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The Brain Studies Boom: Using Neuroscience in ESL/EFL Teacher Training
Chapter · March 2017

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in Innovative Practices in Language Teacher Education: Spanning the Spectrum from
Intra- to Interpersonal Professional Development (Springer) pp 79-102
The Brain Studies Boom: Using Neuroscience in ESL/EFL Teacher Training
Curtis Kelly (EdD)
Abstract: Neuroscience is changing the world, yet barely ours. Still, we need it.
Innovative teacher training requires giving learners access to the amazing things
neuroscience is discovering about learning and language, complex neurological
processes. This chapter will discuss ways non-experts can incorporate neuroscience in
their teacher-training syllabi, and give teacher trainers a short course in key
neuroscientific breakthroughs. The topics include: a) prevalent neuromyths; b) how
learning, memory, and attention work; c) the role of sleep; d) embodied simulation; e)
the power of stories; f) the need for movement; and g ) stress as a teaching tool. While
neuroscience might not give us new teaching methods, it explains the processes
underlying those we use.
Should neuroscience be incorporated into the teacher-training curriculum?
Ignore this question. It is not the important one. Adding neuroscience, since it is related to everything
a teacher does in the classroom, is a necessary innovation for teacher training. In fact, most teachers
already know this: Ansari (2005) found nine out of ten teachers felt their understanding of
neuroscience influences their practice. In a study on teacher beliefs, Zambo and Zambo (2011) found
that the majority of primary and secondary level teachers they surveyed held strong beliefs that
neuroscience is important for educators to know. In participant words, “Findings from neuroscience
provides us with what we need to do our job.” Or, “Neuroscience should be taught to every teacher
and every parent in every school” (p. 30). These teachers were already seeking out information
themselves. Most of the remainder also believed neuroscience was important, but were worried about
unsupported claims by entrepreneurs (and rightly so).
In our particular field, language learning, the potential neuroscience offers is even greater. How can
we understand the complex neurological processes of “language” or “learning,” without it? The
traditional sciences, Linguistics and Psychology, have tried, but only through speculation on what can
be seen from the outside. Neuroscience takes us inside, and in addition to unraveling these mysteries,
provides us with insights on many more: attention, motivation, engagement, developmental change,
logical processing, emotion, sensory input, character formation, learning disorders, and so on. As
teacher trainers, we are finally becoming able to take that huge spotlight off the English language
itself, as informed by Linguistics, and shine it on a previously dark area: what is happening inside the
learner.
That said, neuroscience might make us better teachers, but it will not cause a revolution in teaching
for two reasons: First, most of what neuroscience informs us of does not represent radical change.
Most findings just support what we already knew, things like: personalization increases attention,
sleep and exercise are necessary for good mental functioning, and adding a little humor or novelty
gets attention. We know these from training, experience, and especially, intuition, but intuition is hard
to defend. As a result, we tend to undervalue these all-important principles of learning and give
priority to more concrete aspects of teaching, whether those are things like explaining verb tenses or
getting the chapter done. Neuroscience explains the specific mechanics of those intuitions. It gives us
the science for those things from the dark area that we have always known, but resisted trusting.
1
The second reason neuroscience will not cause a revolution is because it is having a hard time getting
into teacher training1. The lack of information transfer seems to mimic the blood-brain barrier.
Neuroscience gives us a better picture of how things happen in the brain, but it cannot comment
specifically on our teaching methods. As Anna Simmonds (2014) writes:
…many neuroscientists emphasise the potential of their research to improve education,

although they rarely have the impetus or educational or methodological expertise to
translate their findings into practical education interventions. Likewise, many
educators are interested in how neuroscience might advance their practice, but few are
equipped to judge the best approaches to take. (p.1)
Add to that, confusion as to where neuroscience should be placed. Should it be taught in the
Linguistics course, Psychology course, Education course, Teacher-training course, or in a course of its
own? As result, neuroscience tends to get left out of the program altogether.
I cannot tell you how many times I have met teachers frustrated by the lack of neuroscience in their
TESL graduate programs. One experienced educator, Robert Murphy, was so perturbed by TESL
graduate offerings that he took courses in Harvard’s Mind, Brain, and Education program instead, and
then set up his own conferences on neuroELT in Japan. Robert and teachers with similar frustrations,
including three authors writing in this book (myself, Marc Helgesen and Tim Murphey), used that
platform to teach each other about the intersection of brain studies and language teaching.
In another example, a search through the 700 presentations offered at TESOL 2014 in Portland using
“brain” or “neuroscience” produced only two results. One was on elementary school teaching and
just offered the basics, how neurons work, etc., while the other was the presentation I did with Marc
Helgesen (author of chapter xxx) on making a textbook more brain friendly. The lack of
presentations though, did not show a lack of interest. Our presentation was packed, with people
standing in the aisles.
Of course, the absence of neuroscience in teacher training programs is changing, and the Mind, Brain,
and Education Science movement is gaining speed, but I would like to ask readers to do the
following: Look at the courses offered in your school and see how many are dedicated to, or even
contain, neuroscience. If so, are they courses dealing with recent findings in neuroscience or older
ideas that existed before the huge advances neuroscience made in the last 20 years? For example,
most TESL programs have classes in second language acquisition. One of the most popular textbooks,
Ortega’s Understanding Second Language Acquisition, provides a range of theories from Linguistics,
but I couldn’t find anything in it from neuroscientific fields like cognitive neuroscience. What might
be the most potent theory about how the brain processes language, embodied simulation was not
included in Ortega’s book, but not through any fault of her own. Embodied cognition, neural reuse,
interoception, and other powerful theories in neuroscience did not exist, or were generally unknown,
at the time her otherwise excellent book was written. Considering the time it takes to write, publish,
and market a textbook, and then have it adopted into the mainstream, it is virtually impossible for
teacher training materials to be less than five years out of date, which represents an epoch in
neuroscience time.

