One of my students on WhatsApp, Kevin, lives in Peru and he's an engineer who has a keen interest in learning English.
Recently he attended a conference on Neuroscience and learning English.
He brought this up in the Advanced WhatsApp Group and we had a very good discussion for about 4 hours. Below are some of the points that he outlined as part of the lecture and a website to to review.
The lecturer was Tracey Nokahuma Espinoza from California and she discussed the following points:
The importance of breathing and relaxing.
They need to break a one-hour class into segments so that intense learning takes place during 20 minutes with the remaining time focused on other areas.
She talked about reducing stress and gave an example of how people feel stress when they have to take a test. Her point being that stress is not conducive to learning.
She mentioned the need to repeat a lesson in different ways.
And she also said that it was very important that the students get plenty of rest.
There is a lot to think about! How do we learn a foreign language, especially as adults? How does our brain work?!
https://kappanonline.org/learning-brain-neuroscience-tokuhama-espinosa-heller/
Comments
Paul, we so appreciate your thoughtful post!
I wanted to reflect on your statement: "The need to break a one-hour class into segments so that intense learning takes place during 20 minutes with the remaining time focused on other areas." I am a huge fan of Horton's absorb, do, and connect model. (See HERE for a short summary.) Since attention spans drop drastically after 10 minutes, just giving students more information does little good. They need to take the information presented and do something active with it (talk, write, draw, move) in order to learn it.
Presenting more information does not result in students' learning more. I would rather present less information that students can absorb at a deeper level than try to "cover" more material with little learning taking place. Just presenting information and expecting students to learn it is one draw back of K-12's focus on the "testing curriculum" and one reason why students drop out of school and come to our adult education programs.
Thanks for your comment Paul! In a three hour class, we could cycle through several rounds of absorb, do, and connect. For example:
Instructor teaches a skill (10 - 15 minutes) (Absorb)
Students practice the skill with a partner (10 minutes) (Do)
Students discuss what they learned/challenges with the skill in a whole class discussion (5 minutes) (Connect)
The instructor can then re-teach or clarify the skill as necessary based on student feedback.
At this point, 30 + minutes of class time has elapsed. We can now start another cycle of absorb, do, connect and continue these 30 + minute cycles throughout the three hour class period.
Does that make sense?
Thanks for your great question, Paul!
Absorb, do, and connect is a template (or model) of learning that can be used with any level of students with any subject area/skill. Here is how it can work:
Absorb - Learners take in information by listening, reading or watching
Common absorb activities are:
Do - Students do something active to apply what they are learning such as answer questions or complete graphic organizers.
Some do activities are:
Connect - Learners interact with the material and with each other.
Some connect activities are:
Instructors can keep cycling through absorb, do, and connect throughout a class period of any length. I hope that helps!
Paul, here is how absorb, do, connect could look in an adult ESL class (high intermediate to advanced level). This class is focused on preparing students for the civics portion of the citizenship test.
Absorb
Instructor gives a 10 to 15 minute lesson on the US Constitution focusing on what it is and why it was written.
Do
Working in small groups, students complete a graphic organizer such as 5 W's and 1 H
Connect
In a whole class discussion, groups share their graphic organizers with other groups.
In pairs, students discuss at least two things they learned about the US Constitution.
(I read somewhere about how in many large group instruction ESL classes that most students spoke for less than 2 minutes total over the course of the class. Doing connect activities can help change that outcome!)
Paul, how do you conduct classes over What's App? I downloaded it earlier this week to communicate with friends overseas. Does it have functionality like Zoom or Skype with webcams?