"Funderstanding" how the brain works (and how to change pronunciation)

Rat brain Clip art: Clker 

Are you left or right-brained? (If you don't know,  here is a website that even has a free test to help you figure out which.) If you answered "left" or "right"--and are serious about pronunciation work--you may be working against yourself and your students, best case.  (If you missed the August 21st post on the "Myth of learning styles," you might want to go back and review that one at this point. as well)

Neuroscience has, in general, progressed far past the idea that the left/right brain distinction has any important neurological relevance. Pedagogically, it may be a convenient shorthand for various purposes, but the implication that one's learning style preference characterized from that perspective is relatively permanent and unchangeable finds little if any empirical support today. As discussed in several earlier posts, the continuing discoveries of brain plasticity, multi-site functionality and interconnectedness-- and adaptability have demonstrated that learning style preference is very amenable to retraining and change.

The HICP model of brain function as it relates to pronunciation change is three-dimensional, attempting to reflect more accurately "where" in the brain things "happen" and identifying key functions needed for effective management of the process: (a) left-right dimension is "analytic-holistic," reflecting the input/output processing tendencies of the two hemispheres (parts vs "wholes"),  (b) front-back is "cognitive/visual idetic," representing the pre-frontal cognitive and back visual processing centers which tend to anchor experience more either through "reasoning" or accepting visual images less critically, i.e., seeing is believing, and (c) body/mind or lower/higher, suggesting more body- or emotion-based felt sense, "up" to more "mind-based," less emotionally anchored experiencing.

From that perspective, any pedagogical procedure can be placed within that 3D field, situated using various intensity scales, and used to design and conduct classroom instruction. Ironically, I could not (understandably!) create an adequate 2D graphic here to represent that framework, but you get the picture.

Plastic Brain . . . Pronunciation Change

Clip art: Clker

One of the most striking findings of recent research, such as this 2002 one by on neuroplasticity in motor learning by Ungerleider, Doyon and Karni is not just how the brain works but its inherent plasticity in many respects, its ability to reorganize and relearn or learn in other ways if necessary. One obvious implication of that is that just because students have individual preferences for particular learning styles does not mean they can not, in many cases rather easily, switch to other styles or develop better use of secondary preferences. The danger of cognitive style or learning style categories is . .. that they are categorical. Once we "know" what we are, that's it. (In fact, research suggests that once you know your style, especially based on some simpleminded 5-minute questionnaire,  you become even moreso--one of the basic assumptions of hypnotherapy, of course.)

Bottom line here: even the "adult brain" (and this is especially good news for learners of my generation and beyond) is capable of enormous flexibility and re-generation. So forget all that nonsense that you have heard about having to alter your teaching style to fit those of your students: retrain them instead! Well, actually, you should be constantly training everybody, yourself included, in multiple modality learning. Get HIP(oeces), eh!

The Myth of Learning Styles

Here is a "must-read" on the concept of "learning styles" from Change Magazine, 2010. It begins with an interesting claim: "There is no credible evidence that learning styles exist." 

Although Riener and Willingham focus on the validity of the idea at college-level, their basic claim, that ability, student background and content (including the media in which the instruction is packaged) are far more relevant to instruction than is the potential impact of individual learning style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.), is simply dead on. (This is one of those pieces of research that you discover--with which you almost agree with too much--that forces you to smile for the rest of the day!) Enjoy!