Bow wave (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Bow wave
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hjordis
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Message 9 of 25

30 April 2014 at 6:52am | IP Logged

leosmith wrote:

emk wrote:

I write, on behalf of a B1 student learning their first
language: "If possible, look for some really interesting books."

You give good advice, and I don’t think many people are misinterpreting it the way you
fear, because it’s so clear. The advice I was referring isn’t
written like that. Usually, it’s something like “read books that are interesting to
you” or “only read books that are interesting to you”, with no
advice about what to do if there are no such books available, if the interesting books
are too advanced, if the student is indifferent about what he
reads, etc. And sometimes, it’s as harsh as I mentioned, using the very words I
mentioned.

I've been guilty of this in the past(only once that I can think of where I was maybe
too harsh). The problem is that it's my default advice, because, I, personally, can't
learn anything if I'm not interested. At best I'm easily distracted and at worst
completely unmotivated (undiagnosed mood disorder... seeing someone next month whoo).
Some how I got lucky and this hasn't affected my ability to work much(may have to do
with my work environment), but when it comes to my personal time (or school...) I won't
get anything done if I'm not interested, and sometimes it won't get done even if I am
interested.

Still everyone is different, and I try to word my advice more carefully now. I still
strongly believe that people should try to choose methods and resources that interest
them as much as possible, but I accept that there are other ways of doing things. :)

Thoughts on other topics in this thread: I definitely that there's a delayed effect
with most learning. I'm not sure I've ever noticed the bow wave effect, but I have
found after many of my demotivated phases that my skills hadn't deteriorated too much.
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Jeffers
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Message 10 of 25

30 April 2014 at 10:36am | IP Logged

I think the theory makes sense, but I don't think that the only way to "reduce a bow
wave" is to set the language aside altogether. Geoff Petty is a British writer on
education. One thing I learned from his books is that if you switch learning methods,
you can carry on learning efficiently. An average 10 year old can only do a task
efficiently for 8-12 minutes. But this does not mean that lessons should only last 10
minutes. What it does mean is that teachers need to change the activity within the
subject every 10 minutes or so. So, they can write for 10 minutes, do matching
activities for 8 minutes, read each other's writing for 12 minutes, etc, etc.

This can be applied to language learning during your study sessions during the day:
study Assimil for 20 minutes, then change to watching for an hour, later read for 30
minutes, etc, etc. Changing your learning style improves efficiency.

But this can also be applied over time. I've been working hard on Assimil this month
for the Learning Based Challenge. What I have noticed is diminishing returns on my
study over the period. Or to use your bow wave idea, a bow is building up which really
needs to be reduced by a break. A break from French would mean that next month I can
approach Assimil more efficiently again. But another way would be to take a break from
the method I was using, and do something different with my study time.

This is something emk was getting at, if I understood him correctly. A break from a
language is certainly not a bad thing. But if you don't want a break from your
language, you can take a break from your study method to allow the learning to
consolidate. In fact, a "passive only" period from time to time might just be a very
efficient way to consolidate active learning.

Anyway, thanks for bringing up these interesting ideas!
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luke
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Message 11 of 25

30 April 2014 at 12:06pm | IP Logged

I'm with Jeffers. I do something like this with waves of intensity on material I return to over and over. I wrote
something more concrete over in the thread at polydog.org. This also fits in with a multi-track approach and
is helpful for alleviating boredom. You also get those "ah ha" moments, such as emk described watching an
old episode. Those are helpful for realizing you are headed in the right direction.
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Bao
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Message 12 of 25

30 April 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged

emk, I certainly didn't mean you. I myself actually referred to the cultural stereotypes I soaked up.
One thing is that when you specifically search for advice by asking a person/group or using a source, you usually approach that keeping in mind that you may need to translate the advice given into your own situation. But when you didn't ask for advice and people give it nontheless, I find it much more difficult to sort through the information. Like, when you mention BDs, I tend to disregard the part about BDs in particular and read it as "reading material that has the right balance between being accessible and interesting to you". But when a friend or teacher tells me I should read BDs, they may have exactly the same intention as you, but I think they are likely to ask me about it later, and it just becomes harder to decide to read a children's encyclopedia without trying to read BDs myself. And when reading the BD is not enjoyable I have less motivation to switch to the encyclopedia, and I feel like I made some mistake for not being able to enjoy the BD.

When it comes to something like the choice of reading materials I obviously can talk with my friends about it. But there are certain topics that people often give commonplace advice about, without being asked and without being open for a conversation about it. I think it happens a lot when people talk about motivation and will-power.

