Gaby Cordero, 1983-2017

We have lost a good friend and promising "Haptician" (an ESL or EFL instructor who is highly skilled and certified in haptic pronunciation teaching.) Earlier this week, Gaby (the one on the left in the picture) died tragically in a car accident near her home in Costa Rica.

She had reported on her MA Thesis research with us in a research colloquium on haptic pronunciation teaching recently at the TESOL Convention in Seattle. She and her two colleagues, also pictured, had done their combined MA research through the University of Costa Rica on the application of haptic pronunciation teaching to L1 and L2 literacy instruction with 4th and 5th graders. It was a wonderful, action-research study, done by classroom instructors, themselves, demonstrating the potential of "haptic" in surprising and highly effective ways.

Her commitment and enthusiasm were contagious, as was her joie de vivre. We had many recent conversations, exploring how we would bring more HaPT there.

Gaby touched many lives. She will be greatly missed.

"De feet" - a new, winning (haptic) strategy for teaching English rhythm

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Alert: This post is best read while standing barefoot with some of your favorite dance music in the background or while walking or jogging to it. New research by Greene and colleagues at New Mexico Highlands University summarized by Science Daily, demonstrates just how you can ensure that your brain is really "pumped" about what follows.

Next Friday morning (at 8:30 A.M. no less!) at the annual BCTEAL (British Columbia) conference in Vancouver, we'll be rolling out the new v5.0 version of the "Rhythmic Feet Fight Club". If you are new to haptic pronunciation teaching here is the 2009 version and here is the 2013 version.

If you are new to what the rhythmic feet of English are about, here is a (somewhat technical) but nice set of slides by Goldstein at USC or this straightforward one from a "handbook" at Emory University. "Feet" are,  in essence, groups of syllables that determine the flow of English speech, each grouping having one (stronger) stressed syllable that creates foregrounding or focus in that grouping.

There are hundreds of techniques on the web that use something like dance, where one foot or the other lands on stressed syllables of words or phrases; some, such as Jazz Chants, that have learners clapping hands while they do. v5.0 is a bit like that. Haptically, along with the feet touching the floor, the hands either squeeze something or rhythmically (in boxing gloves) hammer at the boxing gloves of another learner, as in the (relatively "foot-loose") 2009 version above.

What is "new" in v5.0 is the explicit (fun) inclusion of light, enthusiastic foot stomping--while doing something like shadow boxing--on stressed syllables of rhythmic feet. (We'll post a video of that session next week.) I realize that sounds a bit too "full body" and cognitively complicated for 8:30 a.m., but it is actually quite easy to master, as long as you carefully ramp up with each of the "body parts" involved as you do.

Before I take off the gloves, in fact, I'm going to have a serious, f2f "conversation" with the conference scheduler who put us (Shine Hong and myself) in that pre-conscious-pre-coffee early presentation slot. (It should be a "knock out" of a session, nonetheless!)

Join us.

Key citation:
Experimental Biology 2017. (2017, April 24). How walking benefits the brain: Researchers show that foot's impact helps control, increase the amount of blood sent to the brain. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 26, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424141340.htm

A "pronounced" victory for phonics!

2 questions:

• How many phonics rules do you know explicitly and work with with your students?  
• How fluent (in reading or speaking) are your students expected to become working with you?

  

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The (generally pointless but commercially and academically lucrative) battle between proponents of "phonic" and "whole word" approaches to reading instruction  is (apparently) over, according to new research by "Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit", summarized by our friends at Science Daily, quoting one of the researchers:

"The results were striking; people who had focused on the meanings of the new words were much less accurate in reading aloud and comprehension than those who had used phonics, and our MRI scans revealed that their brains had to work harder to decipher what they were reading."

 Q.E.D.

Since from the summary we do not get much of an idea as to what the research methodology looked like, we'll just have to trust them--and their conclusions. (I'll access the actual article and report back in a comment to this post, but that is almost irrelevant here.)

What is of real interest is not the link between phonic training and reading comprehension but the connection between training in oral reading fluency and reading comprehension, well established in early literacy instruction for kids. (The current study was with adults learning a new, artificial language but seems to be a good parallel.)

