Connotation and Realization of English Subject Core Competencies from the Perspective of Embodied Cognition

WANG Ya-xin,DUAN Rong-juan&GARASHOV BERDI

College of Foreign Languages,Taiyuan University of Technology,Taiyuan,China

Email:1626662715@qq.com

[Abstract] Embodied cognition emphasizes the embodied characteristic of cognition generation,which is consistent with the ultimate goal of English education to achieve the overall development of students through the integration of learning and doing.As the basic objective of English education,the cultivation of students' English core competencies has embodied features,especially in linguistic ability,cultural awareness,thinking ability and learning ability.In the process of English teaching,teachers should combine the concept of embodied cognition with specific English teaching practice by means of basing on student-centered thought,extending students'sensory ability and digging deep into value elements of English courses,so as to further promote the development of students'core competencies in English.

[Keywords] embodied cognition;English subject;core competencies

Introduction

Only by not forgetting the original intention of education and keeping in mind its mission can we accomplish the aim of educating people.Only by keeping abreast of the times and grasping the general trend of development,can we get a wonderful recipe for educating people.TheNational English Curriculum Standards for general High School(2017 Edition,revised in 2020)highlights the importance of developing students'core competencies providing guidance for the educational reform in the new era.It points out that English education should take cultivating and practicing socialist core values,implementing moral education as the fundamental task of the discipline,build a bond between moral education and English education,promote the development of students'core competencies in English,and finally complete the mission of cultivating socialist builders and successors with Chinese feelings,inter⁃national vision and cross-cultural communication ability.The key to cultivate and develop core competencies lies in making good use of the"fertile soil",English courses,enhancing the sense of learning experience,that is,embodied learning,which is helpful to improve students'key skills and necessary characters in real life situation and promote students'all-round development.From the perspective of embodied cognition,this research explores the realization path of English subject core competencies based on the embodied experience in the process of English learning,so as to get an infusion of fresh blood into English curriculum reform.

Theoretical Interpretation of Embodied Cognition

With the deepening of cognitive science research,the shortcomings of the classical mind-body dualism notion,which insists that the mind exists independently of the body,advocates rational logical thinking and constant pursuit of the truth have gradually revealed.As a result,it promoted the second generation of cognitive science revolution,in other words,the development of embodied cognition theory.Embodied cognition theory asserts that "the cognitive process is deeply rooted in the interaction between the body and the world"(Wilson,2012,pp.625-636),"depends on a bodily experience with a specific sensation and moter system"(Thelen et al.,2011,pp.24-34),and pays atten⁃tion to the interaction among cognition,body and environment to promote people's all-round development by improv⁃ing their external performance and internal quality.

The development of embodied cognition theory has also contributed to the educational revolution.The educa⁃tion and teaching theory guided by traditional cognitive science believes that teaching is a process of pure concept transmission and mental training,while learning is a process of truth-seeking,"a kind of spiritual training and pure⁃ly internal and non-experiential act" (Ye,2015,pp.104-114).The body,as the carrier of our mind,does not have the right to"speak"in educational process.This leads to"students'physical activities in a state of being suppressed or disciplined in the teaching process" (Zhou &Mo,2020,pp.47-52).Embodied cognition negates the indifferent and derogatory attitude towards the body,affirms "the dependence of cognition on the body and the root of the body in the cognitive process" (Qiao,2017,pp.13-20),and emphasizes "the subject's capacity for embodied action that emerges from the dynamical body-environment coupling"(He,2019,pp.72-76).Therefore,embodied cognition not only provides a new theoretical perspective for interpreting educational thoughts,but also offers a good prescription for the current educational practice reform.

The Realistic Difficulties of English Education in Schools

The human being is the whole one,which is composed of two parts:"mind"and"body",both of which are indis⁃pensable.In the field of English language teaching,"mind"and"body"cannot escape the fate of being divided,lead⁃ing to overemphasize the shaping of mind but restraining our body,which is manifested by the absence of the learn⁃ing subject,the single form of teaching,and the lack of moral education.

The absence of the learning subject

"Learning is essentially a subjective consciousness activity.In the whole process,the development of human life and learning go hand in hand and are intertwined,ultimately realizing the individualization of the subject and the socialization of the individual" (Hao,2020,pp.20-23).However,in real teaching situations,people usually fo⁃cus on the important role played by teachers and teaching materials,and lack the consideration of subjective factors such as student needs and their own interests.At the same time,truly effective learning starts with students'person⁃al experience,i.e.,prior experience,and builds a bridge between prior experience and new knowledge to facilitate the understanding and mastery of new knowledge.Therefore,teachers should pay attention to students' subjectivity in school,arouse students'thirst for knowledge and curiosity through classroom activities,promote"learning"by"do⁃ing",and realize the growth of their own experience.In traditional teaching,teachers force-feed and instill students with knowledge that is directly divorced from their previous experience.This kind of disembodied learning often starts with abstract concepts and proceeds in accordance with the teachers'predetermined goals.Since unable to build connections between new and known knowledge,students can only cram knowledge into their brains through mechanical methods such as memorizing and reciting,which makes it impossible to develop students'subjective ini⁃tiative and improve their problem-solving ability.

