This is part of a series covering my challenge of learning Arabic in 2 months. I’m using lots of Peak Performance techniques and sharing them along the way. The series is filed in the “Language Challenge” category.

Brain Plasticity, Curiosity and Learning

brainMichael Merzenich is a neuroscientist and has been called the world’s leading researcher on brain plasticity. Brain plasticity refers to the physical ability of the brain to change over time – either weakening or thickening.

It’s not just a child’s brain that grows and develops. Research by Merzenich and others has shown that under the right conditions (i.e. appropriate mental stimulus), adults of any age have the ability to grow stronger neural networks in their brains too, strengthening the links and actually changing the physical structure of their brain.

Learning a new language creates the right conditions for stronger neural links by involving inputs from multiple senses that exercise the mind from a variety of angles and create a stronger brain function.  Martial arts, chess and dancing are other examples of activities that involve multiple senses.

Curiosity

Just one week into my challenge, I am feeling the input from multiple senses colliding as they try and find a place to settle in my brain. What I’m discovering is that Reading, Writing and Speaking are three separate brain functions and approaching them in the way they “want” to be approached greatly speeds up the learning process. I will explain more about this in my next post because today I want to focus on Curiosity and how it plays a vital part in keeping momentum going.

Some of the features about curiosity are:

  • It fuels a need to explore
  • It makes us question things
  • It makes us open-minded and receptive to differences and things we don’t understand
  • It stops habitual behaviour from stagnating us and weakening our brain function
  • It drives us to learn

This week, I discovered an inherent ability to recognise sounds and shapes and put them together. Just a week in and I already know half of the Arabic alphabet by heart and can read it and recite it easily. However, I also found that writing these shapes is more difficult for me from memory.

There are only 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, but they all look different depending on whether they are at the beginning, end or middle of a word and also depending on whether they are printed or hand-scripted! I can recognise the shapes easily enough to read but writing is a completely different kettle of fish. “Blimey” I thought and screeched to a halt to re-evaluate my options and ask myself if I really needed to know scripting.

Guiding Curiosity

Now this is the important thing about curiosity. Curiosity can be like a pretty butterfly flitting from flower to flower. The path towards the goal is full of flowers – at each flower, curiosity gets a chance to change direction.

Curiosity made me start this challenge but it needs a helping hand to make me stay on track. The helping hand comes from the NLP PECSAW goal setting model. As I pause to re-evaluate my options, I revisit my PECSAW and the “Worthwhile” part of it floods me with the desire to break through my little alphabet issue – 28 letters, a million ways to write them? Pah! Easy!

Having a well-defined goal and constantly reminding yourself of the benefits of achievement helps to guide the butterfly towards it’s destination by reigniting it’s desire to get there.

Curiosity and Learning

If curiosity keeps you in touch with things to be explored, desire helps to create the right conditions for you to find a way to learn the new skills that ultimately strengthen the neuron connections in your brain.

Curiosity gets you thinking about a goal, desire finds a way – but actively reigniting curiosity throughout the period of learning turns the goal into a destination that can be mapped – both outwardly as you become fluent at the task and inwardly, as your brain gains stronger neural connections.

Language Challenge Part 4 – The Influence of Thoughts on Learning