“Left Brain and Right Brain” on Adult and Children
This Paper is submitted for English for
Foreign Language
The Lecturer: Win Listyaningrum, M. A
At Fifth semester
Arranged by:
Novi Dyah Arisanti
113-14-037
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
STATE INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES SALATIGA
2016/2017
CHAPTER I
Introduction
A. Background
Language becomes the most important thing
in the communication. Everyday all people connect each other by communication.
It is important to learn and increase our ability in the communication way. Communication’s
ability is such an obligatory especially in this globalization era.
All part
of our bodies is connected each other and has a center which is at our brain.
In the brain all information is processed to produce a respond. There are two
hemispheres in our brain, left hemisphere and right hemisphere. We need to
consider and learn each hemisphere so we can improve our skills by the
appropriate part. Related to
communication, the left hemisphere of our brain is like a tool. It is the best
tool than the others. If any problem in our brain, especially in the left brain
it will be big problems.
However,
language especially English is not the mother tongue for some countries.
English becomes second language also foreign language. It will be different to
master English for people who used English as first language with English as
second or foreign language. To master English for second and foreign language,
for example Indonesian, it needs extra preparation and more understanding.
As brain
in human is growing, the ability of communication also increase. The capacity
and capability of our brain when we were young is different with the time of us
in adult. There are acquisition and learning process, which mechanism has
relation with development of our brain related to master language.
What will
be different and what is the relation of our brain with communication will be
our topic in this paper. What is difference between acquisition and learning
that give the best impact, and will it the same among children and adults who try
to master language are become our discussion later.
B. Method
In this paper, the writer uses “theoretical research” by collecting some
information from books, journal, website and makes some summarize.
CHAPTER II
Contents
There is an interesting case for all people among second and foreign
language about mastering language and the relation with the brain. There are
two hemispheres of brain, left and right, which have their own function. By
understanding their function it will be easy to enhance their effectiveness.
Sometimes we forget that communication also happen in written form. Actually
both spoken and written form has same standard although has different applied.
Every people has their own characters and different styles which are
related to their left and right brain’s dominance. The dominance of the
brain will give a great impact during the learning process. Recent findings
indicate that the specialized functions of specific regions of the brain are
not fixed at birth but are shaped by experience and learning.
Some researches today has told us that our
brain is such a software. When we keep in touch with our brain, our skills in
all aspects will be develop also. There is an old opinion that our brain just
develop in the young age. Actually, there is a difference style of process
related to our skills in the young age and adult periods. Both of them are
learning and acquisition.
A.
Learning and Acquisition
Language
is a way to learn new world, share experiences, needs, and analysis. When we
talk about language, we can see from different perspectives. It depends on who
sees the context of the language. We can discuss language in social, politic,
education, and others. Every language also has context with the time, it could
be about past, present, or future.
Krashen
states that: Learning is an aware process. It is conscious knowledge of second
language, knowing the rules, being aware and talk about them. Learning is
knowing about a language, known to most people as rule or grammar. Formal
knowledge of language or explicit meaning are some synonyms from learning.
The
result of language acquisition is subconscious. We are not consciously aware
the rules because we often apply it in a long-term period. We feel right, the
sounds seem right, and errors feel wrong, all things above even we don’t know
the rules but we prove about it. Language acquisition does not require
extensive use of grammatical rules, and meaningful target of language is needed
in acquisition.
There are some factors that influence the process
of learning. The external factors and
internal factors. The external factors are: relationship with parent, organizations, reward
and punishment, facilities, and environments. Meanwhile the internal process are attitude, perception, motivation,
level of ability, and personality. Professional learning requires some
knowledge to be fluently by several process, and more practices in formal and
informal situations.
According
to Dr. Paul Thompson, neurology professor at UCLA. After age 11, centres in the
brain responsible for language acquisition stop growing rapidly and language
acquisition becomes more difficult.[1]
B.
Among Left Hemisphere and Right Hemisphere
The human brain shows a number of physiological and structural
characteristics that must be understood. The cerebrum, consisting
of a cortex (the outer layer) and a sub cortex, which divides
into two hemispheres joined by a membrane called the corpus callosum.
There are a few points which must be
made about the functioning of these two cerebral hemispheres. ‘Hemispheric
specialization means that one side of the brain is more adept than the other.