In L2 pronunciation teaching, the relationship between accuracy of individual sounds or words and speaking fluency has not, to my knowledge, been researched--and published. (If you have a good ref on that, please post it for us!)  Part of the reason for that is that intelligibility, rather than accuracy, has become the "gold standard" of instruction in the field, to a large extent creating the understandable lack of interest in "traditional" segmental-focus-based (individual sounds) teaching methods.

The real irony here, if the new research is even close, is that in L2 instruction, downplaying phonetic accuracy and instruction in phonics may ultimately be undermining development of reading (and speaking) fluency. At the very least, the MRI data apparently indicated that the brains of  the adult "whole worders" in the study had to work much harder with word recognition.

Although in haptic work we are certainly not "phonatics" by any means, the method is still based on initial phonetic anchoring and extensive, systematic oral reading practice. If yours isn't, it may be time to get back to basics. To get started, begin by seeing how many phonics rules that you use in teaching you can jot down in less than 1 minute. Anything short of a dozen suggests that your students may be "dys-fluent" as well.

Citation:
University of Royal Holloway London. (2017, April 20). Phonics works: Sounding out words is best way to teach reading, study suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 21, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170420094107.htm

The source article:

Taylor, J. S. H., Davis, M. H., & Rastle, K. (2017, April 20). Comparing and Validating Methods of
Reading Instruction Using Behavioural and Neural Findings in an Artificial Orthography. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000301

The elephant in the room: Body awareness in language (and pronunciation) teaching

In the previous post, I mentioned that we are considering proposing a colloquium at the next TESOL convention (in Chicago, in March, 2018) with the title of something like: Embodiment and the body in TESOL. That could bring together a wide range of researchers and practitioners, in addition to hapticians!

Now comes this neat little study of body awareness in elephants:  Elephants know when their bodies are obstacles to success in a novel transfer task by Dale and Plotnik of University of Cambridge, summarized by NeuroScience News. Basically, they demonstrated that elephants are very much tuned into the impact that their bodies have on their immediate environment. In the study, subjects were posed with a problem such that they could not pass on a baton with a cord attached to the mat they were standing on--without getting off the mat first.

To the apparent surprise of the researchers, that was a piece of cake for the elephants.

Body awareness is getting more attention lately, for example in discussions of  body image  by scholars and "body shaming", even at #Starbucks . . .

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But now for the "elephant in room" that will be the topic of the colloquium: To paraphrase the title of the study: Researchers (and some instructors) don't know when (or how) their bodies are obstacles to effective pronunciation teaching. Not to pull the mat out from under current teaching methodology, of course, but the point of this blog for the last 7 years has been just that: systematic work with the body is ultimately the key to pronunciation teaching.

That almost certainly means the integration of "full body" methodology in computer-mediated or virtual reality environments. The technology is available to do that now, used primarily at this point in gaming, rehabilitation and the military.

So what do we mean by "the body"? Essentially, what is termed "embodied cognition", meaning that is based in some condition or movement of our physical experience. It can be gesture, posture or "regular" motion or movement in learning, but it can also relate to anything about the physical environment of the classroom, or the genders, identities or perceived body images of participants.

50  years ahead of his time, Arthur Lessac put it so well in 1967: Train the body first! Join us in Chicago (hopefully) next spring in passing on that baton! Something noBODY should miss!

Citation: University of Cambridge “Elephant’s “Body Awareness” Adds to Increasing Evidence of Their Intelligence.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 12 April 2017.
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TESOL 2018 Convention Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Proposals

It's that time again! Proposals are due June 1st! A number of topics have been suggested for us Hapticians. If you see one you like and want to participate in, let us know SOON!

• Half-day pre-convention institute - Basic training in haptic pronunciation teaching
• Research colloquium on haptic pronunciation teaching - This year's colloquium was very successful. Much more to report on next year. 
• Embodiment and the body in TESOL - This is a broader topic, one that has been suggested to me repeatedly. Reasonably certain it will be proposed.
• Unstressed vowels (a haptic approach) - The haptic pedagogical movement pattern system for unstressed vowels, especially schwa, is innovative and effective, used now primarily in accent reduction.
• Visible gesture in pronunciation instruction - With the recent publication of a couple of articles, this topic is finally getting some serious discussion. (This deals with visual signalling, more than the anchoring of gesture in the body of the learner.)
• Haptic pragmatics - I have done three successful workshops on this topic with Angelina VanDyke. The model has developed considerably.
• Haptic discourse intonation teaching basics - This one follows somewhat from the Haptic Pragmatics workshop. 
• Haptic pronunciation in literacy work - This would be a follow up on one of the presentations in this year's haptic research colloquium. 
• Haptic pronunciation for kids - The haptic model is used by many elementary school teachers.
• Haptic pronunciation teaching for volunteer teachers - The current haptic pronunciation teacher certification course developed out of work with volunteer teachers
• There will be a publishers session on v5.0 of the Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Certification course. 

