Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Explaining the EHIEP 'haptic' system to students and colleagues

As promised, here is an updated, basic set of "elevator talking points" for introducing Essential Haptic-integrated English Pronunciation (EHIEP):

  • It's a new "haptic video" system used in ESL and EFL for teaching English pronunciation, based on extensive research in several fields and has been thoroughly classroom tested. 
  • It is designed for instructors with little or no training in pronunciation teaching. For less experienced instructors, all basic instruction can be done by the instructor on the video. (Teachers and students can learn together.) 
  • EHIEP uses rhythm, movement and touch along with the "aerobic-like" videos. Students move along with the model on the video as they speak and practice. 
  • "Haptic-integrated" means using movement, and especially touch, to improve a student's ability to learn a new sound, remember it and recall it later. Haptic techniques are especially good for helping students more quickly learn to use what they have studied in class. 
  • Any teacher can use it, can "outsource" initial pronunciation training and then follow up later using those techniques in tutoring or typical speaking and listening lessons. 
  • It is based on a standard, simplified, “essential” set of pronunciation objectives.
  • It is relatively inexpensive and easy to use. It requires only a good dictionary and a laptop, LDC projector or iPhone-like handheld device. 
  • It is composed of: 
    • 10, 20~30-minute teaching modules (best done one per week)
    • 12, optional 5-minute consonant teaching mini-modules 
    • 3 optional 15-minute homework mini-modules with each of the 8 modules. (Total of 24 mini-modules)  
  • It is designed to work in classes of up to 50 students of any proficiency level, teenage and older. Here is a link to a video of an introduction I did for a class taught by a friend recently. One of the key objectives of the course is vocabulary so I emphasize that somewhat. Not exactly professional grade video or production, but you'll get the idea! 
  • Excerpts from some of the more recent videos have been linked in previous blogposts. The entire system will be available online in late Spring 2013 and introduced through workshops in various countries and at the TESOL Convention in Dallas (along with the organizational meeting of HICPR at the convention.) The "hard media" set of videos will be available about that time as well. 
  • In the interim, if you are interested in field testing a module in your class, get "in touch!." (wracton@gmail.com.)

1 comment:

  1. Just got a question about whether it is "essential" to have the videos. It isn't. The blog is about haptic research and techniques. The EHIEP system is my approach. It is, I think, a good example of the power of haptic integration in pronunciation teaching but there are literally hundreds of ways to use movement and touch successfully in teaching and therapy. Eventually, once I get all the video production and materials done, I hope to persuade a lot of people to try it, of course, but the application of the ideas goes far beyond pronunciation work in language instruction.

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