Leo, one of those replies mentions a study where people went to study other languages, and so do you. Would you think there's a major difference between breaks without exposure to a foreign language, and breaks where you switch to another target language?

Edited by Bao on 30 April 2014 at 8:33pm
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emk
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Message 13 of 25

30 April 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged

leosmith wrote:

emk wrote:

So to borrow your metaphor, is this really a "bow wave," where the time away is essential to the process?

Anything you can do to lower the affective filter will help, so probably not 100% essential in every case. In my theory, studying contributes to the filter. I think depending on the amount you study, and your individual sensitivity to it, it can be a major factor. Personally, I’m pretty sensitive to study, so I really need to take a break. And I advise people to take breaks too, because it has so many other benefits.

Your bow wave idea is very interesting. It's not something I've ever experienced directly, but parts of what you describe seem very familiar. So just out of sheer curiosity, I'm going to try match up various parts of your theory with things that do happen to me.

I have no idea whether this will make any sense, of course. I'm just trying to rephrase your ideas in terms of things I do understand. Please let me know if I've totally missed the key points. :-)

Delayed-effect learning. As mentioned before, I think memory consolidation plays a role here. This may operate on a number of time scales: Quintillian observed that memories get stronger overnight. I see some really fascinating effects where Anki cards get dramatically easier after a month or so. And this study showed fascinating hints that language processing became more native-like after 5 months of total inactivity (though the language was simple, and no increase in overall proficiency was observed):

Quote:

For the study published in PLoS ONE, the researchers asked another very interesting question: What happens after you’ve reached high proficiency in a foreign language, if you’re not regularly exposed to it? Do you lose the use of any native-language brain mechanisms that you’ve attained? Many learners do not always have ongoing exposure, which makes this is a critical question, Ullman says.

So, without having warned their research participants beforehand, the researchers called them an average of five months later, and asked them to come back for another round of brain scanning. Because the language was made-up, the scientists were sure that the participants hadn’t had any exposure to it during this entire time.

The researchers weren’t sure what they would find, since this was the first study examining the brain after such a period of no exposure. However, previous studies testing only proficiency changes found, not surprisingly, that foreign language learners generally did worse after such periods, so the scientists assumed that the brain would also become less native-like.

“To our surprise, the participants actually became more native like in their brain processing of grammar,” Ullman says. “And this was true for both the classroom and immersion training groups, though it was still the case that only the immersion group showed full native-like processing.”

Ullman believes that, over time, memory of the language was “consolidated” in the brain, probably by the same mechanisms that also underlie native language. He says this process is probably similar to the consolidation of many other skills that a person might learn, such as learning to ride a bike or play a musical instrument.

This is delightfully weird, because the students actually got worse during the break, but the underlying patterns of activation in their brains became more like that of native speakers.

Stress from having too much new information "in the air." If I learn 500 new Anki cards in a month, I start feeling overwhelmed by all the new knowledge. It's like I'm building an unstable structure, then piling an unstable structure on top, and then putting another layer or two on top of that. After a while, I do get a bit twitchy. :-)

Diminishing returns. Doing the same thing every day for a month can have really spectacular payoffs. Doing the same thing every day for five months, though, begins to be a drag: I've already gotten all the benefit out of whatever I'm doing, and my biggest weakness is probably somewhere else now.

The affective filter. For folks who haven't heard this terminology before, it's one of Krashen's hypotheses about language learning. Wikipedia explains it nicely:

Quote:

The affective filter is an impediment to learning or acquisition caused by negative emotional ("affective") responses to one's environment. It is a hypothesis of second-language acquisition theory, and a field of interest in educational psychology.
According to the affective filter hypothesis, certain emotions, such as anxiety, self-doubt, and mere boredom interfere with the process of acquiring a second language. They function as a filter between the speaker and the listener that reduces the amount of language input the listener is able to understand. These negative emotions prevent efficient processing of the language input. The hypothesis further states that the blockage can be reduced by sparking interest, providing low-anxiety environments, and bolstering the learner's self-esteem.

This isn't something that I really experience myself, because I'm hedonistic and lazy, and my idea of hard studying is to read several fun novels in a month. But it seems like a pretty plausible hypothesis.

