Author Gaetan Lee . Tilt corrected by Kaldari. CC From Wiki |
If you've seen my IATEFL talk, you'll know that someone asked why I didn't include 'left brained/right brained' teaching. Well, as I mentioned then, one of the reasons is that Philip had already done a pretty thorough job of critiquing it. Unfortunately the article in question was not available online, -until now that is!
Left brain / right brain differences in ELT
If you ever go
to ELT conferences or read
magazines for language teachers, you will probably have come across references
to the differences between left and right brains. For example, at the 2006 TESOL
France Colloquium, Rita Baker gave a presentation entitled ‘The Global Approach to Understanding English Tenses’, the abstract for which says that ‘the Global
Approach is a 'whole brain', visual and kinaesthetic way of teaching and
learning, starting with the 'big picture' (right brain) so that the 'details'
(left brain) can be understood in context.’ An article by Larry Lynch (2007),entitled ‘Using Right and Left Brain Activities in English Language Teaching and Learning’, describes the importance of developing the different skills and
abilities located on either side of the brain. One best-selling international
coursebook (Cunningham & Moor, 2005) offers a quiz for students that asks
them to consider whether they are left or right brained. The examples I have
given here are purely illustrative: a quick internet search will bring up many,
many more.
Many, but certainly
not all, of the references to left / right brain differences in the discourse
of ELT are to be found in texts
associated with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) or Brain Gym. On the British
Council / BBC website, Teaching
English, for example, there is an article by Steve Darn, (2005), ‘Neuro
Linguistic Programming in ELT ’,
which explains that NLP ‘encompasses or is related to 'left / right brain' functions’. The online magazine,
Humanising Language Teaching, contains an article by Tom Maguire (2002) about Brain Gym, which he describes as a holistic approach to learning that ‘enables
students to find an equilibrium between both sides of the brain and the body’.
Lynch (2007)
provides a brief summary of the left brain / right brain issue for ELT practitioners. Learners can be categorised as
predominantly left-brained (number skills, written language, reasoning, spoken
language, scientific thought) or right-brained (insight, three dimensional, art
/ visual / images, imagination, music). More generally, it is implied that left-brained
individuals are rational, linear (boring and male); right-brained individuals
are typically intuitive, emotional, creative (fun and female). By extension,
classroom activities can be categorised in the same way so that particular
activities will particularly suit a learner of left (e.g. using lists) or
right-sided (e.g. singing) lateralisation. The significance of these
differences is that schools, and the activities that take place within them,
tend to bias the left brain, thus disadvantaging certain types of individual.
The popular history of left brain / right brain differences
The interest
of educationalists in brain lateralization (the functional differences between
the two cortical hemispheres) dates back to the 1960s when Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga conducted research into epileptic patients who had had their
corpus callosum (an area of white matter that connects the hemispheres) cut. It
was observed in such patients that certain cognitive functions could be
attributed to one or other of the hemispheres. Their findings were rapidly
picked up on by others, and, in 1972, Robert Ornstein published his massively
influential ‘The Psychology of Consciousness’. In this book, he argued that
education needed to place greater emphasis on the more creative, intuitive
functions of the right brain. Other, even more popular, books, including Betty
Edwards’ ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ soon followed. At the same
time, NLP and Superlearning® (both of which drew on ideas about ‘whole brain’
learning) began to take off in educational and management circles. Corballis
(2007: 293 ff.) provides a useful, short history of the evolution of right /
left brain ideas in popular consciousness. From a combination of these sources,
ideas about brain lateralization have found their way into the discourse of ELT .
There is, however,
a problem with the application of these ideas to education. The idea that
people can be categorised as predominantly left brained or right brained is a
myth. As Dörnyei (2009: 49) puts it, this idea is ‘simplistic at best and utter
hogwash at worst.’ Dörnyei uses strong words, perhaps because of the widespread
acceptance of such a myth in the world of education and language teaching, in
particular. It is, he believes, very unfortunate, ‘that the aspect of brain
research that has most succeeded in filtering through to the wider domain of
public knowledge [i.e. left brain –right brain discrepancies] is a highly
problematic, and a somewhat outdated, area of cognitive neuroscience.’ His view
is shared by Usha Goswami at the Centre for Neuroscience in Education,
University of Cambridge, who describes the ‘current gulf between neuroscience
and education’ (2006: 406), a gulf that is filled with ‘packages and programmes
claiming to be based on brain science’ but are actually full of ‘neuromyths’.
Academics such
as Dörnyei and Goswami may be justified in their irritation with the durability
of these myths. Almost thirty years ago, Michael Corballis (1983) drew
attention to the popular misunderstanding of what researchers refer to as
hemispheric specialization. ‘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 behaviors and modes of thinking require
both hemispheres working together.’ (Hampson, 1994) 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 idea that the left
brain is rational and analytic or that the right brain is intuitive and
suggestive is not a scientific idea: it is pop psychology or pseudo-science. As
it is scientifically meaningless to talk about left-brained or right-brained
learners, it is correspondingly meaningless to talk about classroom activities
that favour one particular side of the brain or that contribute to
inter-cerebral communication.
