If you'd like a preview of the new KINETIK Method Pronunciation Teaching Certificate Course, join us later today at the next Hapticanar, at 6 p.m., PST. Go to: https://www.actonhaptic.com/ to sign up for the free webinar. If you have missed any of the haptic (web) inars, or you can't join us live, you can always get caught up at: www.actonhaptic.com/archives.
For more on the certificate course: https://www.actonhaptic.com/kinetic or info@actonhaptic.com
The next Hapticanar (Haptic webinar) is part two of the haptic system for teaching the vowels of English, at the regular wenbar time, July 13th, at 6 p.m. (PST). To sign up for the series of 12 webinars, go to www.actonhaptic.com.
The "double vowels" in general North American pronunciation in the haptic system are these: (A common set used in student pronunciation texts.)
Haptic pronunciation teaching does an especially good job of teaching vowels and basic word stress. In this webinar we begin with what we call "single vowels," that is simple, not complex "short" vowel sounds such as in: chicken, cooks, best, with, salt, fat, love, hot. (Later in the system we do work on some other simple vowels such as tense vowels that are not stressed, such as: [i] in 'pronunciation' or [e] in 'atypical'. You'll have to wait for webinar #10 for that, however!)
If you have missed the first four KINETIK hapticanars, Introduction, Rhythm, Fluency and Consonant Supreme 1, you can both get caught up at www.actonhaptic.com and sign up for the coming webinars!
See you there!
Three ways to take the course!
1. (FREE) Attend the weekly Haptic(web)inars, Tuesdays at 6 p.m. PST. Learn one technique per week. Tomorrow is Week 2. The technique this week is the "TaiChi - Finger-flow-fluency,," a great procedure for encouraging overall fluency and integrating new or changed sounds into spontaneous speaking. To join, go to www.actonhaptic.com and sign up!
2. Attend the webinars and also get the student training videos and teaching handouts. (at very minimal cost!)
3. Take the Certification Course (available beginning August 1st!) Here are the details:
KINƐTIK METHOD™applies the basic Movement, Tone and Touch Techniques (MT3 - gesture plus touch routines) of HaPT to enhancing learning and memory for any class content and language, not just specifically pronunciation. It also promotes general intelligibility, using more pronunciation-oriented techniques. The haptic gestures serve to “complement” instruction in all skill areas, speaking, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar . . . and even pronunciation!
The course contains four modules, three lessons each. (Each lesson takes about a week to complete)
Lesson One - Syllable Butterfly and rhythm
Lesson Two - Finger-flow Fluency
Lesson Three – Haptic phonetics: th/th, f/v, p/b, y, w, consonant clusters
Lesson One - Single vowels, word stress, and word-final consonants
Lesson Two - Double vowels and phrasal and sentence stress.
Lesson Three – Haptic phonetics: n/ng, l, r, s/z/sh/zh, tsh/dzh
Lesson One - Basic intonation
Lesson Two - Advanced intonation
Lesson Three - Baton integration and linking
Lesson One - Advanced rhythm and fluency
Lesson Two - Tense, unstressed vowels and secondary stress,
Lesson Three – KINƐTIC review, advanced integration, and Certification test
The structure of a typical lesson is something like this:
(A) Attend the weekly Hapticanar on that lesson or do the video of it. (About 30 minutes),
(B) Do the training video for that lesson, the same one you would use to train you students (5-10 minutes, but you might want to do it two or three times),
(C) You identify a short section of a text of some kind from your current course content or a previous course, and figure out how you could use the MT3 of that leson with in a short embodied oral reading, usually about 25-50 words.
(D) At the end of the week, you meet for an hour or so with 3 or 4 other instructors like yourself, hopefully who are teaching the same type of students, and ME (or another experienced Haptician) to go over the Embodied Oral Readings that the four of you have come up with.
After Module 4, you take a REALLY easy little certification test where you create a video showing that you can do some of the MT3s and write up a couple of pages telling me how you would sell your KINETIK MT3s to your students, your colleagues and your boss!
The cost will vary, depending on how many students there are in a course. If there are 6 students, the cost will be about $300 per student. (There are a maximum of 6 students per course,) If there are 2 students, the cost will be $800 per student. Special programs are available for schools and larger groups.
For more information, contact info@actonhaptic.com.
The course will be rolled out in Auguet 1, 2021. It will be featured and discussed in Acton Haptic Community on Locals.com. Stay tuned here for more information as it is released!
Come to the next Haptic(web)inar and find out! To get there, go to the website and register. While you are there, check out videos of the Introduction to KINETIK Method and Webinar #1: The Syllable Butterfly technique! (And, of course, Keep in Touch!
