Vocabulary learning and memory aids

Click on the link to hear a podcast where I discuss this subject here.

At The Linguist, to help our members learn English, we have an algorithm which governs the fequency which words and phrases appear in the list of words and phrases for testing. The algorithm will cause words and phrases that have just been learned to reappear more frequently on that list. As the learner comes across saved words again, or uses these words in writing, or tests these words correctly, the frequency with which these words appear on the test list is reduced.

We have had a variety of feedback on this design and think we can improve. What we feel is a weakness in the present system is the lack of freedom for the learner to decide which words are easy to learn, or important to him/her, and which are difficult to remember or unimportant. In the new system the learner will be able to adjust for both factors. Furthermore, the examples of words in use in the present system are not tied to the random listing of words for testing. These and other issues are greatly enhanced in the new system.

It remains that most of the learner's time should be spent on listening and reading which is ultimately the best way to become familiar with and to remember new vocabulary and see how words are used. I must say that I am a little skpetical about the usefulness of "scientific" algorithms such as the one offered by Supermemo that determine just when you are about to forget something. Ultimately our goal is to help the learner enjoy his or her studies in the belief that this does more good than anything else.

The accumulation of vocabulary in language learning is one part of an integrated process of training or getting used to how a language works, how words come together in different contexts and how a new language becomes a new part of our personality. We are developing skills and we are experiencing varying degrees of emotional commitment to the process of integrating a new language into our behaviour.

Of course the vocabulary learning part of the process should be as efficient as possible. Spaced repetition is a good practice. The use of flash cards is a good practice. These and other efficient practices are built into The Linguist system and will be considerably enhanced in the new system.

The Curve of Forgetting article says that we forget most of what we hear in a lecture by the next day, and suggests that we need to repeat this information soon again in order to remember more of it. I have a somewhat different perspective on this. Let us assume that the lecture was on history. If I was stimulated by the lecture to read more books on the same subject and if I encounter some of the same facts in a different book, and a different setting, I will learn better than if I just review my notes from the lecture. The reason is that I will be interested in the subject and will focus on the facts from different perspectives. This will reinforce my recollection, improve my understanding and keep me motivated. This is particularly the case for adult learners who are not obligated by an exam to cram information into their heads for a short term purpose.

The same is even more true in language learning. While it is important to review saved words and phrases, it is essential to read and listen more and enjoy using the language. The emotional state of the learner, his or her level of interest and confidence, are the keys to continued activity and success. Furthermore, the full meaning of a word, and a good sense of how to use it, cannot be grasped until that word has been seen in many contexts. So, while we are working to make our vocabulary learning systems better at The Linguist, the main thing is to focus on full context based language input. ONe just has to keep reading and listening.

For a beginner or lower intermediate, the listening and reading needs to be on a repetitive basis. More advanced learners need to be selecting new content to read and listen to more often.

I would be interested in other views on this subject.

Comments

[humberto]

Hi, Steve:

I have to admit I gave up reviewing my words an phrases I am learning. Even though I have tried hard to get all of them there is no way I can remember them. Aditionally, there are a lot of phrases to learn. I will keep on listening and learning interesting contents. I think that there is no sense on keeping increasing my saved words and phrases database. Actually I have more that 1500 words and phrases saved on my database which I can hardly put in my mind. Is it worth putting more words on that list? I am not sure.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I still think it is useful to review words. It is part of the gradual process of acquiring them. In the new system we will automatically generate a list of 20 "active words" based on a number of criteria reflecting the activities and decisions made by each learner. These will be the words to concentrate on learning at any given time. The phrases will generate automatically. We will see if you enjoy that more.

[Keith D.]

In your first paragraph, where you described your algorithm, I thought of Supermemo. But then in your third paragraph you mentioned you were skeptical about the usefulness of "scientific" algorithms such as the one offered by Supermemo that determine just when you are about to forget something. But actually, Supermemo's algorith does the same thing as yours in so far as "the frequency with which these words appear on the test list is reduced." The whole point is to reduce your study time to the amount that is necessary and nothing more. If you were skeptical about the accuracy of Supermemo's algorithm, I could understand, but being skeptical about the usefulness is confusing me. I think it's obvious that one need not review a word that they are not in danger of forgetting. If you review something you know, then you are just wasting a little bit of your time. So it seems to make sense that reviewing something just before you forget it is not a waste. Or do you believe that reviewing words after you have forgotten them is better? I haven't considered that. But of course, you would feel like you never remember that word.

Perhaps we should never review words. Acquiring words could be a natural part of language learning rather than a forced part where we study flash cards and review words to make sure we haven't forgotten them. If we study the language enough by reading and listening, then the words we need are the ones we keep seeing and hearing again and again. We can just look up the meaning of words we don't know or have forgotten. Eventually we'll have done that enough times that the word is finally learned and put in memory long enough for the next time we see it. We could just study words for a short period of time. Maybe just one or two days. If the word doesn't come up again soon enough, then that word is probably not worth extra effort. And if it does come up soon, we'll remember the word anyway and won't need any more effort. The most useful words are always going to be in our reading and listening material.