The single form of teaching

"Mode refers to the way that humans interact with the external environment(such as people,machines,objects,animals,etc.)through their senses(such as vision,hearing,etc.)"(Gu,2007,pp.3-12).With the development of in⁃formation technology,the teaching form have shown a trend of multi-modality,which promotes the conversion of teaching contents from written text to multimodal texts interwoven with verbal and non-verbal symbols.Traditional language learning is often based on a single,static,pure written text,where multiple senses are constrained and where students can make the connection between stimulus and response in the brain only by receiving visual sym⁃bols during the learning process.Compared with the teaching form using multimodal symbols,single modal teaching ignores the synergy of various senses such as vision,hearing,touch,smell and other senses,which increases the diffi⁃culty of knowledge understanding and narrows the way of knowledge transmission.In addition,the use of single mode is not conducive to the construction of an embodied learning environment,making it difficult to give you a feel⁃ing of actually being there.

The lack of moral education

The ideal English course should have both instrumental and humanistic attributes,focusing not only on teach⁃ing linguistic knowledge and enhancing learning ability,but also on the positive effects on the shaping of students'values.However,influenced by the idea of exam-oriented education,the"balance"of English curriculum has gradu⁃ally tilted toward the end of knowledge transmission.This overemphasizes the instrumental nature of English course,which is manifested by the rejection of"emotion"and"will"by"cognition",ignores the value of educate people un⁃derlying,and results in the separation of "teaching" and "educating people".In addition,the lack of awareness and practical ability of English teacher in moral education has made it impossible to fully explore the moral elements em⁃bedded in English courses,hardly realizing the deep integration of English course and moral education.

The Connotation of Embodied Cognition of English Subject Core Competencies

English subject core competencies refer to the key skills and necessary characters gradually formed by students through specific English teaching activities,which is of great value in improving students'external performance and internal quality.The proposal of English subject core competencies overturns the traditional disembodied teaching activities,insists on "the identity concept of physical cognition and rational cognition" (Jiang et al.,2019,pp.88-93),and advocates that English learning takes students themselves as the starting point,improves their cognition and enriches their emotional experience by stimulating the interaction of sensation,thinking and emotion,and finally re⁃alizes self-improvement and personality shaping.Linguistic ability,cultural awareness,thinking ability and learning ability,as important components of the core competencies of English subject,highlight the value of English educa⁃tion,and have significant embodied features in its formation and development.

Linguistic ability is the ability to understand and express meaning,and is a comprehensive performance of indi⁃vidual's language awareness and English language sense in the course of activities.The formation and development of linguistic ability needs to be realized in specific contexts.The formation of students'cognition does not begin with the acceptance of verbal symbols,but is based on the perception of external things,that is,through the accumulated experience in action,to understand the signified and meaning of language in the process of listening,seeing,touch⁃ing,and tasting.Cultural awareness aims to cultivate students'ability to understand Chinese and foreign cultures and enhance their cultural identity,which is a transcendence of the traditional English teaching model of superficial understanding of cultural phenomena.In the process of teaching,teacher should give full play to students'subjective role,ask students to make value judgments by comparing,analyzing and criticizing the two cultures and selecting the essence and abandoning the dross,to promote internalizing the value in their minds and externalizing it into prac⁃tice.Developing cultural awareness helps students form a strong national identity,establish the concept of a commu⁃nity with a shared future for mankind,and consciously shoulder the important task of cultural communication.Think⁃ing ability refers to the ability to think logically,critically and creatively.To cultivate thinking ability,students need to be guided to experience the whole process and all aspects of knowledge generation.During the learning process,students are not only knowledge receivers,but also practitioners and actors,actively exploring the mysteries of knowledge through reasoning,thinking,inquiry and other activities and then using this ability to solve practical prob⁃lems creatively.Learning ability includes:students'ability to choose and adapt learning strategies according to spe⁃cific conditions,the ability to acquire knowledge and information through various means,and the awareness and abil⁃ity to improve the efficiency of English learning.This competency shows the denial of the teaching concept of"giving people a fish and they will eat for a day",highlights the modern educational value of "teaching people to fish and they will eat forever",which focuses on the application and transfer of learning ability to achieve sustainable develop⁃ment of students.Thus,it can be seen that all these four components of English subject core competencies have obvi⁃ous embodied characteristics.

