Joyful Fluency: Brain-Compatible Second Language Acquisition

by Lynn Dhority and Eric Jensen

Book Overview

Formerly a publication of The Brain Store

Make learning languages easier

Do you have learners in your classroom who speak English as a second language? Are you are a foreign language teacher? This essential resource links brain research-based teaching practices to language learning presents exciting new ways to encourage second language acquisition in students of all ages. Find hundreds of helpful...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 189046001X
• ISBN13: 9781890460013
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Corwin Publishers
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.4" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Great ideas and info for teachers, but repetitive!

I had to order this book for my "Teaching Foreign Languages" class last semester. It was a very useful source with lots of great ideas, especially for creative teachers-to-be like myself, but the author did tend to come off a bit like a broken record about halfway through. Each chapter was different but everything seemed to meld together near the end. Even if you don't agree with / don't like some of her points, she still gives you a goldmine of things to try with your students.

Rediscover your love of teaching and learning

When you see "The Brain Store, Inc.", you can expect a handsome, very readable, practical and somewhat expensive book, with illustrations, charts, and captivating sidenotes. At the beginning of each chapter of this book, there is a pie-chart of key ideas. Just flip through these 14 charts, the summaries, and "Guiding Assumptions" on p. 33, you get a good over-view. This book contains much more than Lozanov's Suggestopedia, which is mentioned specifically in Chapter 2, with 3 other approaches. In fact, this is an excellent book on general brain-compatible principles that are applicable to all teaching and learning. Topics include: paying attention to the environment, use of materials, music, good relationship and facilitation skills, maximizing first impressions, lesson planning, active learning... There is much clear and useful material for creating joyful and meaningful learning. Teachers are even taught to use suggestions and metaphors, along the tradition of Milton Erickson. I like the quote from Jensen: "...humans are designed to learn complex languages effortlessly. The reality is, therefore, that language fluency ought to be a joyful process." Also what Dhority says in the Preface: "who we are" - the beliefs and attitudes with which we identify - is inextricably intertwined with how we teach. Readers would appreciate details, such as "The optimal time for learning a second language is from age five to ten years." (p. 5) "...crescent seating patterns are far more preferable to conventional rows." (p. 85)... The discussion on the place of grammar, homework and error correction in the last chapter is timely and helpful.

Update on a very misunderstood area of pedagogy

Jensen, Dhority et al. are pioneers in a horrendously misunderstood and largely ignored area of pedagogy that is loosely based on the work of Georgi Lozanov and used to go by the awful name of "Suggestopedia" (no, not a disease!). This book is a very fine distillation of their generation of experience in teaching and training. It preserves the best of the old and certainly can revivify any teacher's interest in Humanistic AND accelerated education for the new century.Don't miss it!John Driscoll University of San Francisco