FRIENDLY REVOLUTION

In the first of four articles, Mark Fletcher explains what every teacher should know about the brain in order to participate in a revolution that offers teachers and learners a ‘lifeline’ and a ‘launch pad’.

A developing perception
What every teacher should know
The brain-friendly classroom

A developing perception

At last it’s happening, and English language professionals are in the forefront! A learning revolution which will make use of the astonishing potential afforded by Information Technology, but which will itself be more profound, coming as it does from new understandings of our development as individuals and within our communities. We are talking about huge leaps in knowledge in such areas as:

the optimum time for the brain to be starting second language learning;
neurological differences in the way male and female brains perceive language;
different ways of presenting information so that ‘blocks to learning’ are overcome;

much greater respect for the affective, emotional steps involved in positive encoding and memory building;
the search for creative solutions to an increasingly understood range of needs.

These changes in how we view learning and teaching, and in our expectation of what is possible, are still barely recognised by most educational bodies. Their long term beneficial implications for society have hardly begun to be considered. Such changes have become possible, however, because findings from research into how the brain works are rapidly moving into the public domain. Teachers now can apply the insights of neurologists to practical classroom situations.

Do you recall any recent article, tv or radio programme which said something important to you on this recently? For me, there was the Sunday Times ‘Brainplan’ series; the BBC Christmas Lectures 1994 given by Dr Susan Greenfield (Oxford University) called ‘Journey to the Centres of the Brain’, Paul Robertson’s BBC ‘Music and the Mind’; the Newsweek Feb ‘96 article ‘Your Child’s Brain’, and a recent University of California study showing the power of music to improve results in mathematics and reading.

From such platforms we educators can launch the ‘brain-friendly revolution’. If this sounds remote to you as you prepare tomorrow’s Present Simple/Continuous contrast for unmotivated teenagers, or grab a quick coffee to get through the next hour’s adult education, Stay with me! This revolution will come because of the widespread concern about educational standards, the industry-led demand for frequent and rapid retraining at the workplace, and because we can now see how to bring it about!

What every teacher should know

Let me summarise, from an enormous subject, just six points that I think every teacher should know in order to participate in the ‘brain-friendly revolution’.

1 The left hemisphere is busily processing information logically. Sorting, analysing, regrouping and sequencing it. Perhaps for this reason the two main language areas are in the left hemisphere.

2 The right hemisphere meanwhile is getting lit up in response to music, to colour and patterns, to rhythm, to perceiving emotions, and enjoying the ‘big picture’. Of course, the two hemispheres aren’t operating totally independently, but are linked by a thick band of nerve fibres. One of our jobs as teachers is to plan lessons which get both hemispheres actively engaged and we will be considering how to do this using music, visuals and visualisation in a later article.

3 Taking a sideways look, the brain is roughly 2% of body weight but needs about 20% of our oxygen intake to function effectively. Probably we’ve all experienced taking over a lethargic, oxygen-starved, group of students. Movement built into the lesson, some fresh air, the opportunity for the brain stem or reflex brain at the cerebellum to raise the heart beat and get oxygen to where it’s needed will relieve the stiffness and tension caused by sitting still, and greatly improve concentration levels.

4 The brain selects what it wants to remember on the basis of emotional impact, and the hippocampus seems to have a key role in linking memory and emotion. Improving memory of target language is one of the things we language teachers are constantly working for, so emotion is important.

It is not necessary for every exercise to become an emotional experience to equal the final act of Hamlet, although a little drama can be very usefully worked into most language learning activities. But what is necessary is an ongoing process of ‘self investment’, each learner feeling that the exercise has a meaningful purpose, that they can contribute something, and that their contributions will be valued.

In a learner-friendly classroom group support will enable mistakes to be seen as steps on the learning ladder, not as demonstrations of stupidity.

Anxiety is a great inhibitor of memory, and fear of making mistakes, or of ridicule, can trigger a ‘fight or flight’ reaction leading either to disruptive behaviour or opting out. The limbic system of the brain is a key one in learning. At a basic level students need the emotional security of ‘knowing where they are going’, to be sure that if they miss something it will be recycled again later.

5 The frontal lobes, vastly more developed in human beings than in other creatures, operate in planning and in behaving appropriately towards others. It’s the part of the brain which says ‘Thank you for the input. Now I’d like to have a go and do something with it for myself’. It’s going to enjoy genuine communication activities and problem- solving tasks.

6 The way our brain operates best to learn something new defines our learning style. As a teacher (and almost by definition someone who has adapted successfully to instruction in subjects which interest you) think a little about the teaching styles of your teachers in those subjects where you made little progress at school. Is your assessment of chemistry or physics or economics as ‘boring’ or ‘difficult’ actually caused by frustration at not receiving information in a form which you can process easily?

We all operate a mixture of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles (and some others) and we’ve all met students with strong preferences ‘Write it on the board please’, ‘Shhh. I want to hear that again’, and those who like to move, make, or ‘do’ things as they learn.

The brain-friendly classroom
Mis-match between limiting or dominant methods will set up all sorts of barriers (see limbic system) and we should strive to present a package so comprehensive that no one will feel excluded. Here I must apologise to everyone reading this linear text who would be happier listening to a dramatised version on cassette, piecing it together as a jigsaw, or slowly chewing it!

A ‘brain-friendly’ lesson should seek to call into play rather more than the 4-10% out of the hundred billion or so brain cells that we generally use, and to stimulate them into firing off electrical signals making marvellous and massively intricate chemical connections with each other.

Practical ways to do this and so develop memory networks are: using music to develop the right hemisphere in support of the left; colour marking to send differentiating and emphasising signals to the brain; linking words to visuals; providing ‘sorting’ games; teaching study skills such as non-linear note taking (the brain holds onto information as pictorialised ideas); introducing periods of quiet reflection when information can be sifted and processed without the pressure of question and answer; supportive but challenging pair and group work to develop feelings of making a positive contribution; a variety of techniques for recycling new language; and reviewing what is to be learned before going to sleep.

These are some of the areas we shall explore in forthcoming issues of ENGLISH TEACHING professional in order to raise the ceiling of expectation for both teachers and learners. Our world increasingly demands flexibility in the workplace and in the home, and the ability to acquire new skills fast. It also threatens to pull us in so many directions simultaneously that we come to pieces! Brain-friendly learning and teaching offers us a lifeline and provides a launch pad to improved learning.