Left brain acquisition and right brain learning
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The document discusses left and right brain learning in relation to acquiring a second language as an adult versus a child. It covers: - The different functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain in relation to language skills. - That language acquisition is a subconscious process for children, while adults rely more on conscious learning of rules. - The importance of utilizing both left and right brain teaching techniques to appeal to different learning styles.
Left brain acquisition and right brain learning
- 1. “Left Brain Acquisition and Right Brain Learning” on Adult and Children This Paper is submitted for English for Foreign Language The Lecturer: Win Listyaningrum, M. A At Fifth semester Arranged by: Novi Dyah Arisanti 113-14-037 ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY STATE INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES SALATIGA 2016/2017
- 2. CHAPTER I Introduction A. Background Language becomes the most important thing in the communication. Everyday all people connect each other by communication. It is important to learn and increase our ability in the communication way. Communication’s ability is such an obligatory especially in this globalization era. All part of our bodies is connected each other and has a centre which is at our brain. In the brain all information is processed to produce a respond. There are two hemispheres in our brain, left hemisphere and right hemisphere. We need to consider and learn each hemisphere so we can improve our skills by the appropriate part. Related to communication, the left hemisphere of our brain is like a tool. It is the best tool than the others. If any problem in our brain, especially in the left brain it will be big problems. However, language especially English is not the mother tongue for some countries. English becomes second language also foreign language. It will be different to master English for people who used English as first language with English as second or foreign language. To master English for second and foreign language, for example Indonesian, it needs extra preparation and more understanding. As brain in human is growing, the ability of communication also increase. The capacity and capability of our brain when we were young is different with the time of us in adult. There are acquisition and learning process, which mechanism has relation with development of our brain related to master language. What will be different and what is the relation of our brain with communication will be our topic in this paper. What is difference between acquisition and learning that give the best impact, and will it the same among children and adults who try to master language are become our discussion later. B. Method In this paper, the writer uses “theoretical research” by collecting some information from books, journal, website and makes some summarize.
- 3. CHAPTER II Contents There is an interesting case for all people among second and foreign language about mastering language and the relation with the brain. There are two hemispheres of brain, left and right, which have their own function. By understanding their function it will be easy to enhance their effectiveness. Sometimes we forget that communication also happen in written form. Actually both spoken and written form has same standard although has different applied. Every people has their own characters and different styles which are related to their left and right brain’s dominance. The dominance of the brain will give a great impact during the learning process. Recent findings indicate that the specialized functions of specific regions of the brain are not fixed at birth but are shaped by experience and learning. Some researches today has told us that our brain is such a software. When we keep in touch with our brain, our skills in all aspects will be develop also. There is an old opinion that our brain just develop in the young age. Actually, there is a difference style of process related to our skills in the young age and adult periods. Both of them are learning and acquisition. A. Learning and Acquisition Language is a way to learn new world, share experiences, needs, and analysis. When we talk about language, we can see from different perspectives. It depends on who sees the context of the language. We can discuss language in social, politic, education, and others. Every language also has context with the time, it could be about past, present, or future. Krashen states that: Learning is an aware process. It is conscious knowledge of second language, knowing the rules, being aware and talk about them. Learning is knowing about a language, known to most people as rule or grammar. Formal knowledge of language or explicit meaning are some synonyms from learning. The result of language acquisition is subconscious. We are not consciously aware the rules because we often apply it in a long-term period. We feel right, the sounds seem right, and errors feel wrong, all things above even we don’t know the rules but we prove about it. Language acquisition does not require extensive use of grammatical rules, and meaningful target of language is needed in acquisition.
