The brain and its relationship to language learning

Páginas: 10 (2378 palabras) Publicado: 20 de agosto de 2012
UNIVERSIDAD LATINA DE COSTA RICA

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

LICENSURE DEGREE IN EDUCATION

COURSE:
LANGUAGE ADQUISITION

RESEARCH SCHOLAR PAPER
IN

THE BRAIN AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO LANGUAGE LEARNING


BY:
MARCOS MURILLO SUÁREZ


GUÁPILES BRANCH


ABSTRACT

Cognitive sciences are discovering many things that educators have always intuitively known about language learning.However, the important point is actively using this new information to improve both students learning and current teaching practices. The implications of neuroscience for educational reform regarding second language learning can clearly be seen in the following categories: brain structures and the corpus callosum; neuronal development and the parts of the brain dedicated to language; the BrainPlasticity Theory and Language Mapping; memory and the Information Processing Model; and of course, developing and utilizing a brain-compatible language curriculum that is meaningfully integrated into the basic content areas covered in all grade levels.



































INTRODUCTION


When children are growing up this is accompanied by theincreasing ability to talk about lots of things and they gain the understanding to express themselves in more complex words. We are in no doubt about the increasing ability of using language; we think this is only acquired naturally. This, being the path followed in my own case, is probably followed by virtually everyone, and therefore is a very normal process. However, when we try to consider "what arelanguage?” the thing which we believed to be a quite normal process is in fact found to be not so simple. So what is likely to be meant in general by language?

However, the problem of "how the brain generates words" has come to challenge the frontiers of brain research and is accepted as a major difficulty even among big problems. The solution to brain functions with respect to language is oneof the final frontiers as far as science is concerned.































THE BRAIN AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO LANGUAGE LEARNING

There has been a longstanding interest among second and foreign language educators in research on language and the brain. Language learning is a natural phenomenon; it occurs even without intervention. By understanding how thebrain learns naturally, language teachers may be better able to enhance their effectiveness in the classroom.


BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: CAN TEACHING MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

It has long been known that different regions of the brain have specialized functions. For example, the frontal lobes are involved in abstract reasoning and planning, while the posterior lobes are involved in vision. Until recently,it was believed that these specialized regions developed from a genetic blueprint that determined the structure and function of specific areas of the brain. That is, particular areas of the brain were designed for processing certain kinds of information from birth.

New evidence suggests that the brain is much more malleable than previously thought. Recent findings indicate that the specializedfunctions of specific regions of the brain are not fixed at birth but are shaped by experience and learning. To use a computer analogy, we now think that the young brain is like a computer with incredibly sophisticated hardwiring, but no software. The software of the brain, like the software of desktop computers, harnesses the exceptional processing capacity of the brain in the service ofspecialized functions, like vision, smell, and language. All individuals have to acquire or develop their own software in order to harness the processing power of the brain with which they are born.

A number of studies support this view. However, all were carried out on animals, because it is not possible to do such research with humans. Caution is called for when extrapolating these findings to...
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