1
This is not to say that language researchers are not aware of the importance of neuroscience.
Linguists like John Schumann and George Lakoff have made great contributions to the neurobiology
of language and the way the brain processes it. Nonetheless, their work has not yet had much impact
on teacher training.
2
In short, getting back to the important question, it is not whether or not we should incorporate
neuroscience in the curriculum. We should. The question is “How?” We are suddenly facing a boom
of information on the brain, but as the TESOL Conference example shows, most of us are hesitant to
try to teach it to each other. While we realize neuroscience is important, most teacher trainers do not
feel qualified in this area. However, as Judy Willis points out, this is not the first time we have faced
this kind of challenge. Educators have faced other sudden developments, such as computers, and
quickly turned them into classroom assets (2012). This is generally done by figuring out how to
utilize those developments by ourselves. So why not neuroscience? Teaching neuroscience might be
a little scary, the way teaching learning disabilities is, but in this case, worrying about qualifications
might be the greater danger. With our limited expertise, it is almost certain that we will make errors,
but providing the next generation of teachers with blemished information is far better than not
providing anything at all. So let us approach this task the same way we did with computers: No one is
going to do it for us, so let us do it ourselves.
How to incorporate neuroscience in your program
There are two ways to add neuroscience to a teacher training curriculum. The instructor can become a
subject matter expert, or instead, use the less daunting approach of inquiry-based learning.
Becoming a subject matter expert is not as hard as it might seem. Compared to ten years ago, the
quality of what the media provides is far better and more up to date. There is still a tendency for the
popular media or commercial operations to overuse the words “brain” and “neuroscience,” when in
many cases, the ideas they are trying to sell came out of other fields: Education, Psychology and
Linguistics. Many of their claims are dubious as well, but gaining a little expertise makes a bogus
claim easy to spot, and the validity of any claim is easy to check with a simple search.2
Since I spend a lot of time commuting, my favorite source on neuroscience is “Brain Science with
Ginger Campbell,” previously known as the “Brain Science Podcast.” She has over a hundred hour-
long interviews on a full range of topics with leading neuroscientists. Most of the interviews are on
theories in books they have recently written, and so you can get the basics of their research area in a
single program. Since the shows are interviews, the ideas and research interests of that particular
neuroscientist are even more up to date than the related book, an important feature in the rapidly
changing world of neuroscience. For a comprehensive understanding, though not exhaustive (in both
senses of the word), I suggest starting podcasts like these.
Teachers who do not have time to become subject matter specialists themselves might try an inquiry-
based approach with their learners. Having teacher trainees study key topics in neuroscience and
teaching each other (see Murphey chapter) is not only a fast and simple way to add neuroscience, it
also utilizes an approach that fits adult learning styles (Mezirow, 1981). You can either use a pure
inquiry-based approach, where your learners generate questions themselves, or use a problem-based
approach with pre-determined topics. The pure inquiry-based approach might elicit a list of topics
more closely connected to your learners’ particular needs, but they might also miss some of the more
important ones outside their range of knowledge. If you use set topics, here is a list you can choose
from, but be sure to add the new topics that are bound to emerge between the time I write this and the
time you read it.

2 Suggestion: Watch Molly Crockett’s TED Talk: “Beware Neuro-bunk.” Available at:
https://www.ted.com/talks/molly_crockett_beware_neuro_bunk?language=en
3
What is brain-based teaching? Why does personalization work?
How do neurons work? Why are stories so effective?
How do we encode memories and how is How is spaced repetition effective?

memory faulty?
Why is novelty so powerful and how can we use
What are the key factors of learning? it?
What role does sleep play in learning? What is stress?
How does the brain process language through What do neurotransmitters like dopamine,
embodied simulation? oxytocin, and cortisol do?
What is neuroplasticity and neural reuse? What is the neuroscience of reward and
motivation?
What parts of the brain are used for thinking,
feeling and language processing? What role does exercise play in brain function?
How does the brain do reading? What are learning disabilities and their
symptoms?
What are the executive functions and how do
they relate to skills and character? What happens in the brain during critical (or
sensitive) periods?
How does a baby learn the phonetic system of its
language? How did the brain develop language, our latest
greatest success?
How does the brain develop from childhood until
adulthood? What are cognition-enhancing drugs?
What role does emotion play in cognition and

learning?
Neuroscience also addresses some conflicts in our field, such as: does stress aid or hinder learning?
Do happy or pressured students learn more? Are repetition or discovery approaches effective? Does
praise help or hurt? Is there really a critical age or not? Interestingly, the answer to each of these
questions is a simple “yes,” even the ones with either-or opposites.
A few key topics related to language teaching

Whatever approach one might use to add neuroscience to the curriculum, there are a few
areas of research that one probably should become familiar with beforehand. They are:
1) Countering neuromyths
2) Learning, memory, and attention
3) No sleep, no learning
4) Embodied simulation
4
5) The power of stories

6) You gotta move it, move it
7) Stress as a teaching tool
The information I will provide on these topics comes from research done in various brain
sciences, including psychology and education, not just neuroscience. Neuroscience usually
works hand in hand with the more traditional sciences.