So if I were going to hazard some wild guesses, and throw out some totally unsupported hypotheses, here's how I'd try to rephrase your "bow wave" idea:

Intense study will eventually result in a large amount of unconsolidated knowledge that isn't yet "anchored" in long-term memory. Eventually, the combination of unconsolidated knowledge, study burnout, and diminishing returns will lead to increasing levels of frustration and stress. This, in turn, raises the affective filter and makes further study inefficient and painful. But by taking a break, it's possible to give memories some time to consolidate, and to recover from intense study.

Personally, I've never taken a complete break from French. But I have longish stretches where the bulk of my activity is casual conversation, TV, and light reading. It's really no stress at all to sit down and read a bunch of BDs on a tablet, or watch a few seasons of a TV show, or whatever. But the more I do this, the easier time I have accessing my French. Of course, I couldn't get away from French in any case: My wife speaks it at home, and I speak it with her.

Anyway, thank you very much for sharing these observations. It's very interesting stuff.
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leosmith
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Message 14 of 25

01 May 2014 at 6:57am | IP Logged

Jeffers wrote:

I think the theory makes sense, but I don't think that the only way to "reduce a bow
wave" is to set the language aside altogether.

At polydog, I answered emk's similar question like this:

Quote:

Anything you can do to lower the affective filter will help, so probably not 100% essential in every case. In
my
theory, studying contributes to the filter. I think depending on the amount you study, and your individual
sensitivity to it,
it can be a major factor. Personally, I’m pretty sensitive to study, so I really need to take a break. And I advise
people to
take breaks too, because it has so many other benefits. Most people take breaks anyway, regardless of my dingy
theory, so
it probably makes them feel good when they hear yet another reason they are doing the right thing.

Bao wrote:

Leo, one of those replies mentions a study where people went to study other languages, and so do
you.
Would you think there's a major difference between breaks without exposure to a foreign language, and breaks
where you
switch to another target language?

Are you talking about Cainntear's post on polydog? Regardless, I
think I can
answer this. A complete break will dissipate the bow wave faster. But you might not need to go to this extent.
Maybe just
switching languages, or going to casual/passive activities will do the trick. I'll try to make some suggestions in
the follow-
up. Maybe we can figure out ways to tell how complete of a break an individual needs.

emk wrote:

Please let me know if I've totally missed the key points. :-)

Seems like a pretty reasonable way of thinking about things. The PLoS ONE quote was particularly interesting.
And do you
think that Krashen sees the affective filter as blocking rather than delaying assimilation? If he does, that would be
a
difference with bow wave. Actually, I think it's probably a combination of the two, depending on the situation.

emk wrote:

Intense study will eventually result in a large amount of unconsolidated knowledge that isn't yet
"anchored" in long-term memory. Eventually, the combination of unconsolidated knowledge, study burnout, and
diminishing returns will lead to increasing levels of frustration and stress. This, in turn, raises the affective filter
and makes further study inefficient and painful. But by taking a break, it's possible to give memories some time
to consolidate, and to recover from intense study.

That's not a bad condensation, but you are missing the contribution of the "normal" affective filter stuff to the bow
wave, and the picture of the surfing dog.

Edited by leosmith on 01 May 2014 at 7:16am
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cpnlsn88
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Message 15 of 25

06 May 2014 at 11:49pm | IP Logged

Great set of ideas that helps cristalise something I noticed which is that your language is stronger after a break. The next step is to use that fact in interesting ways which self learners are probably less good at because of having high commitment.

One benefit of taking a break can be to improve energy and stamina, diminishing burnout and tiredness. I guess the difficult part is how long the break should be. If you are a self motivating learner then you may harbour a fear of losing energy and impetus and be reluctant to take breaks.

As has been stated, a variation might be to alter learning methods which has merit. However I think that there is something in the idea of a complete break - especially if it allowing memory to consolidate without constantly putting new items into it!

Perhaps one should organise some periods of the year where you are on vacation and do something different than language learning (or maybe a different language).

Maybe there is good use one can put to the idea of maintenance of a language if you're not actively studying it. I think the concept of 'maintenance' is under studied/talked about; I think it's something we think of as a means of slowing decay whereas growth may still be possible, even in the maintenance phase.

In order to keep a language active in the brain requires some aspect of it to be practised, not the entirety of what you learned the first time around - this is why quite minimal maintenance activity (as well as recovery activities) is often very effective, once the language has been learned in the first place.

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leosmith
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Message 16 of 25

07 May 2014 at 6:58am | IP Logged

cpnlsn88 wrote:

I think the concept of 'maintenance' is under studied/talked about

I agree. That's why I wrote this

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