Brain Works

Check out part 4 of Rolf’s ongoing discussion on how the brain works and what you can do to improve your brain’s functioning.

There are of course several aspects to keeping the brain functioning at its best level. There is the aspect of:

(1) keeping the brain, working thinking and learning. The more it is used the better and sharper it stays.

This means that one should continue learning a new skill until the day you die. Provided you are physically capable of doing so.

This means any kind of study, in an activity you enjoy is beneficial. As are games like sudoku, chess, backgammon, bridge. Learning a language is a skill that one can be continued forever and ever. Writing, researching and studying are all great for the brain. The more you use it the better and more DEEPER it gets.

(2) Nutritional aspect. The brain needs good food. We all know that this means loads of fruit, veges, seafoods. Bananas with their potassium are said to be ‘brain-food’. We know that too much booze is not good for the brain, nor is smoking.

(3)Exercise: Exercising regularly gives the brain a boost from the body. Oxygen makes it function better.

(4) Rest: The grey matter needs a good night’s rest every night. The brain uses this time for processing what it has learnt and seen and done during the day.

(5) Meditation is good for the brain. And nowadays that is so much easier with brain-entrainment type contraptions and such things that make it easy to get into an alpha state.

Check out part 3 of Rolf’s ongoing discourse on how the brain works.

Part 2 of this topics looks at the rapidity with which children learn in their early years, looking at the works of such people as Dr Richard Bandler, Dr Suzuki the famous music teacher and Dr Glenn Doman.

Dr Doman showed that a child can read before it can talk! Read the full blog

The basic units in that do the work in your brain are the nerve cells, which are also known as neurones. Whenever you learn something new the neurones link to other neurons, forming what is called a neural pathway. These pathways interconnect and form complex networks in a labyrinth web of connections. The neurone connects to thousands of other neurones through its stem or tail, which is called an axon. From the axon branch thousands of thin branches called dendrites. One neurone interconnects with 100,000 other neurones!There is a small gap or space between the dendrites of one neurone and another. This is called a synapse. Each time the brain sends a message it sends little signals across these synapses using chemical neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters are substances with cool names like serotonin and dopamine.Read about how this neural pathways stuff relates to language learning.

Remembering what you learn is a made easier if you know what techniques to employ, and you implement some easy to follow strategies. One of the early researchers of memory and recall was Mr Herman Ebbinghaus and he found that one would better memorise a list of items in a vocabulary list, by the process of repetition. He found that about ten repetitions would lead to the person memorizing a list of words.

He also found that one forgot things more slowly if one had learned it ten times. He also coined the term ‘overlearning’, which was the process of learning things more times than the ‘required’ 10 times.

It seems that what Mr Ebbinghaus did not discover however despite all his travails was the techniques of the memory masters that has been used for centuries, in fact thousands of years. Even the ancient Greeks used these techniques and were able to memorize long lists, and tales. This is how legends and fables were passed on over hundreds and hundreds of years.

The technique of the memory masters is to use the process of visualisation to assist memory and recall of anything that you want to remember. So the idea is to take the item that you want to remember, then visualise it in a crazy, loop, silly scene. A goofy mental movie. The more vivid, the more crazy, zany and loopy the scene, the more efficient will be the mind at recalling the item.

Using this technique enables modern students of foreign languages much more adept at picking up loads of foreign language vocabulary very quickly. Yet so few schools teach these techniques.

Mr Ebbinghaus would also have found that one could reduce the number of repetitions needed to commit something to memory, had he used these modern memory masters techniques.

And he would have also found that the Greeks invented a method of remembering long lists of things in sequential order. It is called the journey method, where one lays out a journey and has the thing to be remembered in sequence at each of the stops or waypoints on the journey. This same technique is used by the world memory champions when they pit their wits against each other to win such titles by doing such tasks as remembering 40 or 50 decks of cards in sequence!!

It is certainly very important to have a good vocabulary in any language. It is quite obvious, is it not - when one starts thinking about it - that this is the way you learned your native language. Your mother and father were were talking to you starting with simple words like eye, mouth, nose - often pointing to them and touching you as well. - They hardly started by speaking to you about grammar .

Learning words makes it possible for you  to have an understanding of what is going on. However, it is not enough to have you speak yourself.

In order to do that you simply need to practice. It is like playing golf or tennis. You do not become a master unless you play a lot.

A good way to practice is to take a text you know well and read it in the language you are learning.

It is important to make a good choice though. If you take a novel the language might be different from ordinary speech.

You could for instance choose the New Testament because the translations are accurate and literal. Another choice could be The Declaration of Human Rights, which also exists in many languages.

