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The benefits of learning foreign languages
The benefits of learning foreign languages
The benefits of learning foreign languages
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1. Introduction: In the last few decades, the notion of language and brain has been highlighted in different scientific fields such as: neurology, cognitive science, linguistics biology, technology and finally education. Recently, researches findings point out that the brain is a parallel processor which can perform many types of activities at the same time. Therefore, engaging language and brain will help in developing the process of acquiring and learning a second language. In fact, it is important to understand that: "The brain continues to be a new frontier. Our old way of schooling is fading fast as our understanding of the brain increases. Everything you do uses your brain, and everything at school involves students' brains. It's the most relevant understanding for educators to have right now." (Jensen, 2008). In this paper the writer is going to present an overview of the field of neurolinguistics which is the study of the mental faculties involved in the perception, production, and acquisition of language. In other words, the neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. In addition to that, the writer will discuss the fact of neutral learning and language acquisition and finally how to engage brain-based learning approach to develop the process of second language learning. 2.The Human Brain According to (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams2007) , "The brain is the messenger of understanding and the organ whereby in a special manner we acquire wisdom and knowledge"(p.43) . In this part, the writer will point out the importance of the biological and neural foundation of language learning by discussing the following :First, the brain anatomy. Second, l... ... middle of paper ... ...., & Ay, S. (2008). "Different Approaches – Common Implications: Brain-Based And Constructivist Learning From A Paradigms And Integral Model Perspective." Journal of Turkish Science Education 5.3 (2008): 124-129. Journal of Turkish Science Education (TUSED) . Web. 3 Mar. 2014. Koizumi, H. (2004). ScienceDirect.com - Brain and Development - The concept of developing the brain: a new natural science for learning and education. ScienceDirect. Retrieved April 1, 2014, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii Plontke, R. (2003, March 13). Chemnitz UT. TU Chemnitz: - Technische Universität Chemnitz. Retrieved April 1, 2014, from http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/en/ Willis, J. (2008). Teaching the brain to read : strategies for improving fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Alexandria, Va. : Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
brain is a very complex part of the body that has everything to do with daily life and the ability to learn. As many people do not understand there are two parts of the brain and each works completely different in how one will learn and retain information. Why is the brain such a complex system and has the ability to adapt to every situation. We are going to be looking at the Left and Right side of the Brain and how each hemisphere works from the time you are a child and starting to receive information and the brain as a whole. We will also be looking into the Right side of the brain and how it learns faster as the Left side retains information. There has been a lot of research and case studies on the brain and how different people from different back grounds learn based on ethnic groups such as the American Indians and how they learn different with their brain.
Heilman, K. M. (2002). Chapter 2 Language. In Matter of mind: A neurologist's view of brain-behavior relationships (p. 17). Oxford: Oxford University Press
As discussed in class, my paper is on Neurology Linguistics, or Neurolinguistics. Since I am a psychology major I wanted to incorporate that into my linguistics class. The term Neurolinguistics came from the founder of the Journal of Neurolinguistics, Harry Whitaker. Neurolinguistics is the branch of linguistics associated with the relationship between the functioning of the brain, structure, and language. It is the study of how neural mechanisms in the brain control the comprehension and production of our brain, and the acquisition of language. To find out where our knowledge of language, such as, speech, writing, reading, and interpreting information is stored in the brain, we need to know parts of the brain.
Language acquisition during early childhood could be determined by a biological explanation. This may show how the brain is wired so children can acquire language ev...
When a young child begins to learn a second language it can help him or her mentally. The first important benefit of this is the cognitive (thinking) development of the brain. According to The World Book Encyclopedia, little kids have an increase in capacity to learn and talk a different “Language” without much thought (Wearing 62). According to Kovacs, when children start to learn a second language at a young age and they grow up where using a second language is normal, their brain will have to start to decipher which language to use at a certain time (Kovacs 49). Because of this “Bilinguals may have a language ability that enables them to achieve greater mental flexibility” (Weatherford 2). This is why we should start a second language education early because according to Caccavale, the president of NNELL, “it has been shown to enhance cognitive development. Children who learn a foreign language beginning in early childhood demonstrate certain cognitive advantages over children...
