Assessments and Readiness

How can we help students to realize that their performance on a test, or any assessment, is not a value judgement on their worthiness as a human being, but simply an opportunity to strengthen neural connections? The preparation for an assessment, the anticipation of questions to answer or problems to solve, and then the pleasurable experience of getting the right answer, or the "Awww....!" of getting an incorrect answer (think of the studio audience on those game shows, they groan "Awww....!" but they don't condemn or ridicule).

Assessments should be experienced as a fun part of learning. Athletes know they must track their progress in order to improve. They also know the coach will not put them on the field if they are not ready. With language proficiency, the progress is often obvious to everyone except the learner. What if the teacher were able to wait and deliver the assessment only when they deem the student is ready? So the assessment can give them that perspective -- "Hey, look what I have been able to accomplish! Wow!"

Memorization and fun

At last people are realizing that memorization "by rote" does not work - not for language learning, and probably not for other fields of study. The students who appear to learn "by rote" are actually making a game for themselves, assigning meaning - even if it's just their own private meaning - to the material they are memorizing.

Why not teach all students to make a game out of learning - and give teachers the flexibility and tools to make the game as much fun as possible, and include all the students?

Mind, Brain and Education

Annie Murphy Paul wrote a nice piece in the New York Times called "The Trouble with Homework," in which she notes that written homework may or may not contribute to learning.

Mass market magazine articles and popular books for business executives, students, and self-improvement wonks, have generated enormous awareness of how various learning and memory systems rely on scientific discoveries about how our brains actually work. 

It is good to see that an academic discipline of Mind, Brain and Education is now recognized as a legitimate and important field of research.

Any serious researcher who would like to visit a QTalk classroom or construct a language acquisition study including the QTalk method relying on visual cues, neuromuscular rehearsal, and the QTalk four steps, is invited to contact us.