Topic 1: Countering “neuromyths”
The term “neuromyth” is used to explain mistaken ideas teachers have about the brain. Calling a
belief a “myth” has a tinge of condescension, especially since many of these notions were based on
sound science at the time they emerged. Nonetheless, a number of papers have been written on this
topic and indeed, there are some seriously outdated ideas that teachers still subscribe to. A recent
survey in the UK, Turkey, Holland, Greece and China (Howard-Jones et al, 2009) found that most
teachers still believe a few key neuromyths. This is no surprise, since neuroscience is advancing so
rapidly, but it is nonetheless a problem teacher trainers need to attend to. The most important
neuromyths are as follows:
1) There are right-brained/left-brained people (believed by 70% of the surveyed teachers)
There is no evidence that a person is right-brained, and thus better in the arts, or left-brained, and
better at logic. Make no mistake, different people have different strengths in arts or logic, and the
brain hemispheres have areas with different functions, but no evidence exists showing that we use one
side or the other for these skills. We use both sides all the time. Nonetheless, hemispheric differences
do exist. According to neuroscientist Bud Craig, (Campbell, 2015a) animal research suggests the left
side is connected to calm, energy-saving, affiliative behavior, and routine things. The right side is
more connected to the sudden, excitatory, such as change, novelty, and predator evasion. Since the
right side must be ever vigilant, it takes over whenever a “What’s that?” encounter occurs, especially
those stimulating an emotional response. You can see it in action when a late student walks in the
door (sudden & novel) in the middle of your lecture (routine & calm). Everyone’s heads, including
yours, turn towards the door. That said, most brain functions, including language, seem to be
distributed across both hemispheres. Whereas language is still associated with the left hemisphere,
many neuroscientists are questioning to what degree this is true. An emerging view is that processing
is less localized and lateralized than we previously thought, and it is more diffuse. The strength of the
bias towards modularity seems to be an artifact produced by the limitations of split brain and fMRI
studies (Aron et al.,2007; Anderson, 2010). Whatever the degree of specialization between the two
hemispheres, it might be good advice to describe people as being “better at this or that,” rather than
being “right” or “left brained.”
2) Students learn better if we teach to their visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or tactile (VAKT)
learning styles. (believed by 96% of the surveyed teachers)
The belief that we should use different approaches to teach visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners
pervaded education at the beginning of this century, but it has not been borne out by research (Pashler
et al, 2008). Indeed, that people perceive themselves as having different skills or study preferences is
not disputed, but that alone does not imply that optimal instruction for a student should fit that
preference. The notion that educators can optimize learning by matching content delivery to these
styles is not supported; in some cases, contrary evidence exists. In a way, that makes sense, since the
best means of delivery usually depends on the content itself.
5
3) We only use 10% of our brains. (believed by about half the teachers surveyed)
It is astounding this notion still persists. It dates back over a hundred years, and was the basis for the
silly 2014 Morgan Freeman and Scarlett Johansen movie, “Lucy,” but it just does not fit what is so
obvious about the brain. Everything is connected to everything else and processing is distributed all
over. I wonder if this notion persists because of the widely published fMRI brain scans that just show
a few bright areas in red during a particular mental process, whereas these areas just represent heavier
blood flow in some places for operations that generally take place all across the brain.
Other faulty beliefs exist as well. The beliefs described in numbers 4-11 below have already been
labeled by others as neuromyths (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2003; Doidge, 2007; Medina, 2008; Dekker et
al, 2012).), and I am adding a few more: 12-17. The list is simplistic and by no means
complete. Also, I must accept that some of these claims might also be reclassified as myths a couple
years from now:
4) There is no recovery from impairment caused by brain damage. This statement can be
considered a myth because the brain is amazingly plastic. While the neural damage is permanent, the
resulting impairment, such as paralysis, might not be. For example, Edward N. Taub has developed a
“constraint-induced movement therapy” for stroke victims, in which the good limb is tied down and
the patient is forced to use the paralyzed one, even if just twitching it at first (Doidge, 2007). In this
way, other parts of the brain learn to take over what the dead area used to control. One of his patients,
Dr. Michael Bernstein, an eye surgeon who lost complete control of his left arm was eventually able
to regain use through this therapy. To what degree? Right after the stroke, he could not even eat soup
without spilling it all over himself, but at his birthday party a few years later, he played a piano
concerto for Taub. Likewise, the notion that we never grow new brain cells is also wrong.
Neurogenesis in the hippocampus has been demonstrated (see Gould, et al, 1999).
5) Children are constantly gaining more synapses, which is how we become smarter. Synaptic
blooming and pruning happen all the time. After birth, an explosion of new synapses are made, with
up to 2 million per second in a healthy toddler, but at about 3, the fine-tuning of synaptic
pruning, takes over (S. Robinson, personal communication, January, 2016). Much of this takes place
during the brains numerous critical age-like periods (see Ruben, 1999).
6) The brain is a separate device from the body. Our brains are embodied and highly connected to
our sensory systems, skin, and digestive areas (See Johnson, 2002). Science fiction, including the old
radio show “Donovan’s Brain,” with a disembodied, yet functioning brain in a vat could never really
happen.
7) Study is more important than sleep. Simply put: No sleep, no learning (discussed in Topic 3
below).
8) Classical music makes you smarter. Classical music might make a person feel classier, but there
is no solid evidence that this particular belief is true. Then again, watch “Alive Inside Clip of Henry”
on Youtube to see the amazing effect of music on Alzheimer’s patients.
9) Brain size reflects intelligence. If so, Neanderthals, elephants and whales would be smarter. It is
a combination of size and neuronal density that better determines intelligence.
10) A child should learn one language before learning another. Languages do not compete for
resources, they share. Extensive research shows that knowing one language aids learning another,
6
and multilingualism is associated with improved cognitive flexibility and other executive functions
(See Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2003).
11) Children learn languages faster than adults. Research shows that children do not learn at a
faster pace than adults, although children learn certain aspects better, such as the phonetic system (See
Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2003).
12) The brain is a big computer. In some ways the brain does work like a computer, but I like to
think of it as a pharmacy. The brain produces over 1000 hormones and other behavior-modifying
chemicals.
13) Physical education is unrelated to scholarship. Exercise plays a huge role in brain function and
learning (discussed in Topic 6 below).
14) Emotion and logic are separate. All emotion is cognition, and all cognition contains emotion
(discussed in Topic 2 below).
15) The brain is hardwired. It is unbelievably plastic. Even daydreaming changes the specific
neural connections (structure) of the brain (discussed in Topic 2 below).
16) The brain is made of areas that have specific single functions, such as the “pleasure center.”
Localization of function is a notion losing ground. Small networks with certain skills seem to be
recruited for use in multiple higher level networks for more complex processes, such as language.
Unlike the rest of our body where each organ has its own function, the brain is a highly
interconnected network where many functions are diffuse (discussed in Topic 4 below).
17) Products that claim to be brain-based are superior. In a sense, every educational product is
brain-based. Most of those that claim to be designed according to how the brain works, such as Baby
Einstein™ and Brain Gym® have little support in the brain sciences. Only a few products, such as
Fast ForWord® have been truly created and tested by neuroscientists (see Sylvan & Christodoulou,
2010).
To conclude, it is important to make sure teacher trainees are aware of these popular, but faulty
notions. Unfortunately, the most common neuromyths were once taught as science in graduate
programs. They often were the best available understanding at the time. Therefore, it is just as likely
that some of the things trainees are learning now, including information in this chapter, might become
neuromyths in a few years. As someone who once taught right-brain and left brain thinking and
VAKT learning styles, I know.
Topic 2: Learning, memory, and attention
As teachers, we are in the learning business. Learning, in simple terms, means memory formation3.
Memory formation means neurons connecting to each other through synapses, or the strengthening or
pruning of those connections that already exist. Strengthening involves increasing the number of

