Transformative Learning: The Role of Language in Supporting a Self-Reflective Process in a Context of Crisis

 
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31 neurobiological learning process (Lam, 2016). In NsLLT, Arwood (201 1) proposes a synergistic four-level learning process that supports the construction of meaning and conceptual growth via a neurobiological and social-cognitive set of processes. Given the availability of current cognitive neuroscience research (Egorova et al., 2016; Grisoni et al., 2017; Pulvermuller, 2012; Pulvermuller et al., 2005; Tomasello et al., 2017), the NsLLT offers a brain-based learning theoretical model that addresses the synergy between the neurology of acquiring meaning and the acquisition of knowledge (Arwood, 2011). This construction of meaning process utilizes concepts as organizing frameworks to facilitate thinking and learning (Arwood, 2011; Clark, 2011). The four levels depict a synergistic neurobiological learning process toward the acquisition of language: The first level of learning occurs at the sensory level. Sensory receptors within the human body system receive input (Ritter et al., 2019). The sensory input received is processed according to the input’s properties (e.g., light waves, sound, touch, taste). At the sensory level, sensory input is received, recognized, and connected by receptors at a cellular/neuronal level based on semantic features. During the second level, the recognized sensory input connects in many forms to create patterns. Once overlapped patterns are recognized at the cellular level via semantic features, pathways in the brain create meaningful access to semantic patterns, mainly in the subcortical level (i.e., imitation) (Carota et al., 2017; Fang et al., 2018). In the third level, once patterns continue to bundle (overlap) and create more overlapped semantic features, the neuronal circuits connect to existing patterns and