Do Infants Only Learn "One" Language Well? (3)

Español

Português

Do Infants Only Learn "One" Language Well? (3)
“Knowledge Acquired in a Language Is NOT Accessible or Transferable to Another Language”

Recent studies have revealed overlapping language areas in the brain of people who have a strong command of more than one language. This point could be twisted in favour of the myth that the brain has only “limited space” in which to store information relating to language. Other studies on bilingual subjects have shown the activation of distinct areas of a few millimetres when they described what they did that day in their native language, then in the language learned much later (Kim, 1997).

The question of “language areas” in multilingual individuals has thus not yet been resolved. But from this lack of resolution, it is wrong to claim that the strong command of one’s native language is weakened when a second language is learned. Abundant cases of multilingual experts are living proof that this is not so. Students who learn a foreign language at school do not get weaker in their native language but instead advance in both.




“Knowledge acquired in a language is not accessible or transferable to another language” is another myth and one of the most counter-intuitive. Anyone who learns a difficult concept in one language – for example evolution – can understand it in another language. If there is incapacity to explain the concept in the second language, it is due to a lack of vocabulary not a decrease in knowledge.

Experiments have found that the more knowledge is acquired in different languages, the more it is stored in areas far away from the area reserved for language: it is not only preserved in the form of words but in other forms such as images. Multilingual individuals may no longer remember in what language they learned certain things – they may forget after a while if they read a particular article or saw a particular film, for example, in French, in German, or in English.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 118

Do Infants Only Learn "One" Language Well? (2)

Español

Português

Do Infants Only Learn "One" Language Well? (2)
Do Bilingual Children Develop Their “Intelligence” Less?

The myths arise from a combination of factors. Since language is important culturally and politically, these considerations colour numerous arguments, including brain research findings, to favour one “Official” language to the detriment of others.




Certain medical observations have played their part: cases of bi- or multilingual patients completely forgetting one language and not at all another after a head trauma helped foster the idea that languages occupied separate areas in the brain.



Studies conducted at the beginning of the 20th century, which found that bilingual individuals had inferior “intelligence”, were carried out with faulty methodologies, being based mainly on migrant children who were often undernourished and in difficult cultural and social conditions.

The protocols should have taken into account that many of these children had started learning the language of their host country around the age of 5, 6, or later, and, without a strong command of that language, they had problems learning other subjects. In short, we cannot meaningfully compare the intelligence of monolingual children from native, often well-off families with that of multilingual children from primarily underprivileged environments with limited family knowledge of the dominant language.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 118

Do Infants Only Learn "One" Language Well? (1)

Español

Português

Do Infants Only Learn "One" Language Well? (1)

Can A Young Child’s Brain Only Manage to Learn One Language at a Time?

Today, half the world population speaks at least two languages and multilingualism is generally considered an asset. Yet for long, many have believed that learning a new language is problematic for the native language.

Superstitions on this die hard and are often based on the false representation of language in the brain. One myth is that the more one learns a new language, the more one necessarily loses the other.

Another myth imagines two languages as occupying separate areas in the brain without contact points such that knowledge acquired in one language cannot be transferred to the other.




From these ideas, it has been supposed that the simultaneous learning of two languages during infancy would create a mixture of the two languages in the brain and slow down the development of the child. The false inference is that the native language had to be learned “correctly” before beginning another one.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 118

Have We Two Brains? (5)

Español

Português

“Is There One ‘Left-Brain’ & Another ‘Right-Brain’?” (5)
No, None Escientific Evidence Confirms That

No Scientific Evidence, indeed, indicates a correlation between the degree of creativity and the activity of the Right hemisphere. A recent analysis of 65 studies on Brain Imaging and the processing of emotions concludes that such processing cannot be associated Exclusively with the Right Hemisphere. Similarly, No Scientific Evidence Validates the idea that analysis and logic depend on the left hemisphere, or that the left hemisphere is the special seat for arithmetic or reading. Dehaene (1997) found that the two hemispheres are active when identifying Arab numerals (e.g. 1 or 2 or 5).






Other studies show that, when the components of reading processes are analysed (e.g. decoding written words or recognising sounds for the higher level processes, such as reading a text), Sub-systems of the Two Hemispheres Are Activated.





