The project is funded by the state research and development program and seeks to incorporate the findings of neurobiology and cognitive psychology into the study of the acquisition and learning processes of Spanish as a second language,  taking into account also the most recent contributions of psychology and neurolinguistics on the bilingual mind (www.grupoleide.com). In this interview, Ana Blanco Canales, who is in charge of this initiative, explains the project.

- How does the idea if research in these lines come about?

We have always been concerned about the high rates of abandonment in spanish learning as a second language. The differences between the number of initial level and advanced level students are really surprising. Many teachers of different educational stages tell us about students´ limited interest in continuing their learning beyond classrooms. 

The same is the case in Spain with English as a second language: the students refuse to use absolutely this language in natural communication contexts (social networks, the street); in many cases, they even feel real aversion. In this sense, we believe that if they could express themselves emotionally, feel what they say and what they hear - something that always happens in the mother tongue - communication in their second language would be incorporated into their experience world and their self.

- This is a novel project, especially in the case of the study of Spanish as a second language…

Yes, that's right. Over the past two decades, the methodology of teaching second languages has been offering new approaches and perspectives that have been accompanied by innovative, multidimensional and highly conceptual models of instruction (competency learning, metacognitive strategies, inverted class, formative evaluation, etc.). However, this has not brought about a clear and visible change in the success of language learning, which makes us think that it is appropriate to address other factors and, especially, to understand how the brain learns and how the language works in that learning brain.

In addition, much research has been done on motivation and its importance in learning a second language, which is unquestionable, but has not been addressed to the same extent to something even more unquestionable: the identity value of languages. We believe that the construction of identity in the second language has a much greater impact than motivation. It´s more important to recognize you in that language, to find you in it, that the more or less functional reasons that encourage our motivation.

- What role do emotions play in learning and communication in a foreign language?

A key role. Almost all the words of our mother tongue carry emotional burdens. There is no linguistic meaning that is not emotionally sifted, hence its evocation power.

During the process of acquiring the mother tongue, words are incorporated with experiential and emotional sense, which are responsible for their anchoring in lexical networks and in memory. However, it seems that this does not happen in second language, as the simple transfer of a word from one language to the second does not print in the new term all its representational values.

This makes us think of the need for teaching approaches that relate classroom activities to the self who feels and thinks, so that those words will gain meaning within the framework of one's own identity. In short, it would be about enabling the associations of words and the linguistic context with the stimulation of our environment and our emotional development.

Experience and identity are integral parts of the development of language proficiency in another language. Therefore, language teaching should use strategies that pursue the student's emotional involvement with what he or she communicates.

- What does it mean to build one's own identity when speaking a second language?

The acquisition of a language involves the mental construction of a socially shared representation of the world and also the construction of one's identity. All this is the result of the sociocultural environment, but also of conscious and unaware emotional factors. The speaker creates an affective relationship with the language because it is a reflection of itself, because through the language it shows who he is, to which group he belongs, how he understands reality, what he feels, how he behaves; in short, the individual constructs and transmits his sociocultural, existential and emotional identity with language.

If we learn a second language that does not allow us to build, experiment and display our identity, we will not be able to feel it. And today we know that languages are highly emotional products.

-But we can all express in a second language our feelings, how we feel...

Yes, we are able to transmit affective content and describe moods, but that is different from feeling emotionally that language. If they feel different, how they see themselves, if they like when they use this language, if they think they believe that they transmit its main features, both social and individual. We also ask them what they notice or experience when they use the language, for example, words of love in Spanish or when they express their anger in this language (this is clearly seen when we use swear words because in a second language they leave us quite indifferent).

We have collected hundreds of answers, all very interesting. It is surprising to what extent these responses are in line with some of the theories and budgets of neurosciences about the interaction between environment, experience, perception and language. Most of them show the decrease in emotional load on a second language or the lower involvement (greater distance) from the referred reality.

Therefore, they coincide with the latest studies showing that people are more objective, more rational and more distant in foreign languages.

How can we get students to express themselves emotionally?

Learning a foreign language is a cognitive and emotional activity subject to the constant assessment of perceived stimulation. For this positive perception and evaluation (processes that are partly conscious and largely unaware), it is necessary to expose the student to a language with which they are represented as unique individuals who are part of an environment and with which they maintain emotional connections, as well as to sensorially rich learning processes that involve them at the cognitive, affective, and experiential level.

 -The identity building in a second foreign will be very related to the level of competition in that language,  right?

Not necessarily. We tend to think that the more level we have in a language, the more we identify with it, the more emotional we turn out.  It is true that with more level, we can better express how we feel; but that´s not exactly the same as being emotional in a language.

For example, when we talk about a father, a child, a loved one, we feel the words bodily and, in the same way, we show it through small but numerous details of the look, eyes, face, tone, voice. Our interlocutor fully captures it. That, of which we are almost not aware, is a very important element of communication.

And it doesn't depend on the language level. In fact, in our surveys, we have found many answers that agree to pointing out that they feel better, that they get angry better, that they are more friendly, that they like more, etc., in the foreign language in which they are less level and not in the one with greater control.

Ana Blanco

The field of neurosciences is opening up many possibilities in other areas, as is the case...

Yes, we try to leverage the recent findings, contributions and achievements of brain science to better understand the processes of acquiring second languages and, especially, to generate theoretical frameworks that guide teaching, help teachers and improve outcomes. We find it very revealing what neurosciences teach us about the close relationship between the brain, the body and the environment; about perception and sensory experience as a  conditioning factors in the representation of reality in the brain, about the new paradigms of memory and its distribution, about the importance of the unconscious mind in processing and decision-making or about emotion as the fundamental engine of the organism and as responsible for learning and identity building, life in society, etc.

They also provide very important results concerning the understanding of language, the allocation of meanings and its distribution in the brain, and on the theory of mind and role of mirror neurons in linguistic action; that is, in discursive social construction.

We hope that, step by step, the linguistics applied to language teaching will be incorporated into the field of neurosciences. After all, his object of interest is the human being in his learning process, which is intimately linked to the processes of the mind and brain. Moreover, the core of that learning is language, or what is the same, the most defining element of the nature of the human being. Knowing how the brain works will facilitate the path to developing effective methodological approaches and strategies.

Publicado en: Inglés