LA GRAMMATICA DEL CERVELLO CHE COMUNICA NEURODIDATTICA, LINGUE E APPRENDIMENTI

Abstract

This volume revisits neurodidactic research after twelve years, expanding its scope to include classroom communication dynamics, Embodied Cognition, and contrastive-perceptual linguistics. It provides a synthesis of developments in the Italian neurodidactic field, with particular focus on language, pedagogy, and glottodidactics. In the current educational sciences landscape, pedagogical reflection increasingly integrates cognitive neuroscience, especially regarding the neurophysiological underpinnings of didactic communication. The first part of the book, edited by Giuseppa Compagno, explores the classroom as a complex communicative ecosystem, highlighting how effective teaching involves synaptic plasticity, mirror neurons, multimodal feedback, and embodied interaction. Here, communication is redefined as a multisensory, relational process, and the teacher emerges as a mediator of meaning and neural activation, rather than a transmitter of content. The second part, edited by Floriana Di Gesù, positions neurodidactics as a transdisciplinary field bridging neuroscience, cognitive psychology, special pedagogy, and didactics. Starting from Preiss’ pioneering work and the MBE framework (Mind, Brain and Education), the book adopts a “neuro-umbrella” vision, proposing that learning always involves structural reorganization of the brain. This shift demands a central role for the teacher, integrating neuroscientific insights into daily practice. The text then embraces the 4E Cognition framework (Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended), presenting cognition as situated and relational. Language learning is examined through the lens of “languaging”, understood as an embodied, context-driven experience rather than symbolic abstraction. This leads to the enactive-lexical approach, which sees vocabulary acquisition as rooted in bodily, emotional, and sensorimotor engagement. Finally, the volume applies these insights to the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language to Italian speakers. While linguistic proximity facilitates initial comprehension, it also increases interference risks. The enactive-lexical model, by grounding meaning in lived experience and interaction, offers a powerful pedagogical alternative to traditional methods, fostering a more meaningful and embodied learning process.