Even a capacity associated essentially with the right hemisphere – encoding spatial relationships – proves to be within the Competence of the two hemispheres; but in a different way in each case. The left hemisphere is more skilful at encoding “categorical” spatial relationships (e.g. high/low or right/left), while the right hemisphere is more skilful at encoding metric spatial relationships (i.e. continuous distances).





Brain Imaging has shown that even in these two specific cases, areas of both hemispheres are activated and working together. A more surprising finding, perhaps, is that the dominant hemisphere for language is not necessarily connected to right- or left-handedness, as had been thought. A widespread idea is that right-handed people have their language on the left and vice versa, but 5% of right-handed people have the main areas related to language in the right hemisphere and nearly a third of left-handed people have them located in the left hemisphere.








Based on the latest studies, therefore, scientists think that the hemispheres of the brain do not work separately but together for all cognitive tasks, even if there are functional asymmetries. As a highly integrated system, it is rare that one part of the brain works individually. There are some tasks – such as recognising faces and producing speech – that are dominated by a given hemisphere, but most require that the two hemispheres work at the same time.


This invalidates the “left brain” and “right brain” concepts. Even if they may have brought some benefit through supporting more diversified educational methods, classifying students or cultures according to a dominant brain hemisphere is highly dubious scientifically, potentially dangerous socially, and strongly questionable ethically. It is thus an important myth to avoid.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 117

Have We Two Brains? (4)

Español

Português

“Is There One ‘Left-Brain’ & Another ‘Right-Brain’?” (4)
Since the 70s, Arise More Neuromyths About the "Split Brain"

This set of findings ([1], [2]) was ripe for spawning neuromyths. In 1970, Robert Ornstein’s "The Psychology of Consciousness" hypothesised that “Westerners” use mainly the left half of their brain with a well-trained left hemisphere thanks to their focus on language and logical thinking.However, they neglect their right hemisphere and, therefore, their emotional and intuitive thinking. Ornstein associates the left hemisphere with the logical and analytical thinking of “Westerners” and the right hemisphere with emotional and intuitive “Oriental” thinking.The traditional dualism between intelligence and intuition is thus accorded a “Physiological Origin”, based on the difference between the two hemispheres of the brain. Apart from the highly questionable ethical aspect of Ornstein’s ideas, they are the accumulated result of misinterpretations and distortions of available scientific findings.






Another widespread notion, without scientific foundation, stipulates that the left hemisphere tends to process quick changes and analyses the details and characteristics of the stimuli, while the right processes the simultaneous and general characteristics of the stimuli.This model remains entirely speculative. Starting from the differences between the verbal hemisphere (the left) and the non-verbal hemisphere (the right), a growing number of abstract concepts and relationships between mental functions and the two hemispheres has made their appearance on the neuromyth stage, moving further and further away from the scientific findings.







Gradually, further myths emerged in which the two hemispheres are associated not just with two ways of thinking but as revelations of two types of personality. The concepts of “left brain thinking” and “right brain thinking”, together with the idea of a dominant hemisphere, led to the notion that each individual depends predominantly on one of the two hemispheres, with distinctive cognitive styles. A rational and analytical person could be characterised as “left-brained”, an intuitive and emotional person as “right-brained”






The idea that “Western Societies” focus on only half of our mental capacities (“our left brain thinking”) and neglect the other half (“our right brain thinking”) became widespread, and some educationists and systems jumped on the bandwagon to recommend that schools change their teaching methods according to the dominant hemisphere concept.








Educators like M. Hunter and E.P Torrance claimed that educational programmes were principally made for “left brains” and favour left brain-dependent activities like always sitting in class or learning algebra, instead of favouring the right hemisphere by allowing students to stretch out and learn geometry. Hence, methods were devised which sought to engage the two hemispheres, or even to emphasise activities related to the right hemisphere. Such an example is “show and tell”: instead of just reading texts to the students (left hemisphere action), the teacher also shows images and graphs (right hemisphere actions). Other methods use music, metaphors, role-playing, meditation, or drawing, all to activate the synchronisation of the two hemispheres. Arguably, they have served to advance education by diversifying its methods. Nevertheless, insofar as they have borrowed on theories of the brain, they are based on scientific misinterpretation as the two halves of the brain cannot be so clearly separated.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 116

(To be continued...)