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1996
251
Gnutzmann Küster SchrammTapping our representational systems to learn a foreign language
121
1996
Michael Hager
Using our senses in learning can be a real asset. However, more often than not we don’t use all of them or we don’t use them effectively. In this article I will discuss how the language teacher can more effectively use the senses. This effective use is based on principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and I will explain in which way.
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Michael Hager Tapping our representational systems to learn a foreign language How aspects of Neurolinguistic Programming can assist in leaming a foreign language Abstract. Using our senses in learning can be a real asset. However, more often than not we don't use all of them or we don't use them effectively. In this article I will discuss how the language teacher can more effectively use the senses. This effective use is based on principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and I will explain in which way. Information is all around us. Our resources for gathering information is unlimited, even in learning a foreign language. However, we as teachers and even as learners tend to not take advantage of all this information. How is this possible, and what can we do to better utilize this incoming information? 1. Our Representational Systems Through our five senses we perceive and take in all the information around us. This input is registered, processed, and stored by our brain through our senses. The structures in our brain that operate our senses, visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinesthetic ((e)motion), gustatory (tasting), and olfactory (smelling), are our representational systems. These are what are used to register, process and store the incoming information. Once this input has been absorbed, it is no langer a true representation of the real input. All of this goes through a complex filtering system before it is stored (Hager 1996). Because of this our thoughts are only a representation of the extemal world; in NLP terms a model of the world but not the world itself. So what do we really do? In early childhood we seem to perceive the world through one "big" sense. This means that all of our senses are so intertwined that they tend to function as one. Around the age of five or six, we start to make real distinctions between our senses. Until this time we seem to react to the fine details (characteristics) of this sensory input. In NLP terms, we react to the submodalities of the input. These can be, for example, intensity of color, sound, or tauch. Aristotle referred to these as "pairs of contraries"; hot/ cold, bright/ dull, loud/ soft. According to Aristotle, our sense-perceptions have common universals. He referred to these as common sensibles. These universals are not particular to any one sense but common to all. Tue common sensibles are movement, rest, number, FLuL 25 (1996) Tapping our representational systems to learn a foreign language 139 figure, magnitude, and unity. They seem, however, tobe on a different level than the submodalities mentioned above. These common sensibles identify relationships between the perceptions we make and our impressions of them. As mentioned above, intensity is something that can be registered in any sense. In my opinion this would be a collllllon sensible to Aristotle. Despite this, each individual will interpret this collllllonality in his own way. This individual intrepretation probably starts with and develops through our education. Through it we are forced to become more and more aware of the individual senses. This way the individual focuses his attention more and more on objects and things and more unconsciously on the sense through which the individual best preceives the objects, things, or experience. At which time the individual is not so aware of the detailed characteristics (submodalities pairs of contraries). Through our experience with the fine details (characteristics) of input as children, we find that one of the senses provides us with more information than the others. This is probably the reason why we tend to prefer one sense over the others. Robert Dilts (1994: 69) refers to this as the person's most highly valued system. This is the one we use to evaluate the meaning of experience and make decisions. He believes as well that we have a highly developed system and a most conscious system. The most highly devloped system is the one that we can make the greatest number of distinctions in. The most conscious system is the one that we have the most intentional ability to change and utilize. lt is possible that all three above-mentioned systems are the same representational system. An individual rnight prefer the visual system for all three. But it is also possible that each system can be a different representational system. This is very individual-dependent. Even though, we have these three "preferred" systems, it is essential to keep in rnind that all representational systems are present all the time. The difference is that we are not focusing our attention on them at that particular moment. At school, it is never considered which system could be our most highly developed, our most highly valued, Qr our most conscious. The learner is simply forced to focus his attention on the visual and auditory representational systems. Whatever we do in school it primarily revolves around these two modes of representation, while the other three modes of representation are totally ignored and even sometimes deemphasized. Through inappropriate use of the representational systems, we can hinder leaming. In learning vocabulary I have found (Hager 1994: 20-21; Hager 1996) that not using one of the three representational systems, visual, auditory and kinesthetic (in some cases even gustatory and olfactory) will hinder the learning of vocabulary or at least make it more difficult. In recent research on the brain, it has been found that the use of all our senses is necessary for the effective use of memory. As I have already suggested elsewhere (Hager 1994: 32-33; Hager 1996), we need to effectively use all five modes of representation in teaching and learning. FLuL 25 (1996) 140 Michael Hager Because of limited research on the use of the gustatory and olfactory modes in teaching, I will leave them out. One word though to them, in commercial areas research shows that fragrances can effect customers' buying habits. Perhaps in the future someone will find out how to use fragrances to influence the effective learning of grammar, for example. 1.1 The Visual Representational System "Seeing is believing! " This is an old English saying that applies to life in general. But in learning it has its place of importance, too. Not only seeing what is going on around us is important but also perceiving what is happening in our mind's eye. In NLP this is referred to as intemal and extemal visual. In the language classroom the use of extemal visual can be of assistance in setting up the classroom. If posters and pictures are used in the classroom, how these are utilized can make a difference in their effectiveness. Using the same location in the classroom for one particular kind of poster, for example, for grammar, will anchor this location in the student's realm of awareness as the "grammar" location in the room. Hanging up a grammar poster several days before covering the grammar point in dass, will provide the student with time to unconsciously absorb the information. However, the use of visual stimuli should not be overdone because this overuse can cause visual overload in truly visually oriented students. 