Therefore,the cultivation of English subject core competencies based on embodied cognition requires students to be exposed to specific context and real-life scenario to enhance the behavior and effect of interaction between peo⁃ple and the environment.Throughout the learning process,teachers should give full play to the important role of"cognition","emotion","will",and "behavior",and promote the development of linguistic ability,cultural aware⁃ness,thinking ability and learning ability through the interaction among cognition,body,and environment.

The Realization of English Subject Core Competencies from the Perspective of Embodied Cognition

Based on student-centered thought to promote their physical and mental development

The essence of knowledge acquisition lies in active exploration and generation.This requires teachers to give full play to students'subjectivity,guide knowledge internalization and to promote the construction of an "exclusive"knowledge system in teaching practice.Teaching should pay attention to students'own needs and interests,their exis⁃tence and development value,and give students freedom in class.Teachers should focus on promoting students'de⁃velopment in the setting of learning objectives,selection of teaching materials,and carrying out teaching activities.They should keep pace with the times,and innovate educational content to better meet the needs and expectations of students'growth and development.In addition,learning should be based on students'previous experience,not just knowledge transplantation or grafting.Teachers should activate students'personal experience through teaching activ⁃ities in class,enhance their intrinsic motivation for learning,give full play to students'ability to understand,analyze,criticize,and create,promote problem solving,form a"personalized"cognitive system,and cultivate people with life⁃long learning ability and sustainable development.

Extend sensory ability to improve learning efficiency

Wang (2012) has discovered that the multimodal teaching method broadens the scope of students'learning and the access to knowledge,promotes the dynamic exchange of information among people,and truly realizes the im⁃provement of students'autonomous learning ability.Therefore,English teachers should create multimodal learning situations in teaching process.Teachers can make use of pictures,videos,music,cartoons,and other multimodal learning resources and build the internal relationship between existing experience and new knowledge through acti⁃vating the senses of vision,hearing,touch,smell and other sensations,to promote the understanding and use of knowledge.In addition,compared with pure written materials,learning materials interwoven with various symbols can achieve a stronger ideographic effect,and have the characteristics of vividness,iconicity,and infectiousness.Ex⁃tending sensory capability helps to stimulate students'interest in learning,activate their intrinsic learning motivation and increase classroom involvement.

Dig deep into the value elements to nourish the soul

In essence,English education should involve dual learning process:the acquisition of the"tools"of life,the use of English language,and the acquisition of"ways"of life,the learning of culture and values,so as to realize the dia⁃lectical unity of knowledge impartment and value guidance.This idea requires that English teachers should use their own"cultural wisdom"to find the matching point between moral education and English courses,and deeply explore the"implicit"moral elements in teaching.English different from other subjects,the cultivation of its cultural aware⁃ness is mainly through bilingual media,and the perception of multicultural appearances promotes the interpretation of deeper meanings,so as to absorb the essence of diverse cultures,and promote the sustainable development of Chi⁃nese culture.Therefore,digging deep into the spiritual world and humanistic nutrients embedded in English educa⁃tion and promoting a deeper integration of English course and moral education will help to cultivate new generation with Chinese feelings,international vision and cross-cultural communication skills.

Conclusion

Embodied cognition is a cognitive concept that attaches importance to the unity of body and mind,which sys⁃tematically reveals the internal logic in the formation and development of English subject core competencies,and demonstrates the significance of English education in promoting students' all-round development.According to the characteristics of embodied cognition,this thesis deeply analyzes the connotation of embodied cognition in linguistic ability,cultural awareness,thinking ability and learning ability,and then explores the embodied realization path of English subject core competencies,which is helpful to deepen the research of embodied cognition theory in the field of English teaching and realize the development of students'English subject core competencies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper was the research result of (Grant No.2019B041) Practical Research of Moral Education on College English Courses from Philosophy and Social Science of Shanxi in 2019;(Grant No.2019JG040) Collaborative Con⁃struction of Moral Education Courses for Graduate Students under the Background of"Double First-class"Construc⁃tion for Graduate Education Reform of Shanxi in 2019;(Grant No.2019SX0008A)An Empirical Study of Multimod⁃al Corpus Based on the Construction of Corporate Foreign Language Websites from the Key Project of National Uni⁃versity Foreign Language Teaching and Research Project;Exploration on the Cultivation Paths of First-Class Inter⁃national Talents in the Context of Shanxi Province University Alliance from Education Science Planning Project of Shanxi Province in 2019;(Grant No.J2020055)Research on the Training Paths of International Talents on the Basis of CLIL under the Background of"New Engineering"and"New Liberal Arts"from the Teaching Reform Research of Shanxi in 2020;and(Grant No.RH2100001833)Research on the International Communication of Cultural Self-Con⁃fidence from Taiyuan University of Technology crosswise project in 2021.