3 Memory is a slippery proposition in neuroscience. Does it, as we think of it, even exist? After all, every time you remember something, you change it;
reactivating an existing network alters the connections. In fact, all the notions we have about how the mind works are all just one thing, networks
activating. According to Spencer Robinson, “learning, cognition, understanding, knowledge and memory are indistinguishable – all simply
interchangeable terms for the same process – each thought, idea, feeling, memory, etc., simply a unique pattern of neuronal interconnectivity” (2015, p.
97)
7
synapses between two neurons, shedding others, adding more receptors to synapses, or myelinating
long axons, which can increase firing speed up to a hundred times (Hartline and Colman, 2007). It is
misleading to think of the brain as being like a computer, and it is misleading to think of neurons as
being simple electric circuits. Each of the thousands of synapses on a neuron has its own complex
mix of hundreds of types of receptors, which are also heavily influenced by the cocktail of
neurotransmitters they are bathed in. It is more appropriate to think of each single neuron as a
computer.
Likewise, it is wrong to think of the brain as being hardwired. We are born with almost all our
neurons already formed, but with only 20% of the connections between them in place. Unlike
connections in computers, those between neurons are not permanent. Infants, for example, start with
everything connected, and up until the age of five shed more connections than they make, in a kind of
fine tuning (Stamm, 2007). In fact, babies are born as “citizens of the world,” with the ability –
meaning neural connections – to hear any phoneme in any language (Kuhl, 2004). The neural
connections for sounds that are not reinforced by L1 input, such as “L-R” differences for Japanese,
are lost.
In fact, the highly plastic nature of the brain is why we can learn so much. Another aspect of learning
and plasticity is the fascinating way the brain takes parts that evolved for one purpose and reuses them
in others. Whereas we once believed that specific brain areas had specific functions, that notion has
been overturned by the massive redeployment (or neural reuse) hypothesis (Anderson, 2010). The
brain is adept at cobbling together networks originally developed for one purpose into a variety of
coalitions that are used for new purposes (Campbell, 2015b). For example, one small part of the
brain, the left inferior parietal sulcus seems to have evolved to manage your fingers. It identifies
which finger is touched, but it is also recruited for use in higher level functions involving
organization, like figuring out the relative size of numbers.
Language too, uses many parts of the brain that originally evolved for other functions, including the
sensory cortices. In fact, that we could take the same sensory systems we use to interpret incoming
information and repurpose them to store episodic memory and process language is an amazing
achievement. Not so amazing is our inability to talk on the phone and drive safely at the same time;
the same areas in the visual cortex required for visual vigilance are decoupled to simulate verbal
meaning (Bergen, 2012). Do not read this while driving.
Getting back to memory formation, as a reader you just made thousands of new connections (I hope)
reading the paragraph above, but you will not be able to keep them very long. Almost all of what you
read might have gone into short-term memory, but only a small part of it, or maybe none at all, will
go into long-term memory4. You are bound to forget most of this chapter even before you finish it,
and you'll forget more each hour afterwards. Some of it might be retained longer, and over the next
two weeks, some of it might even be integrated into the rest of what you know, meaning you will
probably keep the gist of it for the rest of your life. Something happens to some short-term memories
that make them long term, and if we can find out what that is, then we have discovered the holy grail
of teaching.
The first step in forming any kind of memory is paying attention. With hundreds of bits of data
entering our sensory system at any given moment, we have to filter out the little bit that is important
and send it on for further processing. This is handled by the reticular activating system located in the
brain stem, but which is also connected to everywhere else. This filter passes on sensory information

