We know that people have social needs but, after many years in the classroom, I find I’m only just beginning to understand the importance of social brain research to teaching and learning. In this article, I’ll discuss how social brain research is relevant to English language teaching. It’s relevant to all areas of education, of course, but my focus will be on classes in which speaking skills are taught.
Psychologists have found that our brains spend a lot of time engaged in mental processes involved in perceiving and interpreting social interactions. We even have a network in our brain that is devoted to watching others and determining their thoughts, moods, and intentions, a network that is active every moment it can be, a kind of default (Lieberman, 2013).It seems that the brain is built to “thrive…on interaction with others” (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2011, p. 452).
Author: Brain Admin
Super Social Students
It probably goes without saying that the single reason students study another language is to learn how to communicate in that language. We cannot socialize with other people without using language. And yet, how often do we encounter language classrooms with no social interaction at all beyond a teacher lecturing about grammar to passive students? When do these students actually socialize with each other in their target language?
No wonder so many students lose interest in or give up on language learning.
Call for Contributions: Ideas & Articles
Become a Think Tank star! Here are some of the future issue topics we are thinking about. Would you, or anyone you know, like to write about any of these? Or is there another topic you’d like to recommend? Do you have any suggestions for lead-in, or just plain interesting, videos? How about writing a book review? Or sending us a story about your experiences? Contact us.
Sharing sleep science with students
Our students are busy. Sure, they are busy with our classes–and all their other classes. And homework. And part-time jobs. And clubs. And relationships. Oh, yeah, how about some time for studying?
Talking with students about their brains
I am something of a brain nerd. I love talking about the brain with anyone and everyone, including my students. Alas, as an English teacher, I must spend the bulk of my limited classroom time covering the curriculum. But I have still been able to weave brain science into my lessons consistently and to engage my high school students at a developmentally-appropriate level about their own minds. Sometimes I can plan in advance for these brain talks—for instance, by having my writing students look at an article that is coincidentally about how successful college students sleep—but most of the time they happen in spontaneous bursts when I stumble on a teachable moment: asking a napping student how long they slept the night before or talking about healthy study habits after I announce the date of an upcoming test.
Why are Teenagers Self-absorbed Risk-takers and How Can We Turn This to Their Advantage?
“Adolescence isn’t an aberration; it’s a crucial stage of our becoming individual and social human beings.” (Sarah-Jayne Blakemore)
Teenagers: active, powerful, challengers, without fear of failure, ambitious, flexible, curious, creative, cooperative, skilled operators of technology, memorize well, a lot of chatting and laughing, low motivation, selfish, bad manners, not responsible, no planning, get bored easily, depend on SNS, like to be in a group and like to be alone, negative.
If Emotions Are Made, we Can Reframe L2 Anxiety and Empower Learners
It is really counterintuitive to say that emotions are not reactions to the world but are creations of our brain, or predictions our brain constructs. More simply put, we make our own emotions. Both scientists and ordinary people have naïvely believed that emotions are hardwired and universal. People see a face and can tell what emotion it expresses: happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, or disgust. This is because our brain has emotion circuits and they are culture-independent. Well, not really. Dr. Barrett says this idea is a total myth because neuroscientific evidence has demonstrated otherwise.
Confirmation Bias: Why We Should Seek Opposite Views
The definition of confirmation bias in social psychology is observations of others based on individual prejudices and collecting only information fitting those prejudices, thereby reinforcing your own preconceptions. This happens everywhere in our society. People look for information to make sure what they think is true. Likewise, people tend to disregard evidence that is counter to their views and rarely try to seek it out. For this reason, adjustments to a view are made only with information that reinforces the initial judgment, and help people assume, “My ideas are NOT wrong.” In other words, confirmation bias is the tendency to look for, and accept, information that confirms our already held beliefs.
Just what is working memory anyway? And what does it mean for language teachers?
Watching Peter Doolittle’s TED talk (an excellent introduction to working memory), two questions came instantly to mind, one based on prior reading about the brain, and the other more of a speculation about the implications for foreign language learning.
First, I was immediately reminded to question how working memory is defined. Just what do we mean when we talk about working memory capacity anyway? In Peter’s talk, and in the literature, the dividing line between working memory and attention seems very fuzzy, to the point where you have to wonder, does it really exist at all?
I Read This Interesting Article A Couple Years Ago!
Remember the original Star Trek with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy? It was hardly watched during the first run, but reached cult status years later. That is kind of how we feel about our 2018 Think Tanks. We don’t expect any of those issues to reach cult status, but we had some really good articles that year that we’d like you to know about. Since, we started that year with only a ninth the number of subscribers we have now, we know most of our current readers missed them. What a shame!