour overlay to her design that is, I think, a little more compatible with the general phonaesthetic qualities of the visual field. (See earlier post related to the colour issue with the popular Color Vowel Chart.) Kudos to Karen. Will have various v3.0 sizes available on website, too.

Keep in touch!

Correct pronunciation by talking about it: Think or swim . . .

Photo credit: Seaglobe.com

Ever notice how students often will not notice well enough to "get it"  when you point out a pronunciation issue for them and skillfully provide them with a preferred form on the spot?

A recent study of noticing by Hanna, Mullainathan and Scwartzstein (2012) suggests something of why from a different perspective. When their subjects, seaweed farmers, were presented with data that was potentially very valuable for them in improving their work and problem solving, they didn't "uptake" much either--unless the relevance of the key elements was also explicitly linked back to why they were critical or relevant.

In other words, the new data had to be immediately linked (somehow) to acknowledged and perceived (or felt) relevance, what we (following Gendlin, 1972) refer to as "felt sense." In pronunciation teaching with adults, that at least means "getting back in touch with" earlier explicit explanation and guided practice. The problem is often, without sufficient physical experience and practice of the sound change in the first place or in the referring "teachable moment," there is little chance for most that merely pointing out or covertly throwing in correct models is going to work.

And taking valuable class time in the middle of a content-based discussion, for example, to go into an impromptu explanation right there as to why that particular sound issue is important to intelligibility for some subset of learners will probably not be productive either. So what should you do?

What does work, in our experience, in EHIEP/AHEPS, is haptic anchoring (gesture + touch on stressed words or syllables), that is much more strongly body-based initial experience of the sound or word. Having intensely experienced the physical properties of the sound early on, learners then have better access to that anchor when it is activated in a meaningful context. (The basic trick involved in hypnotic suggestion.) The primary contribution of haptic engagement in pronunciation learning or any learning system is integrating the senses, providing the link back to the experience and sound later.

That way, in spontaneous conversation or classroom talk, after a problematic word or stress pattern occurs, with a quick "haptic-anchored noticing" as the word is repeated by the instructor, often w/out even saying the word out loud, the connection is made. The same principle holds if the instructor, aware of a feature that a student or students are working on, haptically anchors some element as he or she produces it in doing an explanation or providing a comment: the visual gesture accompanying the spoken word is often enough for students to "feel" and register that token.

How well that works consistently is, of course, an empirical question, one that can and will be researched in time. In the meantime, take it from the seaweed farmers. The only way to experience this level of somatic, whole-body, experiential learning . . . is to jump in the (haptic teaching) water .  .  . and notice what happens. As we say, "Think or swim . . . take your pick!

Keep in touch.

Pre- and Post-haptic English Pronunciation Teaching

Get ready . . . AH-EPS does NOT (by design) do everything! What it does it does exceedingly well, however. It focuses on integrated teaching and change, real time interaction between instructor and student: how to talk and anchor change in class, live.

In some cases and classes it may need to be complemented or expanded upon. ("Compliments," it always has lots of!)  Here are my three recommendations, what you should have either on your bookshelf or bookmarked:

Well Said by Linda Grant
     For more detailed explanation and academic application, especially for more advanced students, use Grant.
Clear Speech and Clear Speech from the Start by Judy Gilbert
     For colourful visual models, related listening comprehension training and communicative pair work, use Gilbert.
Accent Coach and its mobile app by Ron Thomson
     For more focused, personalized drill and effective repetition after haptic vowel work, use Thomson.

AH-EPS haptic video work (in 30-minute weekly lessons with optional homework) presents the English sound system as a whole and teaches students a set of gesture-based procedures that they and their instructor can use every day in modelling and correcting pronunciation.  (There are additional video lessons with each module for students to practice on their own, if their instructor does attend to pronunciation in regular speaking and listening instruction.)

It is generally adaptable to any proficiency level, any age learner or amount of instructor experience in pronunciation teaching. If, however, you only have time or money to go with one system,  I'd still recommend this for starters:

Haptic Pronunciation Teaching (v2.0) Rides Again!

This is big. AH-EPS v2.0 and the new ActonHaptic website are ready. On the website are links to everything you need to do "haptic." Reviews on the new system have been great. AH-EPS has been about 10 years in the making. It can be adapted for any group of students, either by letting me do the initial teaching on video for you (See previous "FLIP" post!) or you take a little time to train yourself and do it yourself.
For starters, I'd recommend one of the two sets below. The introductory offer on "AH-EPS v2.0 Package" provides the complete set of tools, including Instructor and Student DVD sets, hardcopies of both books, 4 months of streaming on Vimeo.com and a webcam consultation with me to help you set it up, if necessary--or just share the fun.
The other option, AH-EPS v2.0 Intro Lite, has the same basic stuff but does not include the DVDs and hard copies. This is a good choice if you'd prefer to just get up to speed quickly with the latest developments or even to work through parts of it yourself to tune up your "pedagogical English body and voice" or your accent.
And, if you post one of those GETONIC popshops on your website or blog or social media site, every time somebody purchases what is on that tag you get a 5% commission! Keep in touch!

Flipping over Haptic (video) Pronunciation Teaching!

Nice piece (originally published in Bilingual Basics, August 2013) in TESOL Connections this month entitled, "Three reasons to flip your classroom," by Marshall. A few previous posts have looked at the case for "flipping," that is using video to present concepts and then following up with various forms of in class collaboration and engagement. This is the first that I have seen that specifically addresses "flip" methodology in working with English language learners.

The AH-EPS "method" uses something of the same format:

Clip art:
Clker.com

• a 30-minute haptic video 
• where students "dance along with the model on the screen" 
• as they are introduced to some element of English pronunciation 
• and given a strategy/technique 
• which instructor and student then use later in general classroom instruction 
• to introduce, model, correct or provide feedback
• on pronunciation of sounds, words, phrases or longer pieces of spoken language

If you are not already a "haptician," it may be time to consider flipping . . . Go to the new Acton Haptic website to get started!

Keep in touch!