Abstract:

The main goal of this study is to present some results of qualitative-quantitative research on the impact of the application of neuropedagogical knowledge in foreign language teaching on the students’ mastery of English as a foreign language, specifically on the level of their four communicative language skills.
At first, online trainings for in-service language teachers took place approximately for four months. At each meeting, selected neuropedagogical knowledge was presented, followed by a discussion related to the application of selected knowledge to the teaching of the English language. The acquired neurolinguistic knowledge was subsequently applied by trained teachers in the pedagogical practice of teaching English language in the experimental group for 5 months. The experimental group consisted of 50 pupils, the control group of 57 pupils attending primary schools in central Slovakia. Although the research was conducted for only half a year, the results showed statistically significant better results in the testing of speaking skills in the experimental group.
In the feedback group interview, the pupils confirmed that they talk more and that they like being able to talk. Above all, they like to talk about themselves, which was also confirmed by the teachers. This may be one of the reasons why we recorded statistically significantly better results in speaking skills, which is of great importance for language acquisition as such, including grammar and vocabulary.
Our research confirmed previous neurolinguistic research that it is necessary for students to engage in authentic communication and thus develop the ability to participate in authentic communication in real life situations. It also confirmed the fact that thanks to pre-training in neurolinguistics, teachers were able to effectively replace memorization and drilling with meaningful active learning methods and personalized activities. Personalization also played an important role in building relationships and also had an indisputably great impact on the pupils' willingness and desire to talk, which could contribute to the improvement of the pupils' oral expression. Frequent repetition, which is important for storing information in long-term memory, was also evaluated positively. Good and friendly relations, a good atmosphere in classes, a sense of security and the fact that students have a positive attitude towards the English language are also a big benefit.
This study is the output of the research within Project Programme of linguistic development for children with a different mother tongue in Slovak language - creation and verification, supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the Grant No APVV-22-045, and partially also of the project Creation of a web portal for methodological support of foreign language teaching in primary education, supported by KEGA (No. 011UMB-4/2022).

Keywords:

Neurolinguistics, research, foreign language, teaching, primary.