COGNITIVE FACTORS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

How Can Teachers Strengthen Cognitive Factors in Foreign Language Learning?

    

     Foreign language teachers know from their experience that some students learn a new language more quickly and easily than others. Clearly, some language learners are successful because of their determination, hard work and persistence. However, there are other crucial factors that influence success in learning a foreign language. According to Rubin (1981), there are cognitive factors such as verbal intelligence, phonological processing ability, and long term memory capacity, which strongly influence the students’ capacity to learn a second or foreign language. In order to enhance these cognitive factors, teachers must assist learners with the appropriate strategies, so that they can achieve both their cognitive ability and learning goals.

     First, verbal intelligence is one of the cognitive factors that have to do with words, written and spoken. Howard Gardner (1993) stated that there are multiple intelligences, but people usually tend to use one or two for the most effective learning. His theory proposes that there are at least eight other kinds of intelligence that are equally important in the learning process. Pedagogically speaking, foreign language teachers can help students enhance their verbal intelligence by using the following activities:

     ·         listening to formal and informal speaking

     ·         Oral or silent reading, writing, narrating stories, sequels, poems, drama, jokes,      descriptions,   news reports

     ·         Encouraging debates, declamations, impromptu speech (on current affairs, life, practically everything)

     ·         Starting a newsletter, magazine, Journals

     ·         Conducting mock interviews, chat shows, role plays, dramas, story telling 

     ·         Solve puzzles, crosswords, vocabulary games, tongue twisters

     ·         Preparing and giving presentations 

     ·         Creating slogans, defense, case studies, etc.

     ·         Initiating vocabulary banks

 

     Second, phonological processing ability is another cognitive factor learners must strengthen when learning a foreign language. Listening is a skill that foreign language learners must develop, so it is important they get the appropriate knowledge of phonology in order to hear, understand, interpret, and produce sounds particular to the target language. Some language theorists point out that teachers can help their learners  grasp the basics of phonology by listening to authentic material such as videos, music (lyrics, songs, and karaoke), dialogues and conversations, as well as tongue twisters, dictation exercises, and spelling bees. Nonetheless, Dimitry Slomov states that learners must focus on pronunciation drills in order to get the correct native accent. Due to this fact, students need an audio recording and an audio recorder by themselves as well as a transcript. After listening the language, it is suggested to repeat phrase by phrase and then to record it. The idea is that learners pay attention to the intonation of the language, so they simulate the foreign language in the same way native people do.

    

    

     Third, it is important to highlight that one of the main goals when learning a foreign language is to memorize as much vocabulary as possible, so as to convey messages. In order to facilitate memorizing and further usage of a word, a phrase or a grammar structure learners should understand its similarities and differences from another word or structure that they already know (Slomov,2012:13). On account of this fact, there is an association between the new word and already known words or sounds, where the new word will get attached to a certain meaning. Slomov also explains that learners need to invent audible similarities which are to be found in similarly pronounced words from their native language, and then they link them to the target word, by means of inventing some situation. This is what is called mnemonics. For instance, you may make the association between žena in Slovac which means ´woman´ and the spanish word ´llena´( which is ´full´in English ). They sound similar and learners can imagine a woman with a big brain and full of ideas .  

     Nonetheless, learners are recommended to use mnemonics just at the beginning of their foreign language learning. A drawback of this strategy is that it can impede the development of speaking skills since learners can only get used with creating images in their minds. Another strategy useful to enhance long term memory is to associate objects, situations, and qualities to a real context. For instance, the word sightseeing can be connected to the word vacation. In this way, vocabulary will be remembered easily because new words are related to a specific topic.

     To conclude, language improvement is possible thanks to the opportunities language learners are given every time they are under the guidance of a language teacher. In addition to this, there are important factors in foreign language learning such as cognitive factors that teachers should be aware of, and in doing so, they are to be respectful and understanding that language learning is a hard endeavor.

 

References

      ·         Rubin, J. (1981). Study of cognitive processes in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 2, 117-31

·       Gardner, H. (1993). Intelligence and intelligences: Universal principles and individual differences. Archives de Psychologie, 61, 169–172

      ·         The Encyclopedia of Informal   Education,http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

      ·         Slomov, D.(2012). How to Master Successfully any language of the World. www.free-ebooks.net/tos.html.