Using and misusing neuroscience in education-related research

The purpose of this discussion is to clarify the perspectives of neuroscience and education towards maximizing the communication and utility of research progress.

Abstract

Neurolinguistists have provided a plethora of new and interesting research studies on how the human language is represented in the brain and how learning neurologically takes place. However, only a limited number of attempts have been made to negotiate neurolinguistics with educational sciences and especially with foreign language teaching methods. This paper aims to discuss that if foreign language teaching methodologists examine findings of neurolinguistics, they can find alternative explanations on how to improve the already existent teaching methods or even offer new methods and techniques for more effective instruction. However, it is suggested that researchers working on neuroscience and education should come up with a new approach or framework to negotiate these two fields of research to form sound suggestions.