A primordial instinct
A negative attitude to the sound of foreign speech goes a long way back and can be explained by the evolutionary experience of humanity.
Everything is on fire
Elvira, who was born in Kazakhstan, describes the images that come to her mind when she hears the sound of French: “Soldiers are galloping by with a whooping sound. They bring suffering and pain. Everything is burning. I feel a terrible fear in my stomach.”
This reaction might seem odd if we take into account the fact that Elvira’s husband is Belgian, and that she has already been living in Europe for several years16.
Xenophobia (fear of the foreigners) and parochial altruism (love towards the ones from your tribe) are written down in our genes. The results of research conducted by evolutionary psychologists confirm this fact (Markov A., 2012). It is important to know about it in order not to become a slave of your own instincts, and it is necessary to be aware that there are different nations and different languages and, hence, update the attitude we initially inherited from our collective unconsciousness. We need to do certain cultural work so that we could rise above our own biologically defined hostile reaction to “others.”
Organic lesion of the central nervous system
The difficulties connected with focusing one’s attention due to the consequences of certain brain injuries require a separate matter. Such traumas can be prenatal, natal, and postnatal (let’s also take our chance at learning something about Latin and Italian: “nato’ means “born,” and “Natale’ means “Christmas’).
“Prenatal’ means before having been born, and “natal’ means during the labour. The most likely cause in these cases is the lack of oxygen during pregnancy or labour (if the umbilical cord is clamped, etc.)17.
Postnatal traumas are received after birth. Falling out of a cot, getting hit in the head by a swing, hitting the head against ice: all these situations are far from being rare. Apart from that, you can also add general anaesthesia, a suns stroke, consequences of the flu with fever, meningitis, brain concussion in adulthood, consequences of drinking alcohol, and the influence of other unfavourable conditions. All these illnesses can take their toll on our attention and memory.
Some of the characteristics of such sort of problems can be diagnosed with the help of the test called “A constructive drawing of a person’. In the drawing, you will see a head filled with the round elements (eyes, a nose, a mouth), or there will be a hat or hair standing on end; at the same time, there will be a relatively ‘calm’ body (made of one rectangular block).
Fig. 9. A constructive drawing of a person in case of cerebral concussion: an overall relaxed body with “hair on end” on the head as the sign of the local suffering, without affecting the other parts of the body. In case of asphyxiation lesion (clamping of an umbilical cord at birth, for example) there will be a face, filled with elements: eyes, a nose, a mouth.
If such symptoms are discovered, then it calls for a special treatment to restore the balance of inhibitory and excitative cerebral processes (bromides, magnesium compounds, etc.) as well as brain nutritive compounds (nootropics). The medication, as mentioned above, is usually prescribed by neurologists.
Depressants
In some cases, there might be some negative consequences when a person takes medicines slowing down brain activity. In everyday terms, alcohol belongs to this category, as it creates “emptiness’ in the brain. That is why, in Russia, there is a saying about ethanol: “When we were drinking it was fun, the morning after we cried.” Washing out the transmitters, which takes place after the consumption of alcohol, significantly decreases performance efficiency. Systematic consumption of alcohol leads to a severe organic lesion of the brain, up to dementia.
Autopilot
Before the body reaches the state of dementia, there are episodes of memory loss caused by intoxication, the so-called ‘palimpsests’ (it is the same term as the one used for erasing parts of the text on ancient manuscripts to write a new one). People often refer to this state as ‘autopilot’: it happens when, for example, a person comes back home but does not remember doing it.
Dementia stands for more than temporary transmitter failure: it is a physical destruction of the brain. In this case, it is rather difficult to expect to reach success in the learning process.
Marijuana is another example of what can make a person “dumb.” Tetrahydrocannabinol gets stuck in the membranes of the neurons and disrupts the neural network. The same applies to other types of narcotics. Apart from chemical damage to the nervous system and the body in general, they are the reason why addicts have a narrow scope of interests, no motivation for the realization of their life projects: in other words, these substances make development and self-fulfillment irrelevant.
Neuroleptics, the components of which can be found in some medicines prescribed for lowering blood pressure, may also cause difficulty in receiving new ideas as they function as blockers of neural transmission.
Workload
Being too busy with the tasks that are piling up or leading a hectic lifestyle can also become an obstacle to successful learning. Anything new requires ‘reconnection’ with it and adapting one’s life to it as well. One needs to find time for learning and to organize the process, which itself converts into a certain exercise in time management. That is why any learning process demands special attention and practical solutions.
However, even if all the conditions mentioned above are favourable there is another issue, which seems to be universal. That is the difficulty of learning when one is an adult.
Learning for adults
Infants learn the language at their mother’s breast. Breastfeeding is also the first sessions of communication a child can hear. Then he or she enriches their vocabulary when interacting with the relatives and improves the language skills on the playground when playing with other kids. There is plenty of time to get used to the language when you are surrounded by it, and you can make those cute mistakes while practicing. Then, at school, we reinforce the acquired skills as well as develop writing skills.
How do we learn the second or the third language? It usually happens much later, and we do it with the help of textbooks and other data storage devices, but never directly person to person. Quite often, it is done with some level of obligation and “stress in the brain.”
During the learning process, a considerable amount of adults experiences the syndrome we have described earlier: even if they manage to organize their time, it seems that new information enters the brain with some difficulty. A couple of weeks after the beginning of the learning process, our skull feels like “blowing into pieces,” our head becomes hot, heavy, and overloaded. In many cases, it becomes a reason why people choose to halt the process or event to stop it.
We have an antidote for that, but before we move to applying the tools for renovating our state, we will sum up the results with the help of one test.
During the process of self-testing, it suffices to note the percentage of correspondence of each ‘recommended position’ you have. At the same time, you have to tune yourself to success in the learning process and further on, you will use these statements in order to maintain this positive attitude of the student.
A test: “An ideal student’
We will see several statements that describe the