1st INTERNATIONAL SEMMINAR IN RESEARCH METHODOLOGY OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

I would like beginning my comments about the semminar focus on the importance to carry out this important academic events and to have the possibility to participate as in this good semminar carried out at the UPTC. We have the possiblity not only to see a variety gamme of interventions but also different points of view not just to consider but also to feel  the research process. I could conclude that the research desire cannot be imposed, it is a deeply interest of the teacher to understand a phenomena; to reflect about his/her own field and job, to tray to change something based on theories and experiences and to evaluate them into daily practice looking for a kind of improvement of his/her professional development and learning processes. 

This motivation for research comes out form daily work experiences in the classroom, with students, while performing and activity, with the results of a process, when you share experiences with colleagues, something that happens and makes you ask or being curios on that, something that is not functioning, something that happens and you don´t have explanations to understand what is behind that situation. 

There are still many things to discover through research, because everything what happens to a student or a teacher in a context, it is a unique oportunity to discover and to learn something. That experience won´t be repeated again, since we are working with individuals, one completely different to the other. How different humans beigns are and for that reason, how different we think, we communicate, we express, we behave, we understand and we produce. There are many topics to learn and to research trough our classes. however, in some of the cases, teachers limit themselves. For example, when they do not consider themselves able to do or to guide a research practice, to make some changes, to learn, to discover and probably, to unlearn. Unfortunately, most of the times teacher realizes that there is something happening but the doubt dies or it is just leaved behind.

Finally, everything begins only with our desire to clarify and to comprehend a real situation. more than our task it is our commitment as educators, not just with the society, or our schools but with each one of the valuable students we are privileged to meet and to share with in our classes. Just some few changes can make the difference and each teacher needs to comprehend it. 

SOME REFLECTIONS BASED ON A WONDERFUL MOVIE : AWAKENINGS

This movie came to my life when I really needed to reflect on how beautiful or trivial can be life for people. It depends on how you face up it and the attitude you assume in front of the great and small things it has, but also, with some troubles we can find in our ways.  It is impossible not to feel touch by the history of this doctor, and of course, the life of his patient Leonard.  

You visualize yourself in the other side of the way looking at many students, who seem to be highlighted or abandoned by the society. Those children and adolescent who don´t keep on the standards that society impose to be considered as normal or well behaved. Those parameters, that we also as teachers use to identify if a student deserves to be taking into account or being considered as a “problem”,  when probably, we are the real obstacles for them. As human beings we are all different, no matter if we come from to the same family and had the same kind of education. We cannot be considered as a homogenous multitude, but sometimes   that´s the way we look at, teach, direct and evaluate them, as a group not as an individual. In fact, we are able to categorize them according to our desired categories, comparing who’s better than one, who finishes faster than the other, who comprehends easier, who brings, who does, who participates, and so on.  Our mind is limited because we establish those limits.

However, education is a right for everyone; it is not a privilege for some students considered as “intelligent” because they get good scores in an exam or can remember a lesson. It should be focused on those people who have some limitations for doing or performing certain kind of things.  For people who needs our help to understand the world but also to discover who they are and to feel proud of what makes them unique.

In many classrooms are students who don´t feel motivated to go to school for the great adventure of discovering knowledge, but interested in other things such as: having lunch, meeting people, playing with their friends, just for family pressure or because they want to escape from the sadness and violence of their homes. But, most of the times, we don´t go beyond of the formal relation of the teacher and the student- The relationship between the “wise” and the “unaware”, the “full of knowledge” and the “empty box”-; Our main role is not as transistors but as educators.

 We have one of the most (if it is not the most) amazing, powerful and important professions and it is our duty to assume a real commitment to help people to change their conceptions of the world towards a better life and relationship among humans and nature. The doctor asked in the movie: “what are those patients waiting for?” and I am now asking myself “what are my students waiting for?” and “what are other students waiting for?” our knowledge and efforts should be directed to do our job  better each day.

I remembered a comment made by a teacher during a teachers´ meeting, where there were assigned the directions of some projects to some teachers of the school. She said “I am here for dictating a class not for planning, orienting and carring out projects”. How wrong some teachers were when they chose their profession. We are in schools because we are privileged of helping others and we enjoy it, sharing the small things we know trough a meaningful process which must be constantly changing, not just for reaching what we want, or government desires or society imposes, but also recognizing each human being important and unique.  As doctor´s final reflection argues “The human experience is more powerful than any drug and that’s what needs to be nurtured”

WHAT COULD LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LANGUAGE TEACHING BENEFIT FROM NEUROLINGUISTIC STUDIES?

Neurolinguistic studies are completely necessary to understand how language is processed and constructed in our brains. However, the complexity  and wonder of human brain makes that an aphotheosis meaningful which effort to understand it from different disciplines: physicholinguistic, cognitive neuroscience, medicine  and experiential physichology. Those findings are important to comprehend, to plan, to create, to apply, to reflect, to redirect, to evaluate and to direct a succesful process of   language learning and language teaching, since each step must be planned on the basis of a strong theory which supports the actions and made desicions. 

SOMETING ABOUT FOXP2

How important is for human beings to understand how language was produced as a magic conjure inside our brains. Nobody is coconscious about where, when, how and who makes that possible but everyone enjoys and uses it. In spite of animals whose brains seems to be squeezed to evolution while humans brains have given giant steps in advanced, for example developing our speech ability.

Probably it was a gift given by a superior force, probably humans were equipped with special devises to acquire it unconsciously, but probably the responsible of this incredible and perfect process is Foxp2 gene. This gene and protein is directly related to speech human development. According to Enard (2002) foxpo2 molecular evolution is directly implied with language and speech.

However, scientists have found that this gene can be presented in all mammals, because they have discovered a similar gene that controls other organs in their bodies, which is also presented in humans’ lungs and guts and in specific areas of their brains. What it is true is the fact that a genetic modification was needed to adapt biologically human beings for producing language, as in their phonological system as in their brains. Researchers have found that Neanderthals had that gene presented in their genetics but it has to produce several modifications during human evolution.