downtown Vancouver, certainly one of the best Japanese restaurants in Vancouver. The people beside me turned out to be brain researchers, or rather researchers in cancer of the brain. There was one American, one Japanese, and one Singaporean. I butted in to their conversation.
We covered a lot of ground, from feminism to cultural issues in different societies etc. But, being single minded about language learning as usual, I asked them about the influence of our will on learning.
They confirmed that this was a known phenomenon known as 'forced plasticity.' The brain is not hard-wired. You can change your brain. You do it with motivation and concentration. You can 'force' the plasticity of your brain with your will .
This is scientific confirmation of something that I have always felt. In language learning, the bottom line is you. Not your innate genius for language learning, but your desire, your commitment, your will ingness to let go...in other words, your attitude.
In Jeffrey Schwartz's book The Mind and the Brain, he points out just how adaptable the human brain is. Research has shown that this adaptability or plasticity continues throughout our lives. The brain is constantly retraining and rearranging itself in response to different stimuli. He describes clinical examples of how people can use mindfulness to will their brain to change its neural circuits. This is mind over matter, or since the brain is matter, maybe it is mind over mind or matter over matter!! I am not a scientist, obviously, just curious.
Schwartz shows from actual clinical experiments how people who have some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can in certain circumstance train themselves away from that behaviour. In so doing they actual y alter the metabolism of the OCD circuit in the brain. I remember as a child that my father could wiggle his ears and I could not. However, by spending a lot of time will ing my ears to move, they eventual y did. Mindfulness therapy at work!
Schwartz talks about 'mindfulness-based cognitive therapy' and a four step treatment process. The four steps are Relabel, Reattribute, Refocus and Revalue. It begins with the patient not blaming him or herself for the disorder but recognizing that it is a function of the brain circuitry sending some faulty messages. By accepting that the circuitry was playing tricks, the patient was better able to resist the irrational obsessive impulses when they arose.
I am still digesting this book but I sense it has applications for language learning. If language learners are constantly discouraged because of their inability to express things correctly in a new language, or their inability to remember words when they need them, or to pronounce properly, or the fact that they freeze when they have to speak to a native speaker, this discouragement is only building up tension and making learning more and more difficult.
I believe that the learner's potential ability in a new language is usual y far greater than what he or she actual y achieves. Schwartz's Four Steps may help the language learner.
The Four Steps of the mindful language learner would be as fol ows:
1. Relabel by recognizing that the learning process is one of training the language fitness of the brain, rather than some hopeless struggle against a perceived inability to learn languages.
2. Reattribute by recognizing the need to develop new brain circuitry, taking advantage of the fact that the brain is known to be plastic throughout one's adult life. Until the circuitry develops it is pointless to be disappointed at mistakes or less than perfect pronunciation or communication in the new language.
3. Refocus away from a vain attempt to master the rules of grammar or lists of words which one will inevitably forget. Instead focus on systematic and repetitive training based on meaningful content. Recognize that consistent effort will bring gradual improvement in the new language even if it seems that so much is constantly forgotten.
4. Revalue by enjoying whatever level of communication in the new language one is able to achieve. Look for enjoyable content and experiences in the new language. Make learning and using the language part of one continuum, where constant improvement and not perfection is the goal.
Neurons travel freely in the brain, especial y in the early stages of brain development in the child, but even later on. Neurons compete for space in the brain. The more we train certain functions the better established those connections become.
Our brain remains plastic or flexible throughout life, changing to cope with new environments and new experiences. We can learn new things. We can recover lost functions after brain injury. Adults who become blind can learn Braille.
If a person has a weak eye and a strong eye, the treatment is to close the strong eye to give the weak eye a chance to catch up, or it will not catch up. The connections for neurons in the brain that control the strong eye are too strong to all ow new neural connections for the weak eye.
To me this has application for language learning. We not only have to practice the new language we are learning, (the weak eye) and strengthen those connections in the brain, we also have to try to suppress the neural connections that control our native language, (the strong eye) at least a little bit. We need to foster the development of the neural networks that control the new language.
If you want to make a big jump in your language learning, plan on spending one whole day where you will not use your native language at all ! Listen, read, review words, watch movies, practice pronunciation, listen to songs, talk to yourself, but do it all in the target language. No native language at all !! Do it for 8-10 hours. Do it again the next day if you can. Do this from time to time.
The objective is not only to practice a new language and strengthen those neural connections that govern the new language, it also to suppress the connections for your native language in your brain.
CHAPTER XIV: THE INTERNET
A world of unlimited input and experience
The Internet is an unlimited source of language learning. There are audio books and e-books, publications in all possible languages, podcasts and blogs on every possible subject. You can find language courses, and grammar references. There are audio courses and video courses. There is personal coaching and tutoring. There are even university courses on the Internet for free download. You just have to google to find them. This is LingQ's world, and this is the world of language learning in the 21st century. Massive and meaningful input is at your finger- tips.
I do not understand what Face Book is for, let alone Twitter or Second Life. It all strikes me as a lot of hype.
However, I do enjoy the virtual world of the Internet. Not only can I find instant answers to a lot of questions, but now I have installed AirPort Express and have hooked up two speakers and a sub-woofer to it, and I go to iTunes on my computer in my study, go to radio, find the long list of classical radio stations, choose one that is playing music that I like, pick my remote AirPort Express location as the output and enjoy (wirelessly) the most wonderful sound.