4 Disclaimer: As suggested in footnote 3, short-term and long-term memory do not really exist in the brain. These are
just notions we have developed to frame long term potentiation.
8
related to personal relevance, recent executive thinking, and novelty, among other things (Willis,
2007).
The brain’s sensitivity to personal relevance is extremely important for teachers, and should be taken
advantage more in materials development. Emotion and cognition are the same thing (Pessoa 2013),
and all memories have an emotional valence (Montague, 2006). Therefore, all input automatically
gets tagged as relevant to us, or not. That determines whether we send it up for further processing and
memory or not.
Novelty, something else the brain is particularly sensitive to, is another factor teachers should take
advantage of. We evolved a sensitivity to novelty as a way to survive. A mouse coming out of its
hole and noticing a subtle change in its surroundings is less likely to be eaten and more likely to find
something tasty to eat. Novelty causes dopamine release (Goldberg, 2002), a neurotransmitter
associated with deeper learning (Kandel, 2007). Putting learning targets in novel packages, such
having students repeat fruit vocabulary and sticking “gorilla” in, leads to greater retention of not just
the novel part, but the fruit words as well.
Episodic memory, the way we remember past events, is highly faulty, but for a good reason (Schacter,
2012). Our brains are prediction machines, constantly determining what will happen in the next
moments of our personal futures. “If I do this, this will happen.” “If I do my Audrey smile, he will be
putty in my hands.” And the ability to predict is the sole reason we have memory. Being able to
record every memory perfectly and separately does not aid prediction much, it is far too detailed.
Combined and generalized gist memory is faster and we can use it to predict the outcomes of novel
situations, even those we have never experienced before. This is why we are good at remembering
what things mean and how they might be related to other things, but weak at remembering the details.
Interestingly, computers have the opposite capabilities.
So what is the offshoot of faulty memory for teachers? It helps to make sure you have your students’
full attention when you tell them the things you want them to remember. Our age-old secret weapon,
“This will be on the test.” works wonders for this purpose. Another thing we do is provide high
quality cueing, as through multisensory input. Then finally, since emotional valence drives retention,
we should give what Krashen (2011) now refers to as “compelling input” rather than just
“comprehensible input.” Nor should we forget that novelty causes dopamine release and better
retention of even the less novel things associated with it. Orangutan. Finally, spaced repetition
increases retention as well. Rather than giving all the content in one session, spreading it out over two
or more makes the related networks reactivate and consolidates the connections.
It sounds unassuming, but spaced repetition produces impressive results. Eighth-

grade history students who relied on a spaced approach to learning had nearly
double the retention rate of students who studied the same material in a
consolidated unit, reported researchers from the University of California-San
Diego in 2007 (Pashler et al, 2007, cited in Paul, 2013).
Topic 3: No sleep, no learning
Sleep is another factor in long-term memory formation. It is an area I became interested in because of
something bizarre that happened in one of my English classes. It was a first-year English class in a
Japanese university, one with a rather low ranking. Japanese have the stereotype of being serious,
dedicated students, but this is generally a fiction, especially at the university level. In fact, one study
found that Japanese high school students spend far less time on homework than Chinese and even a
bit less than Americans. So even though the students in this class were English majors, they were not
9
motivated to study outside class. Getting them to truly learn things was difficult, so one day, I decided
to spend the entire class teaching one particular structure, present perfect tense for relating
experiences, and make sure it was fully internalized. The one single question form, “Have you ever,”
and how to answer it was explained, modeled, practiced, used in communicative interactions, and
tested for mastery throughout. It was a perfect lesson and I was sure everyone got it.
How surprised I was a few hours later when one of the students who had previously demonstrated
mastery could not even understand the simple “Have you ever” question I asked her. Worse, she did
not even remember that we had studied it, even though part of her practicing was done with me as a
partner. I was shocked, and it was not just her. Most of the other students seemed to have forgotten
this expression a week later as well. Now I have the deepest respect for learning loss, but this seemed
bizarre. Then, I discovered what the probable the reason. The students who had forgotten the lesson
were doing night jobs and hardly getting any sleep. No sleep, no memory.
Lack of sleep might be the single greatest problem in education. The National Sleep Foundation
found that only 20% of American adolescents get an optimal amount of sleep, 9 hours or more, and
only 51% get even eight hours (2006). How does this affect performance? Research shows that an
all-A student who gets a little less than seven hours sleep on weeknights and a little more than seven
on weekends will drop from the top 10% of her class to the bottom 9% of those not sleep deprived
(Medina, 2008, p. 162). With a few all-nighters, she will start showing the same symptoms as
someone with Alzheimer’s. Another study shows that only six hours of sleep for five nights in a row
leads to 60% loss in performance. 60%! Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, puts it simply:
“Sleep loss means mind loss” (p. 162). This is true for us as well. If you have trouble remembering
things these days, it is probably because of sleep deterioration, not brain deterioration. Although it is
almost impossible for most adults to sleep eight hours, even if they have the time, we still need eight
hours for full memory consolidation.
Of course, we have long known that sleep is important for learning, but neuroscience tells us why. We
tend to think of sleep as a time our brains are at rest, but brain studies have found that in certain stages
our brains are even more active then when we are awake. This is because our brains reactivate the
neural connections of new learning to consolidate that learning into memory. According to Penny
Lewis, in the slow-wave stage, the deepest kind of sleep, our neurons start firing in synchronous
bursts and the level of acetylcholine drops precipitously (Campbell, 2014). Acetylcholine is a
neurotransmitter that normally aids learning, but in this case, it blocks communication between the
hippocampus, where new learning is stored, and the neocortex, where new memories are integrated
into older ones. So its drop allows these two structures to communicate. We believe that the slow-
wave stage is when new memories are passed to the neocortex, especially declarative memories.
Research also suggests that we shed memories of lesser importance during this stage as well.
Then, we go into the REM stage and the amount of acetylcholine quadruples (Campbell, 2014).
Communication with the hippocampus shuts down (which is why we rarely remember dreams). We
believe that during the REM stage, the neocortex scans existing memory for association with the new
memory and links them up. Maybe that is why we have such vivid and disjointed dreams during that
stage. The linking involves a lot of sanding and reshaping too. Rather than our storing each memory
as separate and exact in this stage, we make associations between whole sets of memories and extract
generalities out of them. Related memories meld to create understanding. (Did you catch my spaced
repetition?)
The slow-wave to REM cycle repeats throughout the night, from four to six times (Irwin, 2015).
Getting less sleep, or poor sleep, reduces the number of cycles and thus impairs memory formation.
Considering all the enemies of sleep our youth face – computers, caffeine, blue light, and even the
10
shift of circadian rhythm that happens in teens – we should consider sleep a serious educational issue.
Teachers need to be telling students the importance of sleep, saying that one hour of sleep equals an
hour of study. Even naps as short as six minutes help (Campbell, 2014) Administrators need to look
into setting later starting times, which have been repeatedly shown to increase achievement. And all
of you reading this chapter need to get a good night’s sleep to remember it.

