EFREN Y.

MAMAC
MAELS-THESIS
MAELS 203 –CRITICAL ANALYSIS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

REFLECTION PAPER I (HUMAN BRAIN)

All of us have unique and special traits that can be of advantage to us the moment we

make a profitable living. Most of us are engaged in language teaching, public communications,

politics, business, theater and visual arts, and sports. These areas of specialization that a person

is into would somehow signal as to how skillful, talented, or intellectual he or she is. We believe

that each type of intelligence that each person has could be linked to his or her mental makeup.

What we are actually to is their Brain.

Some parents would question their child, “why is it that you cannot memorize the poem

which was given to you?” “ How come you cannot speak well?”, “ Why is it that you are

excellent in music but weak in oral communications?”. This is somehow frustrating on the part

of the parents if they do not understand the level of intelligence of their child. Moreover, looking

into the delegates of the SEA Games 2019, we could say that that right hemisphere of their brain

is at high because they thrive in different sports. Why did I say so?

Based on our understanding on the concept of Human brain, there is such thing called

lateralization, which means the localization of cognitive and perceptual functions in a particular

hemisphere of the brain (Paul Broca, 1865). If your left hemisphere is dominant, meaning you

excel in language, analytical reasoning, temporal ordering, reading and writing, and arithmetic

whereas the right hemisphere is into perception of non-linguistic sounds, music, visuo-spatial
skills, holistic reasoning, and pattern recognition. This theory on Brain and Language was coined

by Paul Broca, a surgeon and anatomist. Focusing on Language centres, the Broca’s Area, which

is responsible for the organizing the articulatory pattern of the speech, should be in good

condition or else a person may suffer Broca’s Aphasia ( a kind of brain damage characterized by

poor articulation). In addition, the Wernicke’s area, which was discovered by a neurologist Carl

Wernicke, is responsible for the interpretation of words and in selection of lexical items for the

purposes of sentence production, is also vulnerable to suffer Wernicke’s Aphasia- a kind of brain

damage relating to inability to comprehend spoken language and to construct meaningful

utterances.

To comprehend and understand the human brain requires thorough studies as what the

neurologists and linguists would suggest. But the findings they have imparted to us are somehow

substantial enough for us to apply in our daily endeavor in imparting knowledge to our learners.

Teachers should always pay attention to the skills or ability of their learners in order to make

some valuable adjustments to intelligibly share the foundation of knowledge to the young minds

and not to misjudge which may result to lack of interest to pursue their studies.