Those could be in any of several formats, colloquia, workshops, teaching tips, etc.

Keep in touch - and check in if interested by May 1st!

Killing pronunciation 5: Deliberate (boring) practice and the Passion-Practice paradox

Pronunciation enthusiasts can be some of the most energetic, entertaining and gesticular among us . . . unfortunately. (Mea culpa!)

Require your students to do boring and repetitive pronunciation in class or homework much? (Do you hold them accountable for quality practice outside of class?) If you have been following the blog for a while, you know that I am a big fan of James Clear. If you need to change something--most anything--and you probably still don't need a coach or therapist to help get you there, his website is worth a visit. His latest post, "The Behavior-change paradox", combined with Eduardo Briceno's TED talk on "How to get better at things you care about" forms a nice program for change of sorts--even pronunciation change!

"Deliberate practice" is back in vogue. One of the great "myths" of our time is that most anything can be learned at near light speed, relatively speaking. The typical pitch from quick-change methodologists (and con artists) such as "change your accent FAST!" reflects that legacy of both behaviorism and technology, especially the latter--and marketing, of course.

The two pieces of the Clear-Briceno model are (simply) consistent, incremental change and focused passion. You need both. Clear's analysis of why we often fail to make change in our habits is simple, but striking, and captures the passion-practice paradox: the more we try to change in the short term or the harder we go at it, the more resistance we encounter. Effective change over time is generally based on disciplined alteration of key practices at the day or even hour-by-hour level.

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In other words, in pronunciation teaching, motivating learners, impacting their "cognition", assisting them in planning or thinking about their personal goals and objectives can be pretty much pointless, or worse, unless they know how to practice effectively on a near daily basis. Furthermore, that work is for the most part not sexy or exciting, but often boring--and most importantly--progress at that level is generally not perceptible, although over time it will be.

Do you do that? How is your "passion-practice" balance, especially in assigning homework or getting learners charged up, self-directed and autonomous? If you function in a language lab or do a lot of pronunciation on the web, you may be off the hook somewhat, of course. Now we know why the lab and technology are making a serious comeback in the field--and may eventually replace us all!

In the meantime, if you are having issues with your diet, exercise, budgeting or metaphysical discipline, check out the Clear post (and maybe even download is longer, more detailed instructions on how to get your act together.) Then have a focused, professional talk with your students on incremental, manageable practicing of their pronunciation and their L2 in general . . . regularly.

Before you do, you might also want to check with your local personal fitness training coach or "haptician" on some effective ways to do that!

Killing pronunciation 4: Dis-integrated vs prior schema-based pronunciation change

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What does it mean to "integrate" pronunciation work into "regular" instruction? And if you do, how do you know if it "worked"--or why? : Caveat emptor: Without informed, systematic follow up, most pronunciation instruction is probably a crap shoot, dicey at best. 

That thought was again inspired, in part, by a recent article in the new Handbook of  Pronunciation Teaching by Sicola and Darcy entitled: Integrating Pronunciation into the Language Classroom.  

To access the chapter you have to buy the Handbook itself, prices ranging from about $125 to $195USD, plus tax and shipping, or just the online chapter itself for about $35USD--or from about 6 vente carmel frapps up to around 40!

In essence, Sicola and Darcy argue that since there is a range of pronunciation teaching techniques and strategies that have been shown to produce some gain or results in reported practice or quasi-experimental studies, then when integrated into general classroom instruction--as opposed to being taught in a separate class or individualized work online-- they should work in that integrated context, too. Really? I think they are maybe half right, but they have almost no "hard" evidence to support that claim.

An earlier post focused on why figuring out whether or not a method works can be so problematic in education today: basically, integrated instruction can mask the actual impact of individual techniques and procedures, such as homework--or pronunciation. Context of instruction trumps technique, almost always.

