1A The Divided Brain (20 min)
The videos below deal with the hemispheric differences in the brain. The first video is about a man whose two hemispheres were surgically severed from each other. The second two videos are about a woman who had a stroke in her left hemisphere, and had a massive personality transformation as a result.
My experience has taught me that relaxing the left hemisphere and activating the right hemisphere is the key to entering conversation Flow in a foreign language. Shifting your attention away from letters, words and grammar (left hemisphere) to movement, mimicry and musicality (right hemisphere) is part of that process. These videos below will give you some sense of how and why this process works.
After you've watched all three of these videos, take a moment to reflect on how the videos made you feel, and what significance the ideas hold for your personal life. Then share your reflections (at least one paragraph) to the
#learn channel. After posting your reflection, read the reflection of the person who posted before you, and reply thoughtfully to what they wrote. 1B Facial Fluency (30 min)
The videos below are from a course I made in 2019 called Facial Fluency. I created that course in an effort to expand my expertise beyond verbal communication to include non-verbal communication.
The experience of creating the course dramatically shifted the way I related to people and experienced reality. I became more attuned to emotions and energy both in myself and other people.
By consciously shifting your attention to the realm of face, you are engaging the right hemisphere more, and thus enhancing your capacity to connect to the Flow of the moment and comprehend contextual meaning.
As a language learner, this means you will be able to more effortlessly intuit what is being said to you by native speakers. Not to mention, you will feel more connected to those native speakers – which is the whole point of learning language in the first place.
After you've watched all three of these videos, take a moment to reflect on how the videos made you feel, and what significance the ideas hold for your personal life. Then share your reflections (at least one paragraph) to the
#learn channel. After posting your reflection, read the reflection of the person who posted before you, and reply thoughtfully to what they wrote. 1C Eyebrow Shadowing (15 min)
Find a video of at least 5 minutes length, put it on reduced speed, then filter your attention just to the movements of the speakers' eyebrows. As you watch, mirror the speaker's eyebrows with your own eyebrows.
When you're done, post the video you mirrored to the
#apply channel, along with a brief reflection on how you found the experience. Then as you move through your day looking at faces (real and virtual), continue watching and mirroring the eyebrows, to sharpen your perception.