Engaging students’ imaginations in second language learning

Abstract

Imagination is rarely acknowledged as one of the main workhorses of learn- ing. 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 ed- ucation. We focus on the kinds of “cognitive tools” or learning “toolkits” human beings develop as they grow up, which connect emotion and imagi- nation with knowledge in the learning process. We show how employing these tools—indeed, how their central employment in all aspects of plan- ning—can make learning other languages engaging and meaningful.