Embodied Learning: Why at School the Mind Needs the Body

Macedonia, Manuela

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02098

Cited by 98 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 82 publications

(89 reference statements)

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“…We believe that more experimental classroom studies are needed to further explore multimodal trainings for pronunciation teaching. All in all, the results of the study expand on recent studies that have highlighted the effectiveness of embodied instruction in second language learning by suggesting that gestures are a powerful tool that help learners to acquire not only vocabulary in second language (Macedonia, 2019) but also patterns of L2 pronunciation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Observing and Producing Durational Hand Gestures Facilitates the Pronunciation of Novel Vowel-Length Contrasts

Baills

Prieto

2020

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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While empirical studies have shown the beneficial role of observing and producing hand gestures mimicking pitch features in the learning of L2 tonal or intonational contrasts, mixed results have been obtained for the use of gestures encoding durational contrasts at the perceptual level. This study investigates the potential benefits of horizontal hand-sweep gestures encoding durational features for boosting the perception and production of nonnative vowel-length contrasts. In a between-subjects experiment with a pretest–posttest design, 50 Catalan participants without any knowledge of Japanese practiced perceiving and producing minimal pairs of Japanese disyllabic words featuring vowel-length contrasts in one of two conditions, namely with gestures or without them. Pretest and posttest consisted of the completion of identical vowel-length identification and imitation tasks. The results showed that while participants improved equally at posttest across the two conditions in the identification task, the Gesture group obtained a larger improvement than the No Gesture group in the imitation task. These results corroborate the claim that producing hand gestures encoding prosodic properties of speech may help naïve learners to learn novel phonological contrasts in a foreign language.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Observing and Producing Durational Hand Gestures Facilitates the Pronunciation of Novel Vowel-Length Contrasts

Baills

Prieto

2020

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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“…Potential positive learning effects of motor-enriched encoding might have several explanations also involving working memory and retrieval processes. One theory is that motor-enriched activities activate not only cortical areas of cognitive control but also a wide range of cortical motor and sensory areas (Engelkamp and Zimmer, 1989;Barsalou, 2008;Macedonia, 2019). These cortical areas are responsible for generation of actions and processing the sensory consequences of the actions this may help encoding by (a) efficient activation of both the visual and phonological subsystems supporting working memory and (b) increased activation of sensorimotor brain areas both during encoding and retrieval (Macedonia et al, 2011;Mayer et al, 2015;Macedonia, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One theory is that motor-enriched activities activate not only cortical areas of cognitive control but also a wide range of cortical motor and sensory areas (Engelkamp and Zimmer, 1989;Barsalou, 2008;Macedonia, 2019). These cortical areas are responsible for generation of actions and processing the sensory consequences of the actions this may help encoding by (a) efficient activation of both the visual and phonological subsystems supporting working memory and (b) increased activation of sensorimotor brain areas both during encoding and retrieval (Macedonia et al, 2011;Mayer et al, 2015;Macedonia, 2019). The latter has been shown by Mayer et al (2015) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), reporting that a word recall task at 2-months post-acquisition correlates with increased activation of the left-brain motor cortex and the temporal brain sulcus in adults.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motor-Enriched Encoding Can Improve Children’s Early Letter Recognition

et al. 2020

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It is not known how effective specific types of motor-enriched activities are at improving academic learning and early reading skills in children. The aim of this study was to investigate whether fine or gross motor enrichment during a single session of recognizing letters "b"/"d" can improve within-session performance or delayed retention the following day in comparison to letter recognition practice without movement. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate children's motivation to perform the specific tasks. We used a randomized controlled intervention study-design to investigate the effect of 10-min motor-enriched "b"/"d" letter training on children's ability to recognize the letters "b" and "d" (n = 127, mean age = 7.61 ± SD = 0.44 years) acutely, and in a delayed retention test. Three groups were included: a fine motor-enriched group (FME), a gross motor-enriched group (GME), that received 10 min of "b" and "d" training with enriched gestures (fine or gross motor movements, respectively), and a control group (CON), which received non motor-enriched "b"/"d" training. The children's ability to recognize "b" and "d" were tested before (T0), immediately after (T1), and one day after the intervention (T2) using a "b"/"d" Recognition Test. Based on a generalized linear mixed model a significant group-time interaction was found for accuracy in the "b"/"d" Recognition Test. Specifically, FME improved their ability to recognize "b"/"d" at post intervention (T0→T1, p = 0.008) and one-day retention test (T0→T2, p < 0.001) more than CON. There was no significant difference in change between GME and CON. For reaction time there were no significant global interaction effects observed. However, planned post hoc comparisons revealed a significant difference between GME and CON immediately after the intervention (T0→T1, p = 0.03). The children's motivation-score was higher for FME and GME compared to CON (FME-CON: p = 0.01; GME-CON: p = 0.01). The study demonstrated that fine motor-enriched training improved children's letter recognition more than non motor activities. Both types of motor training were accompanied by higher intrinsic motivation for the children compared to the non motor training group. The study suggests a new method for motor-enriched letter learning and future research should investigate the underlying mechanisms.

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“…In the West, a fundamental split is posited between mind and body … In the East, by contrast, … Body and mind, spirit and matter … interact in the dance which is the universe. (Peter Payne 5 )Although there is still a paucity of research into second language learning and embodiment, recent studies in neuroscience explain how the body is a tool to accumulate knowledge (Macedonia, 2019). They have found that words are related to experiences in our brains (Ullman & Lovelett, 2018) and that embodied learning empowers foreign language learning (Macedonia, 2019).…”

Section: Embodied Pedagogiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Peter Payne 5 )Although there is still a paucity of research into second language learning and embodiment, recent studies in neuroscience explain how the body is a tool to accumulate knowledge (Macedonia, 2019). They have found that words are related to experiences in our brains (Ullman & Lovelett, 2018) and that embodied learning empowers foreign language learning (Macedonia, 2019). The body is more than a mediator, it reflects and is a source of knowledge construction; the unconscious aspects of the bodily experience forming the basis of cognitive and linguistic processes.…”

Section: Embodied Pedagogiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dramatising the shock of the new: using Arts-based embodied pedagogies to teach life skills

Robbie

Warren

2020

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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The digital economy and the global pandemic, together with the effects of climate change, have taken a human toll affecting the pace of everyday life, creating an exponential increase in anxiety and stress related diseases. Today's complex, globalised world creates a need to challenge and reconceptualise educational priorities. In an increasingly polarised world of beliefs and values, with a rise in populism and nationalism, empathy is essential. In order to function successfully, one needs to know who people are, and the whys and wherefores of their actions and beliefs. This article focuses on how the Arts and humanities can teach a new generation of life skills necessitated by our globalised society and the socio-political aspects of immigration. It discusses how embodied pedagogies help develop self-awareness, emotional regulation and affective empathy and reduce stress. The authors present Arts-based pedagogies and educational strategies that bring history, cultures and beliefs alive and help counteract hatred, tribalism and racism and the illusion of 'us and them.' The article examines what these changes in pedagogy can offer to the discourse, both in the need to keep body/mind healthy and acquisition of new skills necessary for adapting to a changing global environment and cultural /political landscapes.

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Embodied Learning: Why at School the Mind Needs the Body

Cited by 98 publications

References 82 publications

Observing and Producing Durational Hand Gestures Facilitates the Pronunciation of Novel Vowel-Length Contrasts

Observing and Producing Durational Hand Gestures Facilitates the Pronunciation of Novel Vowel-Length Contrasts

Motor-Enriched Encoding Can Improve Children’s Early Letter Recognition

Dramatising the shock of the new: using Arts-based embodied pedagogies to teach life skills

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