It does not necessarily mean that the other side cannot perform a function at
all or is not routinely involved in a particular activity. Virtually all behaviours
and modes of thinking require both hemispheres working together.’ (Hampson, 1994)
Human’s brain is a complex organs with much of function in all part of
bodies. From picture below, we see some parts of brain like frontal lobe,
temporal lobe, occipital lobe, cerebellum, brain system, and others. It all
connected, where the functions are responsible with intelligence, sense,
humour, movement, behaviour, and it connected by nerves.
Researchers are in broad agreement that
there are differences between the information-processing biases of the brain’s
hemispheres, but that these exist at the micro-level, and not at macro-levels
such as language or spatial processing.
The right brain controls movements and functions part of left bodies,
meanwhile the left brain in the opposite. We ever hear a person who calls their
friends by the dominance’s use of the brain. Knowing an individual’s brain dominance can help you
understand his/her “ways” of thinking, behaving, speaking, and functioning.
Some language skills involves analytical, sequential, and left braining
process. Guessing, associating, and getting the main idea are function of right
brain. The good learners use both of left and right brain depending on what
works for the best.
To know someone who used right brain, they are creative, see patterns,
spatial awareness, and understanding different things relate each other in
different way. They are good at recognizing faces, places, and objects.[2]
For people who used the left brain, they will good on language, mathematical
concepts like time and sequence. They are good on letters, numbers, and
words.
Here the table shows the distinction function part of the brain from
Krashen,
Left hemisphere
|
Right hemisphere
|
|
1
|
Language, spoken and written
|
Spatial
relations
|
2
|
Time related functions
|
“Gestalt” perception
|
3
|
“Propositional” thought
|
“Apposition” thought
|
4
|
Number skills
|
Insight, three dimensional, visual
|
5
|
Reasoning
|
Art, and images, imagination
|
6
|
Scientific thought
|
Music
|
C. Adult and Children Periods
Some researchers have found that
adults can be better at language learning under conditions control. Adults know
how to create a good sentence by construct such elements of subject,
conjunction, verbs and the part of complement. They also used sense of the
punctuation and good grammar.
Children or young learners are focused on their pronunciation rather
than a good sentence. We can say that children develop their language by their
own way. They adopting new sounds of pre-adolescence and create their own
atmosphere of peer communications. Because children use smaller vocabularies
and simple standard syntax than adults, the standard of the fluency is lower
for them. For children, the important thing just they understand each other’s
and they feel happy with what they do.
When parents, teachers and policy makers, try to identify the right
timing for teaching a foreign language to children, an “informed decision”
might well be based on a comparison of the experiences and performance of
students who started learning a foreign language at different ages.
We can find a complex way of communication
in adult periods. In this periods, they are able to talk more complicated
things, such as politics, social, science, technology, and globalization. Of
course they will be use different word to picture same thing, although it has
same meaning in the adult emotions it can give “sense” higher level of
educations.
D. Effectiveness of Language
To master language is not easy. We should learn new words or
vocabularies, which it needed. Linguistic knowledge like words must not only be
newly acquired, but also be consolidated through repetitive use in daily life.
There are optimal or sensitive periods which particular types of
learning most effective. Speech sound, some certain emotional, and cognitive
experience like language exposure are early sensitive periods. However,
vocabularies can grow every time as long as the learners try to get new
vocabularies.
People who like used right brain
particularly like visual like picture to understand a concept. Like to sing and
some activities like group discussion, shared experiments, and role plays.
Nevertheless, left brain dominance like to provide information in sequences,
like make a list what must they do, and do their job step by step. They like analysis,
do research, and work in worksheets.
E. Bloom Taxonomy
Benjamin Bloom is known in learning
by his “taxonomy”, a way of organizing how we look at learning. There are six stages in learning process. We know
these stages as a part of syllabus. These six stages are: knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These are some information,
1. Knowledge:
arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize,
relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, and state.
2. Comprehension:
classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate,
recognize, report, restate, review, select, and translate.
3. Application:
apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate,
practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, and write.
4. Analysis:
analyse, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize,
differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, and
test.
5. Synthesis:
arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop,
formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, and write.
6. Evaluation: appraise, argue, assess, attach,
choose, compare, defend, estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support,
value, and evaluate. The information is taken from: Handbook for Second
Language Acquisition by Dr. Catherine Collier.
(Bloom’s Taxonomy)
Try to utilize higher order of questions. Higher questions improve our
brain. Benjamin Bloom identified three domains of educational activities:
cognitive focuses on mental skills or knowledge, affective on emotional area or
attitude, and psychomotor relates to skills.
