Kara Morgan-Short.
Language is the portal to understanding other cultures....Hopefully this research will contribute to those efforts.
Her dissertation research examined whether adults need grammatical explanation of second-language forms or whether they do better learning in an immersion-type situation. “I needed to branch out into cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology in order get insight from those fields about how adults learn in general and to tap into techniques that neuroscientists use to actually look at the processes in the brain,” she explained.
LAS student and study participant Christian Alvarado gets fitted with electrode cap.
One of the neuroscience techniques is a cap studded with electrodes that allows Morgan-Short to detect ERPs (Event Related Potentials), which are electrophysiological signals measured from the scalp that reflect brain processes. ERPs can be used as indicators of how the brain is responding to learning—for example, past tense in English or new vocabulary.
“The question of grammar-based versus immersion-type teaching is centrally what my studies are still trying to determine,” said Morgan-Short. For a recent study, she and her team created an artificial second language that is “consistent with a real language and affords complete control over aspects of the language such as the pronunciation of the words so that study participants can focus on learning the vocabulary and grammar.
“There are some interesting results: The group that learned the artificial language with grammatical explanation learned it with approximately 90% proficiency rates. The immersion-based technique group learned it just as well, but also showed brain responses similar to what native speakers show when using their language of origin.”
Alvarado in electrode cap.
“There are several different kinds of cognitive abilities. It has been suggested that IQ plays a role in second-language acquisition. That appears to explain language learning at low levels of proficiency, but not higher levels of proficiency; IQ does not seem to predict who becomes fluent with ease. Some people have looked at working memory—the ability to hold and process information in your mind. We look at and measure both of those. We also measure declarative memory—the ability to remember new facts—and procedural memory—the ability to pick up sequences and patterns. Basically, declarative memory is knowledge about what and procedural memory is knowledge about how. Recent models have suggested that declarative memory and procedural memory play a role in language both in native speakers and second-language learners.
“Ultimately the larger theoretical goal is to learn how the mind works. But the research has more immediate, real-world applications. While it would be impractical to implement in a classroom, you could collaborate with computer scientists to develop computer applications in which you screen for the learning-style profile and then go through instruction type A or B on the computer exercises, providing students with customized learning tools to enhance their classroom experience.”
While second-language fluency is a wonderful personal enhancement that increases one’s ability to fully experience literatures, cultures and world travel, Morgan-Short emphasizes the importance of language skills in the business and political arenas. “A friend in bank financing is learning French because he works with the French financial system and he needs to have proficiency to do his job better. If you could customize the learning process it would be far more efficient, particularly for busy adults with career-specific goals,” she said. “There’s a statistic out from the state department that only a fourth of those in the Foreign Service really have adequate proficiency to do their job. Language is the portal to understanding other cultures. In order for the U.S. to do the best work we can in international relations, we are going to have to learn to communicate. Hopefully this research will contribute to those efforts.”
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