I think flash cards are easy to do and help me feel like I'm learning something when the real reason I use them is to avoid the labor of working through some reading material. Why do I avoid it? Because without a system like the linguist, I cannot just pick up something and judge whether it is appropriate for my level or not. It sounds like your system will do that. It can choose material for me which I will know 95 percent of the words. I look forward to joining when you offer other languages. Until then, it's just a real slow process learning a language because we always pick material too difficult for us. That in turn affects our motivation and then we are not doing as much because we are too tired of the struggle. I feel that the right material and the right system can help people learn languages in record time. First of all, the learner will make tremendous progress. That progress will be exciting and fuel the learner's desire to continue putting in the time and effort. The system will make it seem effortless because of its efficiency at introducing new material. That is something no teacher or school can do as effectively. It takes a great amount of material and work to put together the ultimate learning system. It's exciting to see theLinguist doing that.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I basically agree with you Keith. I do however believe that reviewing words in an organized way, using flash cards or looking at lists, where those lists represent the words that you should be focusing on, is a good thing to do. It should not be overdone. And we should not believe to strongly in algorithms that can predict when you are about to forget a particular word. But studying the "nuts and bolts" or the "bits and pieces" i.e. the words and phrases is a good thing to do.

When we have the new Linguist working for Japanese I think it will help you because it will
1) direct you to interesting content that is at the level of difficulty you want. you will be able to decide how heavy to new word you want it to be.
2) We will advise you as to the frequency level or usefulness of words, but you the learner will decide.
3) You the learner will decide on how difficult you think a word is to learn, for you.
4) You will be able to create "hints" for each new word, the label by which you want to try to remember it.
5) Based on this and more you will study a select group of word and phrases.
6) But mostly you will listen and read.
7) We will also have some exciting ideas for writing and speaking and creating your own learners portfolio but all of that will come out later.
Thank you for you in depth and perceptive comments.

[learner]

To be honest, making flash cards for me is a mundane task that i would not be doing for a long time. Writing, a definition, an example sentence or any extras that are related to the word is a time-consuming activity that puts me off easily. I also don't know when I should reveiew a particular set of words at a given time after reviewing them. For me, learning a language should be a fun activity not something that kills me.

Softwares like "supermemo" or "Fullrecall" are good for memorizing vocabulary or a small interesting sentence taken from a newspaper article or from any other source.
They have no limitations as far as space for putting sentences are concerned. You can copy and paste many example sentences of a particular word from online dictionaries and other sources and they can pop up many times from time to time instead of a single example sentence. It is a proven fact that a learner gets a real sense of using the word and its meaning only if he or she sees it many times in different contexts. So that's what we are doing via supermemo by putting many items in which that word is used. For example, if I memorized a word "sordid" and then encounter it during my listening or reading then I'll be able to understand it and retain it for a long time. To sum it up, students should keep listening and reading all the time but they should also reviewing words on a daily basis maybe 30 minutes a day.So i think applications like supermemo is not going to hurt us because we are not going to spend more than an hour or so in reviewing words through it. The curx of my argument is that through memorization words can be freshed in our short term memory and can be tranferred into our long term memory
by using and seeing it a lot.

Different methods work for different students but one thing is for sure nothing works without putting time and energy even thelinguist.

[Learner]

Sorry for my typos:
The CRUX of my argument...
They should also REVIEW...

[learner]

Just a thought: Why are you judging a book by its cover? Why not give Supermemo a try for three months or so and see whether it is indeed useful or not? It is not an expensive product for a trial purpose?

Not to offend you, but I feel that you are afraid of not integrating it or such programs with your system. Might be difficult for your system desingers to do that. Or are there other reasons for being skeptical about the usefulness of such software programs.?

[Steve Kaufmann]

I welcome "learner" coming on this blog to explain the advantages of Supermemo and promote it. If this system is of benefit to language learners, great.

I expressed skepticism about the idea that there is a scientifically verifiable point at which we are just about to forget words. The range of factors that influence how long it takes to learn different words would defy any scientific formula.

On the other hand a system of spaced reptition,such as Supermemo, is good, as are flash cards. I believe I said so in my post. Creating examples of words in use is also useful, especially if these examples are from real and meaningful content encountered by the learner.

The Linguist has incorporate some of these features in our present system and will considerably enhance these aspects of our learning system in the next version. The Linguist is an integrated language learning system, not just a memory device. We offer content, a learning methodology and a lot of individual support to our learners. Together with the learners we form a learning community. This will be even more the case once we start offering other languages besides English.

That said, it may well be that some of our learners can benefit from using Supermemo. We cannot be all things to all people. We want people to learn languages. So you are welcome to promote your system here, and I assume you will extend the same opportunity to me at your forum on antimoon.

[Learner]

Steve

You are more than welcome to post not just on antimoon but on any forum you like on-line. Feel free to share your views with us (ESL learners.)

I have been an user of supermemo for 3 years and i helped me a lot to memorize many words, phrases and expressions in the language without being worried about when to review them. There were always some items for a review every day...
An electronic program like supermemo or fullrecall is still better than paper based flash cards.

I have been impressed with your methodology so I am trying to give it a shot nowadays. I have downloaded audio books along with their text word by word but I dont know how to go about listening to them. It is very difficult for me to understand the accent of narrators as they speak too fast and there are lot of vocab words involved in the text that impede its overall comprehension.

What steps should I follow ? any comments on this. Thanks.

[George]

I began by downloading the trial version of supermemo when i was in my last year of high school, in 2005.

The flashcards were good, but i'd heard of something called incremental reading.
So i bought the real thing.
I listened to your podcast, and I am happy to say that i agreed with just about all of your theory on learning. However, I feel a kind of moral obligation to correct you, in that Supermemo, and its creators, have already addressed these EXACT topics in very great detail in the many articles that pepper the website.
The very first version of Supermemo, about 20 years ago, was strictly flashcards.
The latest version has the most amazing system of learning called Incremental Reading. It basically adresses your point about learning what the learner finds to be INTERESTING, and about continuing to update and expand your knowledge; not just keep reviewing old stuff.

There is much more value than meets the eye, so please try the system.
Also, it is a long term system - ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CRAMMING.

good luck