The near consensus among researchers investigating in-class feedback and correction, for example, as unpacked in a recent blogpost, is now that for genuine, effective uptake to occur in pronunciation work it must be predominantly in follow up that it occurs not in initial in-class presentation and practice -- or homework, but as it followed up on later and repeatedly (Rosario et al, 2015).

So, how do you best set up the key pronunciation schema that you need to use in everyday instruction, in little vignettes or mini-lessons inserted into speaking, listening, reading and writing courses, or . . . in something like the old reliable, stand alone "pronunciation class" that provided the basic training that was then followed up on or used spontaneously during incidental "teachable moments"  by any and all instructors in the program at large?

Where are we headed? My guess: back to good "out of class" experience and basic pronunciation  training, either in the form of specific pronunciation-designated classes or something analogous, such as web-based training,  that is then referred back to by instructors in integrated pronunciation work all over the place and curriculum. In other words, pronunciation techniques should be part of everybody's tool kit but ideally the basic training should occur someplace else, before the problem is addressed in class. Our colleagues who do public speaking and voice training have had this right for decades.

The sooner some of what passes for (one-shot-mini-lesson-in-the-middle-of-something-else-with-no-clear-follow-up-based) integrated instruction disintegrates, the better! (It already has in haptic pronunciation instruction, of course, should you need a great model of how to do it!)

Sources:

Rosario, P., Nunez, J., Vallejo, G., Cunha, J., Nunes, T., Suarez, N., Fuentes, S. & Moreira, T. (2015). The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' EFL performance: a randomized-group design. Retrieved from: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528/full.

Killing pronunciation 3: Grit

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To the "gritty" student, there can be nothing more frustrating than pointless, unproductive pronunciation homework--or even worse, none at all.

If you are a follower of this blog, you know I am a big fan of James Clear. If you need to change something--most anything--and you still don't need a coach or therapist to help get you there, his website is worth a visit. His latest post on "building mental toughness" linked to an earlier piece: Grit: a complete guide on being mentally tough. (Embedded in that post is a TED talk by Duckworth, on "grit" which you should also watch if you haven't already.)

Grit is defined in a number of ways but, basically, it means having the strength of character to persevere to ones goals. 

Grit is a key variable in success in pronunciation, I'm sure, although I have been unable to find a good study to verify that. My own experience with accent reduction clients is that to fix their accent  they need just two thing: grit and money (and time, of course.)

Where that especially comes into play is in homework--my current area of research in preparation for a panel at the 2017 TESOL Convention later this month. If you have a student who has real grit, in terms of pronunciation homework, can you provide him or her with sufficient direction as to what to work on and practice outside of class? I have been asking that question repeatedly of late and the overwhelming response from instructors is . . . No!

In fact some instructors have replied that monitored and required practice outside of class, such as drill and repetition and oral reading is probably not worth the effort. And even if it is, "how am I to know whether it was done well or productively?"

There you have it. One of Clear's key principles, based on current research, is that in developing grit the learner must NOT rely on motivation but on habit, on discipline. But for a student to do that, there must be clear guidance and assignments.

How do your homework assignments and guidance to your students on how to improve their pronunciation stack up with that criteria? Probably not all that well, right? This is big, actually. We are just coming out of a period where focus on motivation and meta-cognition (thought and planning about pronunciation change) have been enormously influential.

One of Clear's other principles in developing it is to: Build grit with small physical wins. There are any number of ways to do that, of course, but it takes a consistent, coherent method at least. In pronunciation work, that is or should be a "gimme!"

EHIEP is based on the idea that embodied (gesture-based) homework/practice is key. The success of the system relies on establishing cognitive schema (haptic cognition) such that subsequent in class or incidental learning or correction of pronunciation will happen efficiently, as the learn relates back to the model or rule learned earlier. (That is one of the most important findings in research on incidental correction in class of pronunciation.) In general, homework is carefully prescribed to help create such schema and students need to "homework" at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes to facilitate that, preferably every day.

It takes "true grit" to do that -- and manage it. If that is not part of your current method and "growth mindset" (Dweck, 2016), "Clear" up your current pedagogical habits and grit back to us!

Haptic phonetics: bridging from L1 to L2 pronunciation!