- 4. There are some factors that influence the process of learning. The external factors and internal factors. The external factors are: relationship with parent, organizations, reward and punishment, facilities, and environments. Meanwhile the internal process are attitude, perception, motivation, level of ability, and personality. Professional learning requires some knowledge to be fluently by several process, and more practices in formal and informal situations. According to Dr. Paul Thompson, neurology professor at UCLA. After age 11, centres in the brain responsible for language acquisition stop growing rapidly and language acquisition becomes more difficult.1 B. Among Left Hemisphere and Right Hemisphere The human brain shows a number of physiological and structural characteristics that must be understood. The cerebrum, consisting of a cortex (the outer layer) and a sub cortex, which divides into two hemispheres joined by a membrane called the corpus callosum. There are a few points which must be made about the functioning of these two cerebral hemispheres. ‘Hemispheric specialization means that one side of the brain is more adept than the other. It does not necessarily mean that the other side cannot perform a function at all or is not routinely involved in a particular activity. Virtually all behaviours and modes of thinking require both hemispheres working together.’ (Hampson, 1994) Human’s brain is a complex organs with much of function in all part of bodies. From picture below, we see some parts of brain like frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, cerebellum, brain system, and others. It all connected, where the functions are responsible with intelligence, sense, humour, movement, behaviour, and it connected by nerves. Researchers are in broad agreement that there are differences between the information- processing biases of the brain’s hemispheres, but that these exist at the micro-level, and not at macro-levels such as language or spatial processing. The right brain controls movements and functions part of left bodies, meanwhile the left brain in the opposite. We ever hear a person who calls their friends by the dominance’s use of the brain. Knowing an individual’s brain dominance can help you understand his/her “ways” of thinking, behaving, speaking, and functioning. 1 Easier for Child Learn New Language than Adult in Our Daily Life
- 5. Some language skills involves analytical, sequential, and left braining process. Guessing, associating, and getting the main idea are function of right brain. The good learners use both of left and right brain depending on what works for the best. (Picture from Google.com) To know someone who used right brain, they are creative, see patterns, spatial awareness, and understanding different things relate each other in different way. They are good at recognizing faces, places, and objects.2 For people who used the left brain, they will good on language, mathematical concepts like time and sequence. They are good on letters, numbers, and words. Here the table shows the distinction function part of the brain from Krashen, Left hemisphere Right hemisphere 1 Language, spoken and written Spatial relations 2 Time related functions “Gestalt” perception 3 “Propositional” thought “Apposition” thought 2 Sousa, 1995, p. 88.
- 6. 4 Number skills Insight, three dimensional, visual 5 Reasoning Art, and images, imagination 6 Scientific thought Music C. Adult and Children Periods Some researchers have found that adults can be better at language learning under conditions control. Adults know how to create a good sentence by construct such elements of subject, conjunction, verbs and the part of complement. They also used sense of the punctuation and good grammar. Children or young learners are focused on their pronunciation rather than a good sentence. We can say that children develop their language by their own way. They adopting new sounds of pre-adolescence and create their own atmosphere of peer communications. Because children use smaller vocabularies and simple standard syntax than adults, the standard of the fluency is lower for them. For children, the important thing just they understand each other’s and they feel happy with what they do. When parents, teachers and policy makers, try to identify the right timing for teaching a foreign language to children, an “informed decision” might well be based on a comparison of the experiences and performance of students who started learning a foreign language at different ages. We can find a complex way of communication in adult periods. In this periods, they are able to talk more complicated things, such as politics, social, science, technology, and globalization. Of course they will be use different word to picture same thing, although it has same meaning in the adult emotions it can give “sense” higher level of educations. D. Effectiveness of Language To master language is not easy. We should learn new words or vocabularies, which it needed. Linguistic knowledge like words must not only be newly acquired, but also be consolidated through repetitive use in daily life. There are optimal or sensitive periods which particular types of learning most effective. Speech sound, some certain emotional, and cognitive experience like language exposure are early sensitive periods. However, vocabularies can grow every time as long as the learners try to get new vocabularies.
