Learning By Spaced Repetition

By Rachel Rowland ( ABC’s Academic Coordinator ) Learning a new language can be very difficult, especially for those who find it difficult to memorise new words and phrases. We’ve all been in the situation where we have to learn vast quantities of information within a short space of time, cramming for an exam at school for example, and in these instances, many of us decide to read the same texts over and over again in the hope that the information will finally sink in! However, studying in this way is not only boring and repetitive but it’s also ineffective. In this article, I will look at one method that can work well when trying to learn a new language. How does the brain work?

It’s easy to imagine that our memories are stored like files in a filing cabinet and that we can easily access certain parts of the brain to retrieve information when needed. However, there isn’t one particular place that stores our memories within the brain and when we learn something new, it isn’t stored in a single location, but is instantly spread across many different parts of the brain.

Experts within this field have discovered that we can only remember five to seven new pieces of information at a time, so the brain has clear limitations. However, despite these limitations, this research into how the brain remembers new things offers us practical ideas on how we should be learning new information.

We need reinforcement Back in 1885, a German psychologist called Hermann Ebbinghaus did an experiment to find out how quickly humans forget information. His findings revealed that, unless information is reinforced, we quickly forget what we have learned. More than fifty years later, other researchers decided to look into how often we need to reinforce new information in order to remember it. They found that spacing out repetition – revising the information every two days, then every four, then every eight, and so on - was the most effective method. So, what does this actually mean? Simply put, our brains learn more effectively when we space out our learning over time. How to implement spaced repetition into your studies My first tip is that you should break up your study time and give yourself many short breaks. Decide which times you are going to study and separate these into fifty- minute time slots. Sounds too good to be true right? Think of it like this, the brain is a muscle that tires from repeated stress so longer periods of work do not equal better work. An experiment was carried out via a productivity app called Desktime. The app was used to look into the productivity levels of employees and the results were extremely eye-opening. The findings revealed that the highest-performing 10 percent of employees tended to work for 52 consecutive minutes followed by a 17-minute break. Those 17 minutes were often spent away from the computer, taking a walk, doing exercises, or talking to others. In terms of how this can help your studies, this simply means that your productivity levels will be greater if you study for shorter periods. Let’s now look at ways of implementing the spaced repetition method within actual meaningful tasks. Flashcards are a great way of learning new vocabulary items. You will need flash cards with questions on one side and answers on the other. You could separate the flashcards into categories, such as adjectives in one box and verbs in another box. Each box has separated sections divided into days- every two days, every four days etc. Set up a schedule for when you will revise the cards in each box. To start off with every card would be in section 1, which could be labelled as ‘Day 1’ and when you get a card right it moves to the next section which could be labelled as ‘every two days.’ If you begin to regularly answer a card correctly, you could move the card into a section which is used for revising the words every eight days, whereas if you get the answer wrong, you move the card back into the section scheduled for a visit every two days. Eventually, once remembered, the cards can be stored into a separate box for ‘known words’ and reviewed if needed. The only issue with using the flash card method is that it involves keeping track of a lot of words and you have to keep buying blank cards, which can be expensive over time. However, there are some great apps out there which use the same principles of spaced repetition such as Anki, TinyCards and Lingopolis which use a ‘flash card’ system to introduce and review vocabulary within short time periods. The way in which many people approach learning has remained the same for centuries. Spaced repetition is a proven method which enables learning to take place within less time. However, I suggest that you should use this method for learning vocabulary and some grammar rules. You should also do listening tasks, read in the language and speak in the language in order to become fluent.