Topic 4: Embodied simulation
In 2012, a book came out that I believe is bound to have a huge impact on TESL training. Ben
Bergen’s Louder than Words: The New Science of how the Mind Makes Meaning is not the only book
on embodied cognition, but it is the most relevant and accessible for us. In it, Bergen answers the age-
old question of how the brain processes language. The mystery of how we make meaning has finally
been solved. According to Bergen, who also summarizes the extensive research behind the theory, we
process meaning through what he calls embodied simulation. “Embodied” does not refer to things
happening in your body per se, but rather, in the cortices that interact with your body: the visual,
auditory, somatosensory, olfactory, and the motor cortices.
In short, when you hear or read a word, especially of an object or an action, the same neurons fire in
your sensory cortices that would fire if you actually experienced that scenario. For example, within
milliseconds of someone saying “a tiger jumped on the antelope” your brain is already subconsciously
conjuring an image of a tiger in some African setting running and pouncing with outstretched claws
and your motor areas for pouncing and stretching fire up. Unless, of course, you are from Detroit or
Osaka, in which case you might be conjuring an enraged baseball player. The words “coffee” or
“cinnamon” cause the olfactory cortex to light up (Gonzalez et al, 2006). For language referring to
actions, such as “he opened the door,” networks in the motor cortex for the same muscle actions fire
as well. They fire at a lower amplitude than when actually opening a door, so that your hands do not
start flaying around. In other words, on hearing language, the same neural networks to process visual,
auditory, speech, olfactory, and motor actions connected to whatever actions the word represents, fire
again, as if we were actually doing or sensing that action. This might sound similar to the way mirror
neurons work, and I suspect that what we identified as mirror neurons in the nineties are really just
regular neurons making meaning through simulation.
Note that the same sensory simulating seems to happen with more abstract words as well, such as
“justice,” “organized,” or “peaceful.” According to Lakoff and Johnson (2008) and Bergen (2012) this
probably happens through metaphors. If you hear “Timberlake’s velvety voice,” your visual networks
for trees, and water will fire initially, and then for Justin. “Voice” will make that part of your motor
area active and for metaphor, “velvety” will activate the somatosensory network for the feel of velvet.
The latter has been demonstrated in fMRI research (Paul, 2012).
We can also simulate things that we have no real memory of, such as a “flying pig” (Bergen, 2012),
by amalgamating memories of flying and pigs (or for some people, English pubs). In fact, though we
do not have the evidence to say for sure yet, it seems likely that all language processing might start
with embodied simulation. I suspect that this might be the case, but after repeated simulating, the
words or other conditions might become automaticized, maybe in the association cortex, and
simulating plays a less important role. In fact, this automaticization of episodic memory might be the
source of all semantic memory, not just that of language (Gluck et al, 2008).
If you have not realized it by now, the way our brain processes language, which has been called our
“latest, greatest cognitive achievement” (Campbell, 2015b, p. 21) is another example of neural reuse,
a hypothesis discussed in an earlier section. The brain uses numerous sensory, motor, relational, and
11
emotional areas, all originally developed for other tasks, to do this amazing thing, language, a tool
that allows us to shape affordances in others. That is why it does not make sense to say ‘language is
“located” in the Brocas or Wernicke areas,’ or even in the left hemisphere, as once thought; language
is spread all across our brain. Talking about “where” things happen, as if there was a one-to-one kind
of association between function and location in the brain is no longer appropriate. This is not to say
that the Brocas area does not have an important role in language – it is critical – but it is telling that
Brocas area is also activated for other processing that has nothing to do with language, a fact we
seemed to have glossed over in the past. Brain parts with certain processing abilities seem to be
recruited for multiple functions, rather than specific ones.
So what does this have to do with effective language teaching? We are not sure yet, but there are
some implications. It is probably why multi-sensory input and rich narrative formats, as opposed to
memorizing lists, are so effective in vocabulary learning. It might also explain how reading
automatization occurs; it is the strengthening of sensory networks activated by language. It probably
explains the reasons for L1-L2 errors, since L2 language representations get integrated into the same
sensory networks L1 representations are part of. It certainly explains the subvocalization (involuntary
movements in the larynx and articulation muscles) that occurs during silent reading and listening, and
also why subvocalization plays a role in short-term memory. It supports experiential learning. And
finally, it fully validates the constructivist theories of learning and language, if they are still really
need validating. This is not to say Bergen’s book (2012) does not have critics, but most of the
criticism I have read is calling for broadening, rather than rejection, of the theory.
Topic 5: The power of stories
What is it about stories that so captivates our students? We have long known that stories are powerful
teaching tools. Neuroscience is finally starting to tell us why.
In terms of retention, research shows information delivered in stories is better learned than through
other means, such as explanations, lectures, and even TV. Oaks (1995) compared retention from
traditional lectures to storytelling. He found that even after five weeks, about twice as many people in
the group hearing the stories still remembered the key points. Berkowitz and Taylor (1981) found
children recalled significantly more information from the narrative passages than they did from
expository passages with similar content. George and Schaer (1986) found kindergarten children's
recall of prose content was significantly higher when given by storytelling than other means,
including television!
One might conclude we retain more from stories because they are inherently more interesting, so
researchers from University of California tested for this (Graesser et al, 1980). As expected, narrative
texts were read about twice as fast as the expository texts and remembered twice as well, with the
correlation between narrativity and the amount of information recalled (0.92). Not expected was that
familiarity and interestingness had a very small effect on either speed or retention. As we will see
later, there is something special about the narrative format, regardless of the content.
Stories can be actively used by the learners as well. In two studies (Bower & Clark, 1969; Higbee,
1977) people were given word lists to memorize. Half were told to memorize them any way they
wanted and the other half were told to put the words in stories. The stories group showed far better
retention. How much better? They remembered from two to seven times as many words. Amazing!
Imagine if you could get your students to remember twice as many vocabulary items and that was just
the worst case.
12
How does neuroscience explain this? As discussed earlier, the reticular activating system, in cohort
with other areas, tags information with personal relevance and emotional valence as important to
remember. Stories that arouse emotion do so through the release of three important neurotransmitters:
a) dopamine - the neurotransmitter of drive, reward, and deeper learning; b) Cortisol, the stress
hormone associated with distress and focus; and c) everyone’s favorite, oxytocin, the neurotransmitter
associated with bonding.5 Neuroscientist Paul Zak (2015) has been doing amazing research on cortisol
and oxytocin release caused by moving stories. He found that touching stories cause the release of
both, resulting in greater attention, more sympathy, and changes in attitudes. Because of oxytocin
release, Zak’s subjects were more willing to give money to strangers after seeing a touching story.
Zak found something else out too. The information must be structured a particular way for these
neurotransmitters to be released, a structure you know: the arc of the rising action, climax, and falling
action that stories are made of.
Once again, we find that not just the content, but also the format of a story that affects the brain. Why
does narrative organization, where events occur one after the other have such a great impact on
learning? The answer is that because that is how we are wired (Widrich, 2012). “A story, if broken
down into the simplest form is cause and effect. And that is exactly how we think. We think in
narratives all day long, no matter if it is about buying groceries, whether we think about work or our
spouse at home. We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation” (p.1). If I
do this, then I hope to get this result. This is an unconscious, uncontrollable process, even when we
are asleep. Our brains are prediction machines.
Our brains are built to remember things that are important to us. Stories are important because they
are encapsulated experience. As E.O. Wilson puts it, “The stories we tell ourselves and others are our
survival manuals” (2002). They help decode the world, exploit our environment and hone our social
skills. Mar and Oatley (2008), reported in two studies that individuals who frequently read fiction
seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their
perspectives.
Fiction, Oatley notes, “is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social
world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting
instances of cause and effect. Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with
complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, so novels, stories
and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.” (p.42)
The success of our species is mainly due to the way we have made these manuals of encapsulated
experience transferrable. Uri Hasson from Princeton examined the brains of someone telling a story
and someone listening, and found something surprising. Their brains linked up (Widrich, 2012).
When the teller “had activity in her insula, an emotional brain region, the listeners did too. When her
frontal cortex lit up, so did theirs. By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts
and emotions into the listeners’ brains” (p.1).
We must respect the power of stories. One of the greatest changes in language teaching in the last 20
years has been the spread of extensive reading (ER). Advocates have long said ER causes language
learning because a) it is comprehensible, b) it builds automaticity c) and it increases learner exposure
to the language (Richard Day, personal communication, 2004). They might also add, as an aside, that
since reading is pleasurable, students are more likely to keep doing it. Neuroscience paints a different
picture. After all, most of what language students do is comprehensible, builds automaticity, and

