Cognition and Emotions Why is so important?
Hello,
some of you ask us why we include real-life activities in the afternoons in our immersion program. And why some of them are more close to tourist activities than to language exercises.
Our answer is because we understand that only by practicing the language in real situations can meaningful learning take place. On the other hand, we understand that with these experiences we can create very positive emotions in the students. Whether it is by discovering a place which schocks you so much, by discovering pieces of history that make you broaden your horizons and connect with your roots or heritage, or by making you feel the affability of our people or feel the pleasures of our gastronomy, all of those contribute to create positive emotions.
It has been found that emotions help to promote learning, as they can stimulate the activity of neural networks, by reinforcing synaptic connections. Therefore, it has been shown that learning is better consolidated in our brain when emotions are involved. In fact, it seems that long term memory is better fixed if it is linked to emotions. According to all research, emotion and cognition are inseparable. Emotions are part of the learning process. Cognition and emotions come all together.
According to Rafael Bisquerra Alzina, president of the International Network of Emotional Education and Well-being (RIEEB) and director of the Postgraduate in Emotional Education and Well-being and the Postgraduate in Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at the University of Barcelona, “we learn what we really want to learn. People want to learn what is important for them, for their life and for their survival. Since not everything fits in the brain, what we consider not so important, what we are not interested in, we really forget it. It is how the brain works”. People want to learn what really motivates them, gives them positive emotions and what it is really important for their life and survival. As he says “emotion and motivation are the front and reverse sides of the same coin”.
Motivation comes from the pleasure of learning something because it gives you positive emotions or because it is useful to reach other goals. It has also been shown that emotion unconsciously directs our attention, which allows a better focus to learn and fix learning.
Many research studies show that certain positive emotions: security, enthusiasm, joy, expectation and amazement, curiosity help a lot to learn.
And that is what we intend to do in our program, to amaze you with our landscapes and experiences, to excite you with our activities, to awaken in you the curiosity for our history and to link it with yours, to create an environment that creates joy and camaraderie and, of course, to give you security, both physical (in a super safe land) and emotional. How to give you this security? By relativizing mistakes, not attributing successes or failures to variables that you can’t control, by active learning, by helping you to organize and plan yourself, and to have a growth mindset and to believe in your innate ability to learn. And, of course, helping you to avoid procrastination. Since also your effort is needed in order to learn.
And of course, by trying to keep away emotions that are negative for learning as fear, tension, boredom, …, although we are realistic, we will not always succeed because what may be boring for one person may be super interesting for another, but we will try to adapt to your interests.
But no one can explain better than scientists the extent to which emotions are important for learning. Here is a great video that explains it perfectly. Enjoy it!
And once you watch it, we would like to know your opinion. Do you think that cognition and emotions come together in the learning process?
And this has a lot to do with our Spanish Immersion Expeditions!!! Why Spanish Immersion? | Celtic Spain School