Note: This is definitely NOT your "grandma's way" of teaching pronunciation or grammar!
Classroom work using the KINETIK Method of Haptic Pronunciation Teaching always begins with a grammar and rhythm process, what we call "GrammaRhythm-ing."
THEN: You work on something in there using gesture and touch, maybe some vowels or consonants, intonation, expressiveness, or maybe just so that the text is remembered better.
FINALLY: Use a different fluency and integration-oriented gesture as you read the passage together one last time to help encourage uptake of the haptic work.
To get a good idea of how this done, join us at Hapticanar #1, Tuesday, June 15th at 6 p.m. (PST). Click HERE to reserve a spot for that!
In case you missed the Introductory Hapticanar this week, check HERE or earlier the Haptic Story Promo, check HERE.
6 p.m. PST (1800)! The first of the (free) weekly, one-hour "Hapticanars." Here is the link to tonight's! Just click and you are in!
The format is (usually) something like this:
Well . . . first one, actually! Just a little over 24 hours before the Introductory free Hapticanar. No need to register in advance for this one, just go to the Acton Haptic website, and click the button! You can also view the new KINETIC Method video while you are there.
The weekly free Hapticanars (Haptic Webinar) go live every Tuesday at 6 p.m. (PST).
The format of the Hapticanar is generally:
If you can't make it, email me at wracton@gmail.com and I'll put you on the list to have access to the recording later this week.
Here is the full "Hai(ptic)ku" (And here is the link to the June 8th Hapticanar: www.actonhaptic.com)
The "Godfather" of language teaching, Jack Richards, consigned the poor, hapless practice of drill in language teaching to the category of "mechanical and meaningless" forever with notes such as this:
"Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using. Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed to practice use of particular grammatical or other items. Activities of this kind are of limited value in developing communicative language use."(Just in case you have forgotten or never been really taught the types of drill, Juicy English has a concise of what drill is.)
Actually, I'd have to agree with Richards if drill is done in the context of " . . . without necessarily understanding the language." In haptic pronunciation teaching, drill is used but with language that is part of the course content, generally pulled out temporarily from a story or text or dialogue, not just a random list of words or grammar structures.
However, what we have learned over the years from our student-teachers who are "trapped" in systems that allow no leeway in what is done in class is this: Even if your textbook and your curriculum demands "decontextualized" drill of the type Richards is describing, just performing those activities "haptically" with gesture and touch can make a real difference in student engagement and ability to remember at least more of the words and patterns being, and impact the mood and energy of the class. In one of the upcoming hapticanars I'll have an interview with a teacher who demonstrates just how that works!
Join us Tuesday!
One of the most intriguing parallels to haptic pronunciation teaching is with embodied math instruction with children. In a 2021piece in Frontiers in Psychology by Berman and Ramani, Integrating Embodied Cognition and Information Processing: A Combined Model of the Role of Gesture in Children's Mathematical Environments, of University of Maryland, propose a comprehensive model that also applies in very interesting ways to the new KINETIK Method. Beginning from an embodied cognition perspective (that is the learning experience must be understood as anchored in both the body and the "outside" milieu, the social context,) it connects more explicitly the critical role and function played by the hands-on methodology in that problem-based context, to math concept learning.
The contribution of the haptic (gesture, plus touch) techniques of the KINETIK method, especially the several ways in which the hand engagement defines what an object is and how it relates other objects and the focus of the task "at hand," provides a framework for interpreting the place of the various components of the gesture and touch based techniques.
To see more about just how that framework connects to classroom instruction in pronunciation with children and adults, join us at the weekly haptic webinars (Hapticanars) beginning on June 8th! For more information on the (free) Hapticanars and sign up, go to www.actonhaptic.com.
Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.650286/full
Nice piece on some of the areas of new development in virtual and augmented reality using haptic technology, Touching the air may be possible with new research on haptics, by Verris at Youris.com. From the beginnings of our work in haptic pronunciation teaching, the obvious "embodiment" of the gesturing and TOUCHING hands at multiple points across the visual field connected to sounds and sound processes would one day be in virtual/augmented reality. To get a glimpse of the haptic "future" of pronunciation teaching, join us at our first FREE weekly Haptic Pronunciation Teaching Webinar, this coming Tuesday, June 8th at 6 p.m. (PST). For details and to sign up, got to the Acton Haptic website until June 6th!
