Four Social Neuroscience On-Going Requisites for Effective Collaborative Learning and the Altruistic Turn

• Published in: TESL-EJ (Berkeley, Calif.) Vol. 19; no. 4; pp. 1 - 14
• Main Author: Murphey, Tim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berkeley University of California, Publications Office 01.02.2016; TESL-EJ
• Subjects: Altruism; Cooperative Learning; English (Second Language); Foreign Countries; Interpersonal communication; Japan; Language Acquisition; Neurosciences; Peer Teaching; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Social Cognition; Teaching Methods; Japan
• ISSN: 1072-4303; 1072-4303

Understandings from the field of social neuroscience can help educators cultivate collaborative students who get excited about learning from one another. To facilitate a collaborative atmosphere, educators first need to be able to show concern for their students beyond the subject matter. They also can help students understand how being social works in their favor and teach students skills that they can immediately use to have more effective collaborations. At the same time, for efficient second language acquisition, teachers need to provide students with multiple extended discourse opportunities (MEDOs), or lengthy conversational opportunities. This article proposes that by helping peers and others in their social networks, students actually help themselves become better learners and achieve a healthier mental outlook. Several examples are given to ground each aspect of these ideas from neuroscience into pedagogy (Murphey, 2013d).