F. Aphasia
We know that left hemisphere is focused on language’s ability especially
the production and the process. The study of the patients who have had a damage
in certain parts of the left hemisphere cortex is called “aphasia” or speech
impairment. British calls aphasia as dysphasia. “Aphasiology” is a study about language
loss in a normal brain. Aphasia divides in two kinds, “Broca's aphasia”
involves difficulty in speaking, also known as emissive aphasia. It has
a difficulty replying grammatical in coherent way. Meanwhile, “Wernicke's
aphasia” involves difficulty in comprehension, in extracting meaning from a
context, it is also known as receptive aphasia.
G. Importance of Right-Brain Learning for Foreign Language
Sometimes, learning is not fun. We feel bored, exhausted and frustrated,
especially for student, who learn foreign language. However, learn is not
always awful. When we play a game or learn to drive a car, we enjoy that
moment. Actually, the right approach will make a different.
We know that the hemisphere of our brain is like a different person.
They play different roles in learning style. While people are divided fairly
equally between left- and right-brain dominance, schools tend to exclusively
utilize left-brain learning techniques (textbooks, lectures, exams, memorization,
etc.). Therefore right-brain learners often struggle with many subjects,
especially subjects that benefit from right-brain teaching techniques utilizing
sensory stimulus and hands-on experience.
The left brain is responsible for learning the rules and structures of a
language, and can make sense out of what is heard, as well as formulate a
response. The right brain is good on memorizing the words and sounds, and
making them rapidly available to the left brain when it needs. The two sides
work together to construct or deconstruct the language building blocks in a
meaningful way that follows the rules of the language. You simply cannot
understand or speak a language without both sides of the brain, and it’s
important to teach each side in the way that works best for it.
Language
patterns don’t always make sense, and the left brain is going to have a hard
time because that. The patterns we learned in speaking our native language is
different in a real life, especially when they appear to be the same. For
example when we see an “r” in a word, we want to say the American English “r”
sound, but the “r” sound is quite different in Spanish, French or German. Our
left brain will be constantly trying to find common ground between the two different
“r” sounds, resulting in an American English accent. Only by shutting out the
left brain, we can learn to pronounce the “r” like a native.
Fortunately the right brain is not so critical, and does not have
problem with ambiguity or novelty. Remember that the right side of the brain
appreciates art. So when learning new sounds or words in a foreign
language, it’s best to direct the input to the right brain. With foreign
language vocabulary, the goal is to load up the brain with as many words and
sounds as possible, as well as their associated meanings. The right brain
excels in this sort of thing. It absorbs information subconsciously and in a
non-linear fashion, so fragments of information can be stored and recalled instantaneously
and effortlessly. Compared to the left brain, it will memorize words more
quickly, more accurately, more easily, and more permanently. Learning in
this way can actually be quite fun.
CHAPTER III
Conclusion
Brain is the main part of human on processing the information. All parts
of bodies connect with the brain and connect by nerve. There are two hemisphere
in the brain, left and right. Each hemisphere of brain has their own function.
However they work together to gain the best information. Left hemisphere of
brain relates to some languages’ skills and analytical process. Meanwhile the
right hemisphere relates to guess something and get the main idea.
By knowing dominance of brain for each student, and giving activities
according to the need, parent and teacher might also improve the efficiency of
learning and acquisition process. To increase the success rate and advise
capacity of the students, learning strategies and recalling activities should
be balances. All information above will make sure that teacher and parent appeal
to all learners with different brain dominance and provide their learners much
experiences.
Teacher and parent should find a way to combine three aspect of educational
domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, to create the right atmosphere,
and make learning easier and more enjoyable. All things before will help
students reinforce their knowledge with meaningful activities.
REFERENCES
Bloom B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook
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Canale,
M. (1983). From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy.
In J. C.
Richards, & R. W. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication.
London: Longman
Collier,
Chaterine. (2008). Handbook for Second Language Acquisition. Cross Cultural
Developmental Education Services: Lane Ferndale. Access on www.
crosscultured.com
Julie A.
Daymut. Right Brain vs. Left Brain – What’s the Difference? Visit
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Krashen,
S., Long, M., and Scarcella, R. (1979) Age, rate and eventual attainment in second
language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 9, 573–582. Reprinted in S.D.
Krashen, R.C. Scarcella and M.H. Long (eds) 1982. Child–Adult Differences in
Second Language Acquisition (pp. 161–72). Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Sidtis,
Vanlancker. (2004). When only the right hemisphere is
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Access
on www. crosscultured.com
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Ali and friends. (2014). The Effects of Learners’ Brain Hemisphericity on
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