Vortrag

Abstract

Every teacher knows that attracting and maintaining students’ attention in the classroom is the foundation of any pedagogical process, and consequently has both theoretical and practical significance. While some neurocognitive attention-management techniques are already being actively used and even, one might say “abused” in such fields as marketing and advertisement where each company is trying to “grab” customers’ attention and sell them products or services, those techniques seem to be largely unknown by foreign language teachers. The question is whether education in general and foreign language teaching in particular can be equally successful in using neurocognitive approaches to attract and maintain students’ attention. This presentation examines neurological aspects of the neurocognitive phenomenon of attention (e.g. physiological mechanisms of the brain involved in the attention process: the so-called attention physiology; the psychological phenomenon of “inattentive blindness”; selective attention: pattern recognition; the role of emotions in the process of memorization, i.e. “emotional memory”), as well as some practical applications of this research to teaching foreign languages.

Bio

Irene Krasner is a tenured Professor at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. She has more than thirty years of experience in education, with twenty-five years at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). During her career at DLIFLC, she served as a department Chair, Academic Specialist, Project Manager, Chair of Academic Specialists’ Council, and President of a Faculty Advisory Council, Test Developer, Faculty Developer, Team Leader, and Instructor. She also served on multiple Boards and Committees, including DLIFLC Accreditation Committee. Prof. Krasner served as Project Manager for multiple projects that have been successfully implemented by DLIFLC, such as a 12-week Russian Navy Extension course, Russian Testing project, French Core Curriculum project and a massive Russian Basic Course Curriculum project. Prof. Krasner has been a frequent presenter at national and international levels, and has authored multiple articles on foreign language education. She was recognized repeatedly for professional excellence by high-level DLIFLC leadership, including Commandant Coins of Excellence and Provost Commendations. Prof. Krasner is a certified Oral Proficiency Interview tester, certified Diagnostic Assessment Specialist. Her research interest focus on second language acquisition and instruction from the cognitive and neurocognitive perspective, specifically, on the role of attention in teaching and learning foreign languages.

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