- 7. People who like used right brain particularly like visual like picture to understand a concept. Like to sing and some activities like group discussion, shared experiments, and role plays. Nevertheless, left brain dominance like to provide information in sequences, like make a list what must they do, and do their job step by step. They like analysis, do research, and work in worksheets. E. Bloom Taxonomy Benjamin Bloom is known in learning by his “taxonomy”, a way of organizing how we look at learning. There are six stages in learning process. We know these stages as a part of syllabus. These six stages are: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These are some information, 1. Knowledge: arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, and state. 2. Comprehension: classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, and translate. 3. Application: apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, and write. 4. Analysis: analyse, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, and test. 5. Synthesis: arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, and write. 6. Evaluation: appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, defend, estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support, value, and evaluate. The information is taken from: Handbook for Second Language Acquisition by Dr. Catherine Collier. (Bloom’s Taxonomy)
- 8. Try to utilize higher order of questions. Higher questions improve our brain. Benjamin Bloom identified three domains of educational activities: cognitive focuses on mental skills or knowledge, affective on emotional area or attitude, and psychomotor relates to skills. F. Aphasia We know that left hemisphere is focused on language’s ability especially the production and the process. The study of the patients who have had a damage in certain parts of the left hemisphere cortex is called “aphasia” or speech impairment. British calls aphasia as dysphasia. “Aphasiology” is a study about language loss in a normal brain. Aphasia divides in two kinds, “Broca's aphasia” involves difficulty in speaking, also known as emissive aphasia. It has a difficulty replying grammatical in coherent way. Meanwhile, “Wernicke's aphasia” involves difficulty in comprehension, in extracting meaning from a context, it is also known as receptive aphasia. G. Importance of Right-Brain Learning for Foreign Language Sometimes, learning is not fun. We feel bored, exhausted and frustrated, especially for student, who learn foreign language. However, learn is not always awful. When we play a game or learn to drive a car, we enjoy that moment. Actually, the right approach will make a different. We know that the hemisphere of our brain is like a different person. They play different roles in learning style. While people are divided fairly equally between left- and right-brain dominance, schools tend to exclusively utilize left-brain learning techniques (textbooks, lectures, exams, memorization, etc.). Therefore right-brain learners often struggle with many subjects, especially subjects that benefit from right-brain teaching techniques utilizing sensory stimulus and hands-on experience. The left brain is responsible for learning the rules and structures of a language, and can make sense out of what is heard, as well as formulate a response. The right brain is good on memorizing the words and sounds, and making them rapidly available to the left brain when it needs. The two sides work together to construct or deconstruct the language building blocks in a meaningful way that follows the rules of the language. You simply cannot understand or speak a language without both sides of the brain, and it’s important to teach each side in the way that works best for it.
- 9. Language patterns don’t always make sense, and the left brain is going to have a hard time because that. The patterns we learned in speaking our native language is different in a real life, especially when they appear to be the same. For example when we see an “r” in a word, we want to say the American English “r” sound, but the “r” sound is quite different in Spanish, French or German. Our left brain will be constantly trying to find common ground between the two different “r” sounds, resulting in an American English accent. Only by shutting out the left brain, we can learn to pronounce the “r” like a native. Fortunately the right brain is not so critical, and does not have problem with ambiguity or novelty. Remember that the right side of the brain appreciates art. So when learning new sounds or words in a foreign language, it’s best to direct the input to the right brain. With foreign language vocabulary, the goal is to load up the brain with as many words and sounds as possible, as well as their associated meanings. The right brain excels in this sort of thing. It absorbs information subconsciously and in a non-linear fashion, so fragments of information can be stored and recalled instantaneously and effortlessly. Compared to the left brain, it will memorize words more quickly, more accurately, more easily, and more permanently. Learning in this way can actually be quite fun.
- 10. CHAPTER III Conclusion Brain is the main part of human on processing the information. All parts of bodies connect with the brain and connect by nerve. There are two hemisphere in the brain, left and right. Each hemisphere of brain has their own function. However they work together to gain the best information. Left hemisphere of brain relates to some languages’ skills and analytical process. Meanwhile the right hemisphere relates to guess something and get the main idea. By knowing dominance of brain for each student, and giving activities according to the need, parent and teacher might also improve the efficiency of learning and acquisition process. To increase the success rate and advise capacity of the students, learning strategies and recalling activities should be balances. All information above will make sure that teacher and parent appeal to all learners with different brain dominances and provide their learners much experiences. Teacher and parent should find a way to combine three aspect of educational domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, to create the right atmosphere, and make learning easier and more enjoyable. All things before will help students reinforce their knowledge with meaningful activities.
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