Source:
https://www.youris.com/society/future-tech/touching-the-air-may-be-possible-with-new-research-on-haptics.kl
The Roll Out Video will be "out" later today. You can engage with it here and on other social media, of course! I'll be on Locals.com (actonhaptic@locals.com) for my follow up for the most part. The bottom line of the previous post, and the "bottom line" of the KINETIK Method is the Certificate course (of course!) Just to give you an idea of what the content of this content-based teaching certificate course is about, here is a sketch of the curriculum: Module One (Basic Rhythm, Basic Fluency, and some basic consonants; Module Two (Single vowels, double vowels and some basic consonants; Module three (Basic intonation, Advanced intonation, Basic integration, and linking); Module Four (Advanced rhythm and fluency, Secondary and unstressed vowels, Advanced/spontaneous integration) The course ends with brief review and certification test modules. Each module takes three weeks or so. (See the previous post for more details.) Classes begin whenever 3-5 students sign up who can meet together weekly for an hour on Zoom! Bring along 2 or 3 friends from work and you are ready to roll!
Today's post from Locals.com (actonhaptic@locals.com) is also listed here on the Roll Out blog page, along with the previous 22 posts! Here are links to the recent blogpost with details on the method, and more on the Acton Haptic Community on the new, upgraded actonhaptic.com website.
The KINETIK Method Roll Out video will be out tomorrow! (Tomorrow's blog post will include all details on the video.) Here's your Haptic TBD list:
1. Watch and share the Introductory Video with your network!
2. Go to actonhaptic.com and get on our mailing list. (We'll automatically send you invitations for the weekly Hapticanars.) While you are there, check out all the information there on KINETIK and the Acton Haptic Community.
3. Join us every Tuesday at 5 p.m., beginning June 8th, for Dr Bill's Weekly Haptic Technique Hapticanars (30 minute workshop and 20 minute Q&A) on Webinarjam.com.
4. Sign up for the Acton Haptic Community at actonhaptic@locals.com. Signing up is free but if you become a supporter for $5 monthly or more, in addition to being able to be involved in the conversation there you get:
In addition to the free weekly technique hapticanar (on Webinarjam) and connecting with the Acton Haptic Community, the best way to get the full tool kit is to sign up for the certificate course, which begins anytime there are 3 or 4 students who want to do it. (See earlier post on the "KINETIK-shop Quartet.) Key features:
One great feature of the KINETIK method is that the materials are absolutely free . . . in fact, there aren't any, because you provide them, text from your course teaching materials that are what we call "context-rich." By that we mean that pronunciation techniques are used to produce greater clarity (sort of like traditional pronunciation work) or greater emphasis, expressiveness or nuance WITHIN course materials that are good stories, in some sense, vived, memorable narratives of some kind. (Might even be a tightly organized set of theme-based vocabulary . . . but usually not.) In other words, KINETIC method is situated or target in dialogues, a readings, a sets of instructions, scripts from listening tasks, even students' draft compositions . . . where the "story" is . . . telling.
Today's post from Locals.com (actonhaptic@locals.com) is also listed here on the Roll Out blog page, along with the previous 19 posts! Here are links to the recent blogpost with details on the method, and more on the Acton Haptic Community on the new, upgraded actonhaptic.com website
In the KINETIK Teacher Training Certificate Course, (a) after you do a little reading, and (b) a little "full body" training just like what your students will do, (c) you get together with three other teacher trainees and a certified Haptician (like me) on Zoom and (d) go over your homework, a piece of text from your regular course-content materials that has been "choreographed" with haptic Movement, tone and touch techniques (MT3s). Each session concludes with the "Happytic Dance" embodying the technique from the lesson, the one you were introduced to in the weekly "Hapticanar" (haptic + webinar)!
Today's post from Locals.com (actonhaptic@locals.com) is also listed here on the Roll Out blog page, along with the previous 18 posts! Here are links to the recent blogpost with details on the method, and more on the Acton Haptic Community on the new, upgraded actonhaptic.com website
. . . for improving memory (for content and pronunciation). Check out this great summary from Neuroscience News on a study by Reser et al at Monash University, Ancient Australian Aboriginal Memory Tool Superior to ‘Memory Palace’ Learning. The bottom line parallel to pronunciation teaching: content (or pronunciation focus) embedded in a good story in a good "place" is more memorable than just being the focus of a loosely connected class mini-lesson sitting in the third row . . .
Today's post from Locals.com (actonhaptic@locals.com) is also listed here on the Roll Out blog page, along with the previous 17 posts! Here are links to the recent blogpost with details on the method, and more on the Acton Haptic Community on the new, upgraded actonhaptic.com website
Today's post from Locals.com (actonhaptic@locals.com) is also listed here on the Roll Out blog page, along with the previous 16 posts! Here are links to the recent blogpost with details on the method, and more on the Acton Haptic Community on the new, upgraded actonhaptic.com website
