Building a Better Brain
Today in my Level 2 class we were doing timed exercises striving to get a gold star. In a three minute period one student delivers a cue in English and the partner translates it into Spanish. There are 40 cues and they all have to be translated in three minutes. When I do this exercises, even though I know the answers perfectly, I find my mind starting to melt down after about 25 cues. I have to stay focused and the three minutes seems like a half hour. It is intense and requires a strong brain to get a gold star in this exercise.
What amazes me is the number of people that can do this successfully who are between 60 and 70 years old. Who are these people? They are my students, people who are engaged in life long learning, people who are reinventing themselves right before my eyes.
These folks have completely changed their paradigm of reality. They have moved to a foreign country and are learning a new language. They are actually building a better brain.
On page 67 in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, Doidge says, “Learning a new language in old age is so good for improving memory generally. Because it requires intense focus. Studying a new language turns on the control system for plasticity and keeps it in good shape for laying down sharp memories of all kinds.“
The experience of learning a new language and creating new memories using is is one of the best ways to build a better brain and a more youthful life.
A language is a mind made up of patterns called sentences. The mind map of these patterns are what create the neuron connections in the brain. Your mother language is a mind map and the longer you speak it, the more rigid it becomes.
Doidge says that “unlearning” the mother tongue map we have in our brains is an important first step. The longer, more eloquently we speak our native language in old age the more stubbornly we cling to those maps.
Learning Spanish creates plasticity and stops rigidity by building new brain maps. The brain is plastic and the more plasticity the better the brain.
The Warren Hardy Method was designed to build a better brain. Over the 40 years of working with adult learners I have developed a method that takes into consideration the learning modalities of older brains. Here is why it works:
The “cross-training methodology” develops both an understanding of sentence structure and the ability to speak and understand at the same time.
It builds power of focus because you are engaged in a different activity almost every three minutes.
Repletion is spaced and there is plenty of it.
There are filling the blank/self grading workbooks with plenty of exercises and flashcards that develop visual links in the brain. Finally, these materials are carefully integrated with audios that develop speaking and understanding skills.
I acknowledge my students and am inspired by their enthusiasm for continued growth. Do you want to build a better brain? Come join us at Warren Hardy Spanish.

