Questions concerning the Application of Neurolinguistic Research to Second Language Learning/Teaching

Abstract

My two colleagues, Genesee and Seliger, have done an admirable job summarizing the ever-growing neurolinguistic research of second language acquisition and have described the neuroanatomical, experimental, and clinical evidence for the ways in which the brain is related to language comprehension and production, especially in bilinguals. They have focused in particular on the role of the right hemisphere (RH), a relatively new interest in neurolinguistics. If I understand their viewpoints correctly, they are telling us that we should approach neurolinguistic research with care and that we should be as prudent as possible in our attempts to apply the findings from the field of brain research to our daily classroom situations as language teachers. This circumspect approach is well justified, but it is certainly not novel. We have surveyed a field in the throes of almost frenetic experimental activity. Development has been so rapid that there has been little time for stock-taking. There are so many things to do, so many facts to gather, so many experiments to be confirmed or which require additional controls that, for the moment, it it seems wiser to be wary of far-reaching conclusions. Much more has been discovered of what has to be learned than has emerged as firmly established knowledge. Although 'listening in' on the activity of single nerve cells has provided some fascinating glimpses into neural interaction, the mechanism of that interaction still strangely evades detection. (Morrell 1961:483) These apprehensions were voiced over two decades ago, but the plea for caution and stock-taking are as relevant for the eighties as they were for the sixties. It is in the same spirit that I will attempt to express my concerns about the applications of neurolinguistic research to second language learning and teaching, by citing some recent studies which encourage the possibility of overextrapolation by language teachers. Then I would like to raise four questions about brain research and its application to second language pedagogy. In brief, I am highly critical of any direct application of neurolinguistic research to foreign language teaching, just as applied linguists of a generation ago were correctly suspicious of direct applications of the then comparatively new science of linguistics to second language instruction (Bolinger 1972, Krohn 1971). It is not necessary to employ either linguistic models or neurolinguistic research to justify