5 Note the functions of these three neurotransmitters are simplified here. They are also associated with many other
behaviors as well, including aggression, addiction, and prejudice.
13
increases exposure to the language. Instead, what makes ER particularly effective is that our brains
are built to remember information in the narrative format, and even more so if it arouses emotion.
Topic 6: You gotta move it, move it
At the beginning of this chapter I said that most findings in neuroscience just bolster theories from
other fields and intuitions we already have. There are two exceptions. One is sleep. Yes, we knew
students need sleep, but until neuroscience told us how absolutely important it is for learning, we put
it in the same category as brushing your teeth or eating salad. We thought not getting enough sleep
was just a matter of just toughing it out.
The other exception is exercise, another activity we tend to associate with general health rather than
brain function. Again, neuroscience is telling us it is critical for the latter, and mainly because of
blood flow.
As Read Montague puts it, our brains evolved on legs, and this makes all the difference (2006). Our
ancestors walked from 10-20 kilometers a day, so our brains evolved with far more blood flow than
we get in our modern sedentary lifestyle (Medina, 2008). The human brain burns up blood-supplied
glucose at ten times the rate that other body parts do, and glutamate is the most common
neurotransmitter. As the messenger rather than just modulator, glutamate gets released every time a
synapse fires and eventually builds up to a toxic level, causing neural erosion. As long as our blood
keeps pumping through (and we get sleep), these neuron busters get carried away in the oxygen, but if
not, they accumulate (Ratey, 2008). Cognitive function deteriorates and we age prematurely. Think
about how you feel after a long meeting. Your mind feels dull, you have a hard time talking, and your
normally sharp cognitive skills turn muddy. This is what happens when your brain is active for a
couple hours but your body is not. Unfortunately, that is what happens in most schools, but for even
longer periods.
In addition to clearing out toxins, exercise does other things as well. It causes the release of mood-
shaping neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepiniphrine, and serotonin (Ratey, 2008). Even just a
little exercise gives learners better focus, higher motivation, more confidence, and less impulsiveness;
in other words, ideal classroom behavior. The release of neurotropins, like BDNF (Brain Derived
Neurotrophic Factor), occurs too, at two or three times the normal level. Harvard’s John Ratey calls
BDNF “Miracle Gro” (a lawn fertilizer) for neurons.
Unfortunately, many of us still cling to the notion that more regular class time is what learners need to
pass tests and that physical education classes are an "extra." And yet, a study with 5000 children over
a three-year period found that 30 minutes of exercise, twice a day, led to greater achievement across
the board, especially with girls. The largest increase was …now get ready for this… in math, an area
of study that requires intense executive processing (Medina, 2008, pp. 24-25).
It is important for us to make teachers aware that to optimize brain function, they need to get their
students out of their seats every half hour or so (See Helgesen’s chapter, page xxx). That does not
mean you have to conduct physical exercises in class, but a few simple changes can make a huge
difference: a) have students come to the front to get the quizzes and handouts, instead of passing them
out; b) when handing papers in, have them bring them to you instead of passing them forward; c)
instead of just raising hands to answer questions have students all stand up and those who do not
know the answer sit down; and d) have them do pair work standing up. A little moving benefits
14
student energy, mood, and cognitive ability. It improves learning.6 So why don’t you put this book
down and go out for a walk?
Topic 7: Stress as a teaching tool
If you google “stress and learning,” you will come up with article after article about how stress is bad
for you – the mantra of our age – and how even a small amount is bad for learning. On the other
hand, I often hear teachers say, “A little stress is good for learning,” a notion that comes from animal
studies; rats dropped in cold water learned the exit routes faster. Obviously, these teachers do not
mean debilitating long-term stress, a disease; they mean those little single instance stresses we use all
the time. Calling on students to answer, having them play games, giving them a cautionary look – our
favorite tools – all cause a stress response.
Leaving long-term stress aside, which is it? Does one-time stress aid or hinder learning? Actually,
neuroscience has found something amazing. It does both, and at the same time. When information
comes in that the pre-frontal cortex and insula identify as a stressor, which is heavily dependent on the
psychological disposition of the recipient, the hypothalamus is signaled and two key structures in the
nervous system are activated (Joëls et al, 2006). The faster is the autonomic nervous system (ANS),
which controls overall bodily response. It activates the flight-flight response, which is characterized
by an increase in heart rate, harder breathing, loss of hunger, release of glucose from energy stores,
and the flow of blood into skeletal muscles. It also causes the release of noradrenaline which helps
orient the organism towards dealing with threats.
While the autonomic nervous system just shapes an immediate response, the second system, the
hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical axis (HPA) shapes a longer-lasting response. It causes the
release of stress-related hormones such as cortisol that both sharpen attention and shield neurons. In a
kind of two-stage rocket, information related to the stressor is deeply learned, but learning from
before the stress, or up to an hour after, is lost (Koolhaas et al, 2011). This makes sense. An
organism needs to learn that something that might be dangerous or vital, and that learning needs to be
shielded from other learning that might overwrite it. This probably explains why students playing
intense computer games, pleasurable because of the stress, show lower retention in study done just
before or after.
The place in the brain targeted by stress is important too. For some classroom stresses, such as a
student being scolded about improper use of the past tense, the emotional part (the insula) is activated,
, not the part of the brain that deals with verbs. The scolded student is likely to remember the
scolding for a long time, and maybe even the particular mistake that led to it, but unlikely to
remember much else about verb tenses, or anything taught in the next hour.
A final word
At the beginning of this chapter I said that brain studies allow us to take the spotlight off language and
shine it on learners. And what a wonderful thing that is. I have met a few people who teach English