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Please join Eileen McWilliams and myself in our 90 minute workshop tomorrow at the annual 2017 BCTEAL Island Conference at Camosun College in Victoria, British Columbia. Here is the program summary:

"Some familiarity with phonetics is essential to pronunciation teaching, both for student and teacher. This workshop presents a basic haptic (gesture+touch) phonetic framework for helping students better understand and work with the relationship between key aspects of their L1 vowels and consonants and those of English. In addition to an introduction to haptic cognition and haptic pronunciation teaching, “bridging” techniques from 8 L1s are demonstrated. Participants are provided with basic materials for haptic bridging and access to web-based demonstration videos."

Saturday 25, 2017, 1~2:30

 See you there. We'll post the presentation to Slideshare and Research Gate next week.

Keep in touch!

Killing Pronunciation 2: "Over and under-learning"

You may have seen a report on this research on "overlearning" recently, Overlearning hyperstabilizes a skill by rapidly making neurochemical processing inhibitory-dominant, by Shibata, Sasaki, Bang, Walsh, Machizawa, Tamaki, Chang and Watanabe of Brown University. (There is a pretty readable summary on Medicalexpress.com.) According to the abstract: "Overlearning in humans abruptly changes neurochemical processing, to hyperstabilize and protect trained perceptual learning from subsequent new learning."

Wow. Some useful terms there for you: Neurochemical processing . . . hyperstabilize  . . . inhibitory-dominant . . . 

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Basically, researchers examined the effect of overlearning of a visual mapping procedure on retention in one of three conditions: (a) another new learning procedure was introduced immediately, (b) a time period was inserted (3 hours) before the next procedure, or (c) the first procedure was carried out with overlearning (operationalized as going over the correct set of moves yet again, again), followed by a second new procedure.

In essence, both (b) and (c) resulted in better recall later. In other words, you can protect new learning by putting some space between that and the next piece of training--especially if the two procedures have some potential overlap of some kind, or . . . by hammering it in, so to speak.

Shibata et al. suggest that the findings probably apply to a wide range of learning contexts, while conceding that the focus on visual modality also limits applicability. More research needed, of course. But what might that imply for pronunciation teaching? A few things:

• Some kinds of drill may work as well as we know they do. (Especially if it is anchored with gesture-plus-touch!)
• Research has long established that just "pointing out" or simple recasting (repeating back the correct pronunciation without further comment) rarely are effective. 
• As was reported in the previous blogpost, the role of visual stimuli and distraction in moderating integration of other modalities, can be problematic, at best. That is to say the applicability of this "visual" study to embodied pronunciation may be marginal. 
• The concept of "spacing" various procedures in pronunciation training does make. The behaviorists had that one figured out 60 or 70 years ago. (In fact, this possible additional empirical validation of overlearning must put a bit of a smile on the face of any "hyper-senior" researchers of the period still with us.)
• Good trainers in virtually all physical disciplines know and practice this idea. Again, as developed in several previous blogposts, the idea of partitioning off leaning has always been central to hypnosis, allowing the unconscious mind a role in the party. How you do that can vary enormously, simple waiting time being one. 

Two possible takeaways here: (a) However you accomplish it, pronunciation learning, being the highly modality-integrated process that it is, requires or should be followed by uncompromised attention, processing space around it of some kind and "full-body" armor. (b) If not an integral part of your method, don't be surprised if little sticks or is "uptaken"!

If you have enough time, you can learn two tasks without interference by leaving a few hours between the two trainings

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

*With apologies, of course, to Bill O'Reilly for the use of his "killing" meme, as in his recent books on well known figures of the past, e.g., Killing Jesus, Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy. At least a couple of future posts will use the same "killer" title hook.

Source:
Nature Neuroscience (2017)doi:10.1038/nn.4490

To cement training quickly, overlearning should help, but beware it might interfere with similar learning it that follow immediately.

Without overlearning, don't try to learn something similar in rapid succession because there is a risk that the second bout of learning will undermine the first.

If you have enough time, you can learn two tasks without interference by leaving a few hours between the two trainings.

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

To cement training quickly, overlearning should help, but beware it might interfere with similar learning it that follow immediately.

Without overlearning, don't try to learn something similar in rapid succession because there is a risk that the second bout of learning will undermine the first.

If you have enough time, you can learn two tasks without interference by leaving a few hours between the two trainings.

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

To cement training quickly, overlearning should help, but beware it might interfere with similar learning it that follow immediately.

