Pronunciation and listening both have been described as orphans in second language (L2) teaching. While this might have been true two decades ago, I think the real orphan has been – and still is – TOUCH! Bill Acton, Amanda Baker, and I will be giving an IATEFL PronSIG webinar in November in which touch will feature prominently. I’m also working on a new paper with the goal of bringing neuroscience, especially touch, into the classroom. Here’s a paragraph of an early draft of that paper: Neuroscience postulates that touch is the most common and powerful sense for people to interact with their physical environment. The skin and its receptor system send information to the brain through touch and therefore touch is fundamental in people’s engagement with the physical surrounding. Touch also enhances learning and produces detailed, lasting memories (Hutmacher & Kuhbandner, 2018). Research also revealed that touch increases learner confidence more effectively than vision does, particularly in ambiguous phonological situations such as students trying to distinguish between the English vowel sounds [iy] and [ey] (Fairhurst et al., 2018). Yet, touch is …”surprisingly little used as a vehicle for conceptual learning, particularly in higher education” (Shaikh et al., 2017, p.2). With the exception of instructors clapping to help L2 learners’ pronunciation (Zhang et al., online first), touch is more or less an unexplored area in language instruction. From an embodiment point of view of L2 teaching and learning (Holme, 2012), touch must be present because it complements movement and gestures in the creation of meaning, making L2 learning more memorable. How L2 instructors use touch and incorporate it into their teaching repertoire will be discussed in the implication section of that new paper, and so stay tuned!
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I am a Senior Lecturer in TESOL at the University of Wollongong in Australia. This blog is a reflection of my journey as a researcher, L2 teacher educator, and language teacher. Archives
June 2021
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