The power of metaphor
The fact that
we do not use only one side of our brains to be either intuitive or analytical
does not, of course, mean that some people are not generally more or less
intuitive or analytical than others. There is nothing wrong with contrasting
intuitive insights with rational ones. Learner differences exist, and the idea
that we should adapt our teaching to our individual learners is neither new nor
contentious. The problem is how we categorise these differences, and there is
no research-based consensus on how we should go about this. If there is
agreement on anything, it is that individual differences are not absolute and
context-independent (Dörnyei, 2005: 218): such differences are situated in
particular contexts.
This is,
frankly, unfortunate. It would be nice to have a way of categorising learners
(e.g. into left and right brains, or into visual / auditory and kinaesthetic,
or into one of Gardner ’s
‘multiple intelligences’) and then to devise learning programmes and activities
that addressed their different needs. It is unfortunate, too, in that those
people who argue that we should move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to
teaching have a very valid point. Teaching does tend to be excessively rational,
atomistic and analytic, and would almost certainly benefit from a more
emotionally-rich and holistic approach. The people who talk about left brains
and right brains offer us pegs on which we can hang our cultural preconceptions
(Corballis, 2007: 300) and their ideas resonate in very positive ways. The left
/ right brain metaphor is comforting (Sternberg, 2008: 419) and may be useful
in correcting some of the problems in our approaches to teaching.
Unfortunately, it is only a metaphor.
It has sometimes
been argued that we should judge theories by their transformative potential,
rather than the extent to which they can be subjected to empirical testing.
Should we worry if left brain / right brain ideas are actually hare-brained …
so long as they lead to improvements in the real world? Perhaps not, but there
is a deep problem when writers like Lynch or Maguire co-opt the language of
science in order to confer a spurious scientific respectability on their ideas.
Their practical suggestions may be good, but their cause is not advanced by
appeals to pseudo-science. It may be the case that, at some point in the
future, science will unequivocally legitimize some of these practical
suggestions. However, as Sternberg (2008: 419) points out, we are not there
yet. Importantly, too, there is a very substantial literature, going back
almost three decades, that cautions educators against jumping to conclusions.
To ignore such literature is surely to lose the right to call oneself an
educator.
For teachers
who are interested in the relationship between neuroscience and education, the
website of the University
of Cambridge ’s Centre for
Neuroscience in Education may make a useful starting point http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/neuroscience/ . Alternatively the books by Blakemore & Frith (2005) or the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2002) will provide
intelligent and informed reading. For a brief no-nonsense summary of
educational principles that can be derived from research in neuroscience,
Christison (2002) is also useful. Developments in this field are fast and
furious. They deserve our respect and interest. The crude simplification of
insights from this research in order to sell us a coursebook, an interactive
whiteboard or a teacher training course deserves our contempt.
References and further reading
Blakemore, S.J. & U. Frith (2005) The Learning Brain:
Lessons for Education. Oxford :
Blackwell
Bruer, J.T. (1999) In
Search of …Brain-Based Education Phi
Delta Kappan Vol. 80 / 9
Calvin, W.H. (1991) The Throwing Madonna: Essays on the Brain New York : Bantam
Christison, M. (2002)
Brain-based research and language teaching English
Teaching Forum April 2002 pp. 2 –
7
Corballis, M. C. (1983) Human Laterality New York : Academic Press
Corballis, M. C. (2007)
The dual-brain myth. In Tall Tales about
the Mind and Brain Ed. Della Sala, S. Oxford :
Oxford University Press pp. 291 – 313
Cunningham, S.
& Moor, P. (2005) New Cutting Edge
Upper Intermediate. Harlow : Pearson
Longman
Darn, S. (2005) Neuro
Linguistic Programming in ELT http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/neuro-linguistic-programming-elt
Dörnyei, Z. (2005) The Psychology of the Language Learner. Mahwah , NJ :
Lawrence
Erlbaum
Dörnyei, Z. (2009) The Psychology of Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford :
Oxford University Press
Edwards, B. (1999). The
New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. New York: Tarcher
Goswami, U. (2006) Neuroscience
and education: from research to practice? Nature
Reviews Neuroscience 7 pp. 406-413
Hampson, E. (1994) Left
Brain, Right Brain: Fact and Fiction Organization
for Quality Education Newsletter, December 1994 http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/newsletter/archives/left.pdf
Lynch, L. M. (2007) Using
Right and Left Brain Activities in English Language Teaching and Learning Ezine Articles http://ezinearticles.com/?Using-Right-and-Left-Brain-Activities-in-English-Language-Teaching-and-Learning&id=833921
Maguire, T. Brain Gym® Humanising Language Teaching Year 4
Issue 3 http://www.hltmag.co.uk/may02/mart3.htm
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2002) Understanding the
Brain: Towards a New Learning Science
Ornstein, R. E. (1972) The Psychology of Consciousness. San Francisco : Freeman
Sternberg, R.S. (2008) The
Answer Depends on the Question: A Reply to Eric Jensen Phi Delta Kappan, February 2008 pp.418 - 420
Willingham, D.T. (2006)
‘Brain-based learning: More fiction than fact’ American Educator Fall. (available online at http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/fall2006/willingham.cfm)