Experts in learning have not contributed to the on-going debate on learning science and mathematics in English or in the mother tongue. At least not to my knowledge.

from the this and that and here and there that I heard and have been to, I have a lot of questions to ask of the experts. Maybe all those who actively participating in this debate can also take a look.

As a result of searching Google I am told that we have 100 billion brain cells or neurons in our skull. Everyone who has a friend or relative suffer a stroke knows that different parts of the brain - meaning clumps of brain cells - perform different functions.

So some brain cells help us see/visualise while others help us to hear. We also hear rumours that we are logical on our left and emotional on our right. This is the great divide between the right brain and the left brain.

The right side of the physical body is controlled by the left and vice-versa. Thus, if someone has a damage on the right side of his brain, then probably he will suffer some kind of a disability on his left physical body - like a stroke patient.

Without going into details, let us imagine that all the neurons in our brains are like light bulbs. We now have invented the MRI machines. This magnetic resonance machines can take a picture of the brain.

So let us imagine that when we learn a language, we have the MRI take a picture of our brain. Now we ‘see’ all the neurons light up. That would be the brain cells required for learning your mother tongue. We can postulate that, most probably, if the learners are all learning Malay, the same parts of the brain would light up.

And all who learn Chinese would have different parts of the brain light up. Most probably because the Chinese language is pictorial and in some places your eyes would be going up and down and not left to right. Thus different parts of the brains are used or light up etc.

Alright, maybe it is fair to assume that when a ‘new’ brain is learning any language, certain and similar brain cells are being used. Different parts of the brain may become activated when you learn different languages. Anyone with an MRI for loan?

What would the difference be between the brain of a mono-language learner and a multiple- language learner? Would it be fair to assume that the more languages you learn, the more of your brain cells become activated?

By the same token, we suspect that when you learn maths, different clumps of your brain cells would be used. And different clumps of brain cells are used for history, art, religion, athletics, football, gin rummy etc.

I would like to assume that when you subject a group of students to learn the same set of knowledge or skills like maths, the same neurons would light up. If only I can lay my hands on a MRI machine...

The latest rumour, well actually not so late, has it that when you learn maths or science or history, the brain neurons actually produce different types of chemicals called neurotransmitters. Brain scientists have managed to identify more than one hundred of these neurotransmitters like melatonin, seratonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrin etc.

Now, it seems that if you learn maths, the brain cells will have to produce a specific brain chemical for learning maths. So whenever we learn anything or do anything new/different, some new clumps of the brain will be activated.

More interesting is, of course, when the brain comes across something new. It seems that it will search through all the brain cells for all existing information/knowledge or data that is stored and it will start to compare, analyse, jiggle and decide to accept, reject or reorder the new information and file it away for use.

The more information you have inside your brain, the more activities/operations your brain will be running. All this information is on the Internet so I am thinking Google..

Wah. So I type in a word, a Bahasa Malaysia word biologi and within 0.13 seconds Google has dragged up 7,810,000 documents carrying the word biologi.

Wah. I try again and I type in the English word ‘biology’ and within 0.11 seconds, 92,300,000 pages are fetched by Google and served to me.

I wonder what all those experts out there make of learning languages and science and maths?