Without overlearning, don't try to learn something similar in rapid succession because there is a risk that the second bout of learning will undermine the first.

If you have enough time, you can learn two tasks without interference by leaving a few hours between the two trainings.

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

Overlearning hyper-stabilizes a skill by rapidly making neurochemical processing inhibitory-dominant, Nature Neuroscience, nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nn.4490

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

Overlearning hyper-stabilizes a skill by rapidly making neurochemical processing inhibitory-dominant, Nature Neuroscience, nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nn.4490

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

To cement training quickly, overlearning should help, but beware it might interfere with similar learning it that follow immediately.

Without overlearning, don't try to learn something similar in rapid succession because there is a risk that the second bout of learning will undermine the first.

If you have enough time, you can learn two tasks without interference by leaving a few hours between the two trainings.

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

To cement training quickly, overlearning should help, but beware it might interfere with similar learning it that follow immediately.

Without overlearning, don't try to learn something similar in rapid succession because there is a risk that the second bout of learning will undermine the first.

If you have enough time, you can learn two tasks without interference by leaving a few hours between the two trainings.

Read more at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-overlearning.html#jCp

Killing pronunciation improvement: better heard (and felt) but not seen!

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Fascinating study, Visual Distractors Disrupt Audiovisual Integration Regardless of Stimulus Complexity, by Gibney, et al. Department of Neuroscience, Oberlin College.

Tigger warning: This is a thick, technical read, but the conclusions of the study have potentially important implications for pronunciation teaching, especially attempts to enhance uptake of new and corrected sounds or patterns that rely on effective integration of sounds, images, movement and vocal resonance. 

In essence, what the research examined was, as the title suggests, how distractions in the visual field affected subjects attention and ability to learn and recall audio-visual stimuli (images on a computer screen accompanied by sounds). What was striking (again as evident in the title) was that no matter how complex the task of associating the targeted sound with the visual image or object in focus, with even the slightest distraction created on the screen, e.g., a object briefly appearing in a corner, the subject's ability to integrate and recall the complex target later . . .was compromised.

The implications for pronunciation teaching?  Not surprisingly, attention is critical in integrating sensory information. We know that, of course. What is more interesting is the idea that any visual distraction whatsoever that occurs when sound, movement and visual imagery (such as the orthography or phonetic representation of a word or phrase) are being "integrated" may seriously  undermine the process. In other words, visual attention and eye tracking during the process may have dramatic impact. That is a "variable" that can, in principle, be managed in the classroom, although most do not consider visual distraction to be potentially that disruptive of pronunciation instruction. But it certainly can be.

We discovered early on that in haptic pronunciation work, where not only sound, visual imagery, movement and vocal resonance are involved--but touch as well, visual distraction can seriously derail the process. This research suggests, for example, that the same effect during general pronunciation work as well, especially oral work, may be a significant impediment in some contexts. 

The sterile, featureless language laboratory booth of old may have had more going for it than we thought! In early haptic work we experimented with controlling eye tracking. Perhaps it is time we revisited that idea. It certainly deserves our undivided attention.

Original research article: Front. Integr. Neurosci., 20 January 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2017.00001

"Haptenings" at the TESOL 2017 Convention in Seattle!

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If you'll be in Seattle in March for the 2017 TESOL Convention, please join us at one of the "haptenings" (haptic pronunciation teaching happenings):

• Haptic Pronunciation Teaching (workshop) (Kielstra, et al.) - Basics of the method. No prior training in phonetics or pronunciation teaching necessary. 
• Teacher cognition about haptic pronunciation teaching (colloquium) (Acton, et al.) - Reports on 5 recent studies of haptic pronunciation teaching in the classroom
• Rhythm and focal stress (poster session) (Teaman, et al.) - Haptic and other techniques for teaching rhythm and focal (sentence and discourse level) stress

A few other convention asides:

• As usual, we'll also set up some kind of networking session in the "networking" area late in the convention. 
• We will also video those sessions and make them available on Vimeo.com once we get home.  
• I'll be tweeting (@WmActon) as will other hapticians, I'm sure. 
• v4.5 of the Haptic Pronunciation Course will be out by then, with revised videos and coursebook additions.
• I'm also on a panel on research in L2 homework in which at least some of my data comes from haptic homework as well. 

Keep in touch! (So will we!)