Engaging students’ imaginations in second language learning

Abstract

Imagination is rarely acknowledged as one of the main workhorses of learning. Unfortunately, disregarding the imagination has some clearly negative pedagogical impacts: Learning is more ineffective than it should be and much schooling is more tedious than it need be. In this paper, we outline a somewhat new way of thinking about the process of students’ language education. We focus on the kinds of “cognitive tools” or learning “toolkits” human beings develop as they grow up, which connect emotion and imagination with knowledge in the learning process. We show how employing these tools—indeed, how their central employment in all aspects of planning—can make learning other languages engaging and meaningful.