1 Intemal visual can be implemented in the language classroom through the use of imagery. I don't mean visualization because visualization is really only limited to the visual mode of learning. In the following exercise we will find out that it is not only limited to the visual mode. Tue auditory and kinesthetic ones are also involved. To review material at the end of the lesson, the following exercise taken from Hager (1996) will demonstrate this. This exercise is for beginners of English (for that matter for any language). During the just completed lesson the Present Continuous was covered. Have your students sit in their chairs and relax. Once they have relaxed they are to imagine what you, the teacher, say. Inform your students, however, that there are people who do not see images for the presented sentences. This is no problem. Those students who do not have visual images should listen or feel for the presented sentences. The students should not force themselves to visually imagine because this has a detrimental effect on their relaxation. See Hager ( 1996) for information about how to set up the classroom with reference to the representational systems. FLuL 25 (1996) Tapping our representational systems to leam a foreign language ► Example sentences for presentation are: You are sitting on your chair. You are standing behind your chair. You are eating a sandwich. You are drinking a coke. You are reading a book. You are writing your name. 141 By doing this exercise you are enabling your students to mentally see pictures for the sentences. This provides the students the chance to visually store images for the vocabulary used. But more essential is that the students have the opportunity to visually store images representing the grammatical point, Present Continuous. 1.2 The Auditory Representational System Listening to your favorite Mozart piece can be so very relaxing, can't it? Even in the language classroom listening to music can have its benefits. Playing relaxing music at the beginning of a lesson can put the learner in a very receptive state. However, overusing music can also have the opposite effect. If a learner is very auditory in nature, music can be very disruptive at inappropriate moments. This can especially be the case if the music interferes with the auditory learner's internal discussions. Have you listened to the little voice in your head recently? What? You didn't realize that you had one? Listen! Just as with the visual mode, the auditory one can also be extemal or internal. Anything that we perceive outside of us will provide us with external auditory input. But inside? Research has found that we have both an inner ear and an inner voice. In NLP terms these are auditory recall or construct, or auditory digital. (Recall and construct can also apply to the visual mode.) Auditory recall is when you remember a sound that you already know, perhaps the sound of your favorite song. Auditory construct is when you think of a sound that you have never heard before. And auditory digital is when you carry on a discussion in your mind. Research has also found that if a student doesn't use his intemal auditory mode when learning vocabulary, he won't be able to learn the words and retain them. 2 In the above mentioned exercise for visual imagery, your articulating the different sentences will stimulate your learners' inner ear. If you leave enough time between sentences, you not only provide your students with enough time for visual images but also auditory ones. The auditory learner will take advantage of this time to produce an auditory image of what you have just presented. 2 See Hager (1996) and Service (1992) for more information. FLuL 25 (1996) 142 Michael Hager 1.3 The Kinesthetic Representational System "I need to get a grip on that" will ring a bell to anyone who is kinesthetic in nature. Kinesthetic can be divided into two parts; emotion and motion. Both of these are important for the set-up of the classroom. A warm, comfortable atmosphere will provide the kinesthetic leamer with the right ambiente for leaming. The correct set-up will also provide for movement, like dancing. 3 Goleman (1995: 96) believes that emotions are seldom put into words. They are expressed far more often through other cues. He points out that intuiting another's feelings comes through the ability to read nonverbal channels like gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice and so on. This capacity for empathy the ability to know how another feels is the basis for rapport. And rapport is the basis for this warm, comfortable classroom atmosphere. We, the teacher, are responsible for building rapport within the classroom with our students. This can be done by various exercises that sharpen the leamer's awareness of his partner's body language. Tue degree of rapport between two individuals is mirrored by how tightly attuned their physical movements are. In NLP terms you can't be effective if you do not have rapport with your partner. In the classroom it is hard to try to build up rapport with each student. But if you already know who the "leader" in the class is, unobtrusively build up rapport with him. Tue rest of the class will follow once you have rapport with this leader. Goleman (1995: 116) states, "the synchrony between teachers and students indicates how much rapport they feel; studies in classrooms show that the closer the movement coordination between teacher and student, the more they felt friendly, happy, enthused, interested, and easygoing while reacting." In the above mentioned imagery, rapport will play an important role in how well your students will be able to relax. Not only this part of the kinesthetic mode will be involved in this exercise but also that of motion. For those leamers who are unable to imagine pictures, the motion of the action will be of importance. In this exercise the kinesthetic leamer will probably not be able to visually imagine himself. He is too caught up in his own feelings to be able to do so. In NLP terms he is associated and sees the whole exercise in his mind's eye through his own eyes. Because he is associated, he is able to really feel what he is imagining. Syer and Connolly (1987) point out that studies done with atheletes showed that while these atheletes were imagining their sport, there was muscle movement involved similar to that when they really physically did the same sport. So "[...] writing your name" will really involve the correct muscle movement even if it is only imagined. See Hager (1996) for information about dancing in teaching a foreign language. FLuL 25 (1996) Tapping our representational systems to learn a foreign language 143 As we have been able to see, it is essential that we as teachers provide our students with a full array of leaming with the representational systems. lt is possible that one or the other leamer won't need all of the different modes to be effective. But all of our senses are working all the time. So why not use them. We as teachers can never know which modes are or are not necessary for our students' effective leaming. References DILTS, Robert (1994): Stategies of Genius. Capitola, CA: Meta Publications. G0LEMAN, Daniel (1995): Emotional Intelligence. New York, Bantam Books. HAGER, Michael (1994): Target Fluency. Portland, OR: Metamorphous Press, Inc. HAGER, Michael (1996): Multidimensionales Lernen und Lehren. Bonn: Heinrich Kelz. SERVICE, Elisabet (1992): "Phonology, working memory, and foreign-language learning". In: The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 45A (1), 21-50. SYER, John/ C0NN0LLY, Christopher (1987): Sporting Body Sporting Mind. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. FLuL 25 (1996)
