I attended an interesting session at the CATESOL conference in Grossmont on a topic called “Brain rules that matter” by Jim Scofield. He states what has been already noted before that the female and male brains are wired differently. For this reason male and female have different ways of communication. However, when it comes to learning a language there are some rules that apply to both genders and all people of all ages.
Rule 1 – Exercise boost power. If we exercise our brain to think and to solve problems the brain works better. Let’s take our muscles. As we train our muscles to do certain movements or exercises, the muscles start to remember and they react quicker on command from the brain. That’s how our brain operates better when it is exercised more often (i.e. use the brain to think daily). To boost the power of our brain, we need to constantly exercise the brain by doing crossword puzzle, doing brain games, or solving problems. Playing “hangman, or what’s in my bag?, or crossword puzzle” is good for the brain.
Rule 2 – The human brain evolved. Our brain has evolved from the time humans walked on the earth and it is still evolving. We have not yet utilized the full capacity of our thinking power.
Rule 3 – Every brain is wired differently. The brain wires itself differently depending on a person’s medical, physical, or experiential history. A person who has had a bad accident that involves a head injury can relearn what has been lost through rehabilitation. Scientific studies show that these people with head injuries actually develop different neurological wires in another part of the brain to help them learn again.
Rule 4 – We don’t pay attention to boring things. Young kids have a short attention span, so they get bored easily. When they hear things that are boring, their brain turns off and they find ways to attract their attention and tune off boring details that don’t interest them. So with young kids, we need to change the activity every 10 or 15 minutes. This can happen to young adults as well.
Rule 5 – Repeat to remember and remember to repeat - Repetition is key to learning a language well. We need to say things over and over again before they stick in the brain. No matter how long it takes to repeat a word or phrase, eventually the information will go to the brain. We need to always remind ourselves as language to learners to repeat things we hear as soon ash we hear them.
Short-term and long-term memory- Language learners need to find a way to remember a word or phrase (ex –by mnemonic device) to retain in memory a work or phrase. For long-term language learners need to keep reviewing a concept and apply the concept in practical use so it is not lost in memory. Like all languages the ability to remember a word, phrase or grammatical concept is to keep writing, repeating or using the word until it is put in memory in the brain.
Rule 6 – Sleep – All people need to sleep well to think well to function on a daily basis
Rule 7 – Stress – Under stress the brain doesn’t learn the same way as when a person is relaxed and calm. Learn a language by being calm and relax. Don’t get tense just because you can’t pronounce a word. Relaxing oneself helps the brain to function better.
Rule 8 – Sensory integration – We learn language best when all our senses are stimulated. So by using TPR (total physical response) or kinesthetic in the classroom, students learn better. Having students taste something helps them to understand flavors. When students do crossword puzzle or write what they hear in a dictation, they use their senses to write and spell the target language better. Any type of sensory activity stimulates the brain to learn quicker and more effectively.
Rule 9 – Vision trumps all other senses -Visual realias help the language learner to understand vocabulary that is tangible and visual. A real apple is better than a picture of an apple because it’s real and it can be touched. So by using their vision, language learners perceive the word(s) more readily and remember the word quicker than just hearing the word. Once language learners hear, visually perceive and touch the object, the word or phrase being learned goes into memory much faster.
Rule 10 Gender – Male and female brains are different. – It has been proven and shown through studies that women are more expressive and use more words when communicating than men because men and women’s brain are different. So men want to get to the point right away, whereas women use more detail and express their inner feelings more than men. Women are in touch more with their emotions (or vocabulary of emotions) than men are. However, that all depends on the subject. Men are very detailed when describing a sport event or the actions of a sporting event because men, in general, love sports. Men like mechanical things so they are more descriptive in terms of describing the problems of a car than women. But what is noted that when men or women like an activity (ex – cooking or gardening), they utilize more vocabulary and are more descriptive when giving details. For language teachers it would be a good idea to have their students talk on a topic they like best.
Rule 11 - People, in general, are powerful and natural explorers. To get language learners to learn more effectively is to have them apply the vocabulary, phrase or grammatical concept in the real world where the target language is mainly spoken. Thus, it is a good idea for the language teachers to make it a point to use English all the time if English is being taught or Spanish if Spanish is the language being taught in the classroom and try to make the students use the target language in the classroom. A field trip to the store or restaurant where English is spoken helps students explore and utilize the language they are learning. A powerful and explorative way for language learners to utilize the language is to write current event issues of the community or develop a mini newsletter or newspaper written in the target language in order to give sense and purpose to the language they are learning. Of course, one the most powerful and effective way to learn a language is to travel or live in a country to get the maximum dosage of the target language.
Based on what I have learned from Mr. Jim Scofield, there are many effective ways to activate or engage the brain to learn a language. What is very interesting and powerful in his lecture is that by engaging the students through visual realias, stimulating their senses, and having students utilize the target language to write meaningful and relevant events of their lives, language learners will learn more effectively.
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