Proper Installation is of the Essence
This is Part 1 of a two-part blog installment. Part 2 will be released tomorrow.
Dear Fellow Earthlings,
Let me give you a sample of what it is like to have a Skype session from me. This will help you appreciate the power of The Jingles.
Today I worked with a gentleman whose English is already quite good, but who wishes to improve it further. He has a habit that is interfering with his ability to internalize sounds and sound combinations that he will need if he is to achieve nativelike English pronunciation competency.. As he was practicing JINGLE C, he mispronounced the word "occasionally" as "occasionaRy" producing an "R" when he needed to produce an "L". I corrected him and had him say it a few times, repeating after me. With each effort (thanks to his paying careful attention to my explanations and various hand signals) his attempts to say "L" instead of "R" began to bear fruit. Finally I said, "Okay, you just said the word "occasionally" in a nativelike manner. Your "L" sounded great and you also did well with the other sounds in the word and with its pitch, intonation, and rhythm." But even as I was commending him on a job well done, he was repeating the word "occasionally" over and over in a low voice. With each repetition his pronunciation was inexorably reverting back to the way he had been saying the word at the beginning of my effort to train him during that particular session. I then reminded him that there is a very important rule to follow when a client is doing TRAINING
MODE drills during Jingles training. It is crucial that any gesture correction offered by the instructor
should be repeated by the client only once. If that lone repetition is off target, the instructor will
deliver therapy techniques to determine whether the client is capable of producing on-target repetition
in one or more subsequent attempts. If, however, the repetition does happen to be "on target", the Jingles instructor will call for a pause of between 20 and 30 seconds so that the speech motor skills the client has just been employed successfully will have time to make their way into those areas of the client's brain that govern the task dynamics employment techniques requred. There, the imprint for producing the target gesture (in this case,
the word "occasionally") will take place.
With the imprinting/installation (or downloading) of a targeted gesture (in this case, the word
"occasionaLy") as a discrete module into the brain, the client will find kermself capable of consistently
producing it in a nativelike manner whenever kee needs to do so. (This blog continues in tomorrow's installment.) Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator
© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.