The best is to get a recorded version of the text so you can listen at the same time you are reading.

Then read the text out loud to yourself. And I really mean it - and do make all possible mistakes. If you don’t move your mouth and make sounds you do not learn as efficiently.

I am sure you have met small children and noticed that at first there were some sounds they could not make in the beginning and they sound very cute. They continue to speak despite this fact and so should you.

By the way, it is a big mistake to start speaking the same way as the small child. Speak properly and slowly, please! If you show up your big ugly face next to them and start “doo-leel-do” it is no wonder they become frustrated and start to scream and throw things around themselves. They must think “here is another idiot who cannot speak properly - take him away from me!”

Being able to write is still another level and the only way again is to practice a lot. Now is the proper time to start to study the grammar and the structure of the language you are learning.

It is valuable to study common mistakes. If you have an English background and is learning Spanish you are bound to make some typical errors and learning the most common ones will help you a lot.

Good luck with your studies!

Rolf

It is certainly very important to have a good vocabulary in any language. It is quite obvious, is it not - when one starts thinking about it - that this is the way you learned your native language. Your mother and father were were talking to you starting with simple words like eye, mouth, nose - often pointing to them and touching you as well. - They hardly started by speaking to you about grammar .

Learning words makes it possible for you to have an understanding of what is going on. However, it is not enough to have you speak yourself.

In order to do that you simply need to practice. It is like playing golf or tennis. You do not become a master unless you play a lot.

A good way to practice is to take a text you know well and read it in the language you are learning.

It is important to make a good choice though. If you take a novel the language might be different from ordinary speech.

You could for instance choose the New Testament because the translations are accurate and literal. Another choice could be The Declaration of Human Rights, which also exists in many languages.

The best is to get a recorded version of the text so you can listen at the same time you are reading.

Then read the text out loud to yourself. And I really mean it - and do make all possible mistakes. If you don’t move your mouth and make sounds you do not learn as efficiently.

I am sure you have met small children and noticed that at first there were some sounds they could not make in the beginning and they sound very cute. They continue to speak despite this fact and so should you.

By the way, it is a big mistake to start speaking the same way as the small child. Speak properly and slowly, please! If you show up your big ugly face next to them and start “doo-leel-do” it is no wonder they become frustrated and start to scream and throw things around themselves. They must think “here is another idiot who cannot speak properly - take him away from me!”

Being able to write is still another level and the only way again is to practice a lot. Now is the proper time to start to study the grammar and the structure of the language you are learning.

It is valuable to study common mistakes. If you have an English background and is learning Spanish you are bound to make some typical errors and learning the most common ones will help you a lot.

Good luck with your studies!

Rolf

One of the big difficulties of learning a language is the acquisition of sufficient amounts of vocabulary to enable one a big enough repertoire of words to understand what is being said, and to be understood when saying something.

Language trainers such as Berlitz - as quoted in the book the Learning Revolution, say that one can only absorb about 20 to 30 words a day when learning a new language.

However, by incorporating the techniques taught by memory experts a UK based company, exceltra, has devised an intensive computer based training program that enables students to learn hundreds of words per day. In fact they even call their speedy language software programs - 200 Words a Day!

Memory experts can remember long lists of items - in sequence - by using the techniques of visualisation. They visualise a mental movie of a silly scene that reminds them of the thing they are trying to remember. So to remember the word in French for dog, which is chien, they get you to imagine a dog on a CHAIN.

The exceltra software takes this technique, and adds a cartoon picture of the scene, to make it more memorable. Of course it is more detailed than this, as the whole 1,000 words in each of their courses are presented with voice - native language speakers, with pictures, with text. And the student can then test himself or herself with all the scores recorded etc etc.

Is 200 words a day a realistic target? Indeed it is for a student that is prepared to put in the hours, and put in 8-10 lessons a day of 15 minutes each…

All one’s progress is recorded as is every minute spent on lessons or tests!

The courses also prompt the user to review the lessons at what the learning experts call ‘optimum learning intervals’. Learning experts say that one should be exposed to something 7 times before it is firmly embedded in the long term memory and subconscious. So the courses remind the user to review any learned lesson, after a day, a week, month, quarter and also after a year. The review after a day is particularly important because by this stage the brain has had time to process the information overnight.

If one is practising the words learned by actually speaking them in conversation, the need for review at these optimum learning intervals is covered by this.

Brain Works is about brains. Advances and findings about brain research, about learning, memory, recall and anything of that nature. Superlearning, accelerated learning, alpha brainwaves, brain massages. Yup, that’s brain-works. 

Brain Works is all about the brain, and using it.