Brain & language learning

BRAIN & LANGUAGE LEARNING

Wichian Sunitham - Psycholinguistics series 001

BUILDING A CONNECTION

If you could choose a writing assignment, would you rather….1. Describe the planets in the solar system2. Write a story about an ant that saves the world

Your friends would be more likely to vote you:1. Most likely to get lost in the mall2. Most likely to invent a time machine

In the morning you get dressed according to:1. The outfit you planned2. Whatever smells okay

If you had two homework projects at the same time, would you proceed by:1. Finishing one and moving on to the next2. Doing a little bit on one until I get bored, then move to the next

ARE THESE ACTIVITIES GEARED FOR LH OR RH?

ใหนั้กเรยีนดหูน้าปกหนังสอืเรื่อง คณุหมาขีเ้หงา แล้วใหเ้ดา วา่เน้ือเรื่องของหนังสอืเล่มน้ีจะเป็นเรื่องเก่ียวกับอะไร ใหจ้บั

กลุ่มแล้วเล่าเรื่องท่ีนักเรยีนจนิตนาการจากหน้าปกหนังสอืให้ กับเพื่อนในกลุ่มฟงั ลักษณะเน้ือเรื่องท่ีนักเรยีนคิดเหมอืนกับ

ของเพื่อนหรอืไม่


What is the main idea of this paragraph?

I love the beach. It is such a sunny place. The sand is warm. The water is cool and salty. There is so much to do at the beach. I can collect sea shells. I can build sand castles. I also like to jump in the waves.


Introducing dung beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunneling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and with in three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious.

Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators such as birds and foxes. Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in tunnels directly underneath the pats, which are hollowed out from within. Some large species originating from France excavate tunnels to a depth of approximately 30 cm below the dung pat. These beetles make sausage-shaped brood chambers along the tunnels. The shallowest tunnels belong to a much smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like fruit from the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of approximately 20 cm below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling beetles, including a South African species, cut perfectly-shaped balls from the pat, which are rolled away and attached to the bases of plants.


Listen to the following pairs of sounds and try to state the different sounds.

Bat PatSat Sit

Vine WineSew ThoughNow Cow

My ShineBeer HereShip Chip

Practice the following sentences. Pay close attention to the parts in red for stress and the information given in the parentheses.

1. I bought my sister a present. => 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 Mike didn’t break the window. => 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

2. I was so angry at John. He forgot to call me on my birthday. He said he had remembered, but that it was too late to call.

3. Did you remember to buy the milk? (rising) Where did you buy that? (falling)

BUILDING A CONNECTION

Roger Wolcott Sperry

Nobel laureate

Brain dominance theory

Epilepsy Corpus callosum

1981

GUESSING YOUR STUDY’S RESULTS

A Hypothesis A hypothesis is very important when you want to conduct a research study. A hypothesis is just a tentative statement that proposes a possible explanation to some phenomenon and is normally used to predict the results of a research study. A hypothesis is not a theory, which is a general explanation based on a large amount of data. When you write a hypothesis you usually follow these steps: 1. Choose what you want to test or find out in a research study. 2. Write down your idea of what you think will happen in one or two sentences. 3. Gather and analyze your data to see if it supports or goes against your hypothesis, so you can provide possible explanations as to why your research (did not) / work(ed) out b as predicted.


H1There may be greater use of the ……………………….hemisphere when we process languages that we have learned informally (i.e. outside the classroom). On the other hand, there may be more use of the ………………………hemisphere when we process languages that we have learned in a formal way (i.e. in the classroom).

right

left

H2When we read ideographic / visual writing (e.g. in reading Chinese) we use more of the ……………………….hemisphere but when we read a phonemic / alphabetic writing (e.g. in reading English or Thai) we use more of the ……………………………….hemisphere.

rightleft

GUESSING YOUR STUDY’S RESULTSH1There may be greater use of the ……………………….hemisphere when we process languages that we have learned informally (i.e. outside the classroom). On the other hand, there may be more use of the ………………………hemisphere when we process languages that we have learned in a formal way (i.e. in the classroom).

right

left

Research finding Kotik (1975) investigated people who learn a second language in everyday situations outside of school and people who learn a second language in school. He studied people who were bilingual in Russian and Estonian. He found that people who had learned Estonian as their second language in daily life outside of school showed no difference between left and right side brain activity. -In contrast, the people who had learned Russian as their second language in school showed more brain activity on the left side.

GUESSING YOUR STUDY’S RESULTSH2When we read ideographic / visual writing (e.g. in reading Chinese) we use more of the ……………………….hemisphere but when we read a phonemic / alphabetic writing (e.g. in reading English or Thai) we use more of the ……………………………….hemisphere.

rightleft

Research finding

Hatta (1981) did a study of Japanese students to discover which side of the brain was involved in processing Japanese. Japanese uses two systems together in its writing: kana syllable writing and kanji (based on Chinese characters). When the students were learning kana the left side of the brain was involved. But when they were processing kanji the right side was involved.

GUESSING YOUR STUDY’S RESULTSH1There may be greater use of the ……………………….hemisphere when we process languages that we have learned informally (i.e. outside the classroom). On the other hand, there may be more use of the ………………………hemisphere when we process languages that we have learned in a formal way (i.e. in the classroom).

right

left

Research finding Kotik (1975) investigated people who learn a second language in everyday situations outside of school and people who learn a second language in school. He studied people who were bilingual in Russian and Estonian. He found that people who had learned Estonian as their second language in daily life outside of school showed no difference between left and right side brain activity. -In contrast, the people who had learned Russian as their second language in school showed more brain activity on the left side.

H3Left hemisphere is responsiblefor learning that occurs in the class-room while both hemispheres areresponsible for learning that occuroutside the classroom.

H4Informal learning relies on both left and right hemispheres, but formal learning depends on the left hemisphere.

H5Classroom learning employs right hemisphere, but informal learning depends on the left hemisphere.

GUESSING YOUR STUDY’S RESULTSH2When we read ideographic / visual writing (e.g. in reading Chinese) we use more of the ……………………….hemisphere but when we read a phonemic / alphabetic writing (e.g. in reading English or Thai) we use more of the ……………………………….hemisphere.

rightleft

Research finding

Hatta (1981) did a study of Japanese students to discover which side of the brain was involved in processing Japanese. Japanese uses two systems together in its writing: kana syllable writing and kanji (based on Chinese characters). When the students were learning kana the left side of the brain was involved. But when they were processing kanji the right side was involved.


Research finding

This paper tests the ability of the subjects' prosodic deficits with right and left brain damage (subjects were brain-damaged patients). The subjects repeat and comprehend prosody under reduced verbal-articulatory conditions. The results demonstrate that reducing verbal-articulatory condition greatly improve the performance of left but not right brain damaged patients, thus supports the supposition that affective prosody is strongly lateralized to the right hemisphere.

From: Ross, Elliott D. et al. 1997. Lateralization of Affective Prosody in Brain and the CallosalIntegration of Hemispheric Language Functions. Brain and Language, 56, l, 27-54. H1Affective prosody is strongly lateralized to the right hemisphere.H1Right hemisphere Affective prosody is strongly lateralized to the right hemisphere.

H1: LH damage patients are better than RH damage patients in producing and comprehending prosody in language.

H1: RH damage patients show greater performance than LH damage patients in reduced verbal-articulatory speech.

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Brain & language learning