“Anatomically and functionally, the brain is the most complex structure in the body. It controls our ability to think, our awareness of things around us, and our interactions with the outside world” (Mattson Porth, 2007, p. 823). Carol Mattson Porth described it the best; the brain is the control room in our body. The brain is the organ in our skull that tells the rest of our body what to do; our lungs to breath, our eyelids to blink, and our heart to pump blood are just a couple examples of bodily functions our brain controls. And although those controls stay constant throughout life, the brain matures and develops new tricks. Many might not know much about the brain, and many may not know what the difference is between a child’s brain and a fully developed brain especially. But this is one subject that is important and relevant; it is one of the biggest developments of the human body. The brain develops and grows immensely between being
The way language works, then, is that each person’s brain contains a lexicon of words and the concepts they stand for (a mental dictionary) and a set of rules that combine the words that convey relationships among concepts (a mental grammar) (Pinker 85). Language uses grammar which is a discrete combinational system that has two important consequences
Our brains are highly developed as humans and in today’s world we need to provide students with learning that is meaningful that provides critical thinking skills, creative thinking, ingenuity, and talent. Brain-based learning with a mixture of constructivism is what my classroom will look like. By combining these two theories I believe that the psychology and physiology of an individual will be able to shine brightly through their ability to learn. “Instead of putting most of the emphasis on memorization and recall, it may be smarter and more efficient to place more emphasis on the context in which something is learned” (Jensen, 2008, p. 165).
The study of the mental lexicon deals with how words are acquired, comprehended, organized, stored, retrieved, and produces. The term “mental lexicon” is used interchangeably with what some scholars refer to as “internal lexicon” (Bonin, 2004). It involves the different processes and activations done in the brain in order to store the words and form an internal memory which functions as a mental dictionary. Psychologist and linguists who are concerned with this study believe that words are stored in relation to their phonological, semantic, syntactic and even orthographical features.
Eric Lenneberg was the first to propose there existed a critical period to learn a first or native language that was between that began around two and ended with the onset of puberty around thirteen years old. Lenneberg theorized that language acquisition was not possible before age two because of a lack of maturation, while post-puberty acquisition is inhibited by a loss of cerebral placicity occuring when the cerebral dominance of the language function is complete, happening around the time of puberty (Kraschen). “Children deprived of language during this critical period show atypical patterns of brain lateralization” (intro to language) Lenneberg argued that lateralization of the brain during this critical period is key to language acquisition. “The human brain is primed to develop language in specific areas of the left hemisphere but the normal process of brain specialization depends on ear...
NLP comprises three essential elements neuro, linguistic, and programming. Neuro consists of the nervous system through which an experience is received and processed through the five senses. “The importance of neuro lies in listening, observing, and identifying the language pattern of people, and in the normal course, responds in the same manner in line with the principle of mirroring” (Tripathi, 2012). Linguistic consists of language and non-verbal communication approaches which neural interpretations are implied, structured, and given sense. “The eyebrows, the lips, the shoulders, the hands, the legs, fingers all form an integrated team in conveying messages like feeling, response, and even our intentions” (Tripathi, 2012). Therefore, unknowingly one’s body language can expose one’s unconscious thoughts. Programming consists wit...
Learning a first language in childhood is an experience that all normal functioning humans undergo. Learning a second language after childhood, however, is an experience which not everyone attempts or succeeds in. The question of whether learning one’s first language as a child is the same as learning subsequent languages as an adult is one that interests psychologists, scientists and linguists alike. Although in many respects the acquisition process of children learning their first language and adults learning their second, third or fourth language is similar, overall there are striking differences between the manner in which these two groups do so, which mean that the process is not essentially the same across both these groups.
The world still revolves around many unanswered mysteries. Through time and science, some have been illuminated and understood, but many are still left unexplained. One of these mysteries is the mind. In this essay I am going to be examining the relationship between animal communication, and our own human language. I will be discussing relevant theories such as evolution from animals and whether or not animals have minds, therefore debating the mind body problem and consciousness, which was most famously addressed by René Descartes as well as many other philosophers. I will also be studying Noam Chomsky’s theories on human language structure and generative grammar that oppose the ideas of various philosophers. Included within this topic I will research Washoe and Nim Chimsky, chimpanzees who were the primary focus of studies of animal language acquisition. The aim of this essay is to see if there is a relationship between human language and animal communication, based on evidence and theories that I will be researching.
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
The article “Nature and Nurture in Language Acquisition: Anatomical and Functional Brain-Imaging Studies in Infants” by Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz, Lucie Hertz-Pannier, and Jessica Dubois focuses on the study of the left hemisphere of the brain, which is where language is processed. Neuroimaging of infants’ brains show how words that are heard are sorted through in certain regions and how infants uncover characteristics of their native language. Dehaene-Lambertz also points out that it is advantageous for fetus to be exposed to speech while still in the womb. An important point is made when Dehaene-Lambertz and her colleagues establish that “human brains before intense exposure to speech have things in common with the brains of mature and linguistically competent human adults” (367). It is noted that certain parts in the cranial cavity of the brain, such as the auditory cortex, are bigger on the left side than on the right side, giving the cerebrum a slightly asymmetric structure in both the children and adults. Also, this finding is confirmed by Chomsky when he states that “such an organical structure as of the brain” (176) is capable of processing and generating human language. Since an infant’s brain is extremely similar to the adults’ cerebrum that have already mastered language communication, this proves that the infant’s brain is capable of the