Using a Verbal Marker

Let me just apologize right up front for the title of this entry. I did it to trick you into reading the rest of it. I am not going to explain how to use a verbal marker, or to expound on the benefits of verbal markers. In fact the opposite is quite true, if disappointing to some.

I am not a fan of the verbal marker (that is using a word such as "yes" or "good" to mark a correct response). The more experience I get with TAGteach and clicker training, the more firmly I believe that the verbal marker is inferior to the tag sound (click) in teaching new skills. We have used taggers (clickers) with everyone from tiny tot ballerinas to international fishermen with lots of muscles and tattoos (see previous blog posts for the tale of the fishermen). We have used taggers with elite athletes, kids with autism, kids with Down syndrome and medical students to list a few examples. Using the tagger absolutely works and it works with every population of learner.

We at TAGteach have heard every reason under the sun from new TAGteachers about why to use a verbal marker rather than a tagger, but there are really only two good reasons not to use a tagger:

1. Your dog ate it.
2. Your learner refuses under any circumstances to be subjected to the degradation of being taught with a tagger.
   

Thankfully we have never faced the former and in the case of the latter, well no one is forcing anyone to do anything, so we just forgo the marker-based aspect with those who wish not to participate. The other principles of TAGteach can still be used effectively even if we don't use a marker. But it is so much better with the tag marker!

Some insight from Maggie Ouillette (whose observations as a new TAGteacher were recorded in my previous blog entry) on the verbal marker were as follows:

"When the program began, I tried using a verbal marker such as `yes' or `good' . I was teaching the volunteers to use a clicker as the dogs' reward marker, and needed a different marker for the humans. Theoretically, it should have worked. After viewing some video footage of my efforts, it was clear that I was having trouble maintaining a consistent signal. I also tried using the word `tag' to avoid conveying emotion, but that word sounded harsh. My solution was to use clickers for the humans when possible (no dogs present), and used an inexpensive child's toy that created a chunk-chunk noise when the volunteers were working with the dogs."

Maggie has kindly posted a video to YouTube that illustrates the trouble with the verbal marker:

Watch the video

Listen to the verbal marker "good". You can hear Maggie saying it all kinds of different ways. At one point she even says it to a child off-camera! There is nothing wrong with any of this, it is just that using a verbal marker can be confusing and is difficult to keep consistent. A common word such as "good" or "yes" is used in so many ways in common speech that it can never have a single meaning the way the tag sound can.

We at one point back in the time before we had as much experience as we have now had suggested to people that they might use the word “good” or another verbal marker for people and the click sound for the dog in cases where TAGteach was being used to teach dog handling skills. In practice this has turned out not to work well. The verbal marker becomes very repetitive and annoying very quickly. It seems condescending in a way to say “good, good, good” over and over especially to another adult. It is also very difficult to keep the tone of the “good” the same each time. People tend to want to convey additional information with the verbal marker. They tend to vary the tone and give a more expressive “good” if there is a particularly good effort. Just as we do when training dogs with the “yes” marker. It is hard to avoid the big excited “YES” when they finally get it.

This is fine if we are intending to give praise as opposed to marking a precise behaviour. As a marker, now the smaller “yes” or “good” has less power. The person wonders why they didn’t get the big “good!!” the next time or why another person got a bigger “good” than they did. The verbal marker inevitably mixes praise with information. This defeats the purpose of using a marker. The marker must be the same every time and must convey only one piece of information “you got it right”. There are no degrees of “rightness”. It is either tag or no tag (click or no click). This allows the learner to focus only the task at hand, the tag point, and not to have to process verbal information at the same time.

We are not saying that praise is bad, or that there is no place for it. What we are saying is that words cannot be used as markers as effectively as a neutral sound (with either animals or people) because words inevitably convey more than just the critical information (yes! you got it). The way to use praise effectively is in concert with the marker. Tag without talking and at the end of the tag session, give the verbal praise. So the person might get 10 tags and then you end the session and say “You’re doing really well” or “you are hitting your tag point much better than yesterday” or “Fantastic!!!”

We have been trying to work out in our own minds the problem with the verbal marker and over time we have come to conclusion that is the mixture of praise with information that is the heart of the problem. We now address this in our seminars, but there are many people who came to seminars before we had this worked out and were able to articulate it clearly. So apologies to anyone who we steered the wrong way into using verbal markers in the past.

Read an article by Karen Pryor on the topic of verbal markers.