6
In fact, our motor areas involved in all kinds of processing so any movement might aid learning. For
example, numerous studies have found that chewing sugarless gum increases retention, the best
known being Scholey’s 2002 study that showed it increased word retention up to 35% (Laskaris,
2006). The exact reason why, though, is still not clear.
15
just because they love the language, but far more who do so because they love their learners. I myself
decided a long time ago that my life mission is “to reduce the suffering of the classroom.” Doing so
meant I had to find out what happens inside students, a quest that took me to psychology and
neuroscience, and those sciences have helped me tremendously. So, I appeal to all concerned
educators, no matter what your official specialty is: Give that opportunity to your trainees as well.
Use your love of learners to power your own innovations.
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The Brain Studies Boom: Using Neuroscience in ESL/EFL Teacher Training

Chapter · March 2017

The MindBrainEd Think Tanks View project

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The Brain Studies Boom: Using Neuroscience in ESL/EFL Teacher Training

Curtis Kelly (EdD)

Should neuroscience be incorporated into the teacher-training curriculum?

…many neuroscientists emphasise the potential of their research to improve education,

How to incorporate neuroscience in your program

What is brain-based teaching? Why does personalization work?

How do neurons work? Why are stories so effective?

How do we encode memories and how is How is spaced repetition effective?

What role does sleep play in learning? What is stress?

What role does emotion play in cognition and

A few key topics related to language teaching

5) The power of stories

1) There are right-brained/left-brained people (believed by 70% of the surveyed teachers)

Topic 2: Learning, memory, and attention

It sounds unassuming, but spaced repetition produces impressive results. Eighth-

Topic 3: No sleep, no learning

Topic 5: The power of stories

Topic 6: You gotta move it, move it

Topic 7: Stress as a teaching tool

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