The second in a series on neurobiology and language acquisition, this book contains Dr. Daniel S. Janik's general theory, tenets and description of transformative learning. The culmination of over 20 years of work, Janik discusses teaching's traumatic roots, how traditional teaching, while effective, results in loss of interest and creativity, and describes a new 'nontraumatic' form of learning - transformative learning - held to be equally effective but without traditional teaching liabilities.

Janik argues replacing teaching with curiosity-based, discovery-driven, mentor-assisted transformative learning. An easy read that explains - in conversational manner - the newest ideas on neurobiology and transformative learning, the book begins with what's wrong with education and ends with a call for reader participation. Janik draws extensively from his own experiences first as a physician working with psychological recovery from trauma, and then as an educator and linguist in applying neurobiological-based transformational learning in clinics, classrooms, and tutoring.

Features: * descriptions of research alongside allusions to popular movies and television programs; * suggested readings; * internet resources.

Throughout the book, the author incorporates humor, wisdom, and anecdotes to draw readers into traditionally incomprehensible concepts that demonstrate various facets of trauma, teaching and transformative learning. The work will be interesting to educators, teachers, instructors, tutors and mentors - presecondary to postsecondary, including instructors of English as a subsequent language - as well as administrators, counselors, parents, students, and researchers.

Reviews: "Informative, educative, stimulating, and fun to read. . . . Recent scientific findings are introduced and explained in a language that I think is fairly accessible . . . especially fascinating and helpful to someone like myself, a language teacher who teaches language and at the same time studies it academically."—Yoichiro Hasebe, Language and Communication Department, Tokushima Bunri University, Japan

"A welcome addition to current work on...effective learning. After his academic book, A Neurobiological Theory and Method of Language Acquisition, [Janik] now presents us with a text stripped of...jargon, highlighting the most compelling and important contemporary contributions to neurobiological learning...[and] its derivative, transformational learning." —S. Micic, PhD, Associate Professor of English at the University of Belgrade School of Medicine, Yugoslavia.

"To an informed language specialist, this book gives a lot to digest, a lot to enjoy, a lot to wonder about. Combining his expertise in medicine and in education, [the author] has pushed language education theory and practice a quantum leap ahead...To an SLA researcher and an FL educationalist, this fine and exquisite book tells a different story: something that has not yet been touched upon in the research literature...thought-provoking, eye-opening, and immensely immersive, I will personally recommend it to all my language colleagues and to our future student teachers." —Dr. S. Tella, Professor of Foreign Language Education; Director, Research Center for Foreign Language Education; former Director, Media Education Center, Department of Applied Sciences of Education, University of Helsinki, Finland.

"[A] topic of extreme importance, yet there is no proper coverage of the subject in the open literature...I personally will use this book in my graduate teaching." —V. Milutinovic, PhD, University of Belgrade, coeditor of Neural Networks (1991).