Learners! For Long Term Memory and Ability Make Sure You Cross The Threshold

Language learners as well as those who wish to memorize and retain poetry, theatrical plays, songs etc. can take lessons from the proverbs “A miss is as good as a mile”; “There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip”; and “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”. All these remind us that even when a desired outcome seems certain, things can still go wrong.

In the recent Paris Olympics the world has enjoyed watching amazing athletic feats from track and field events. In any foot race a most frustrating sight is to see a lead runner, thinking that he or she has won the race, slow down during the last few meters of the race and lose the race by the tiniest fraction of a second to the runner who was behind but ran through the tape. This type of “victory is in grasp” slowdown can be seen in many sports and is very frustrating for coaches, teammates, not to mention for the athlete who probably has regrets about the missed opportunity for which he or she trained for years. 

While learning a language or learning poetry or a theatrical play is not a competition between people, something similar happens to learners. Part of our being feels the goal of learning the content has been accomplished and wants to stop learning and revising. But the learning process often has not finished because the knowledge has not been digested to become a long term ability. So after months or years of language learning a person stops putting in the effort and then after a few months the knowledge has seeped out of the brain and one is frustrated that the language skills that seemed to be mastered have been lost.

Millions of high school students take years of a second language course as part of their schooling. However, a common refrain years after high school graduation is “I took Spanish (or French or Japanese …) for four years but I cannot talk to anyone in that language”. The problem is that the learning process was not finished and the threshold for deep learning was not crossed. In fact given the limited classroom time and lack of follow-up from teachers or students, unless students have an opportunity to use the learnt language regularly it is not surprising the skills learnt with great effort are lost.

With Encore!!! Language learning app this undesirable outcome of learning need not occur. Students can continue revising and learning what they have learnt in class outside the class. Using MyEntries of the app a student can place lessons in the app and use the functions:  Make a playlist ⇒ choose number of repetitions ⇒ choose pause between repetitions ⇒ play the playlist and then “listen-speak out-repeat” and periodically use the TEST function to verify how much of the learnt information you have retained. 

A question that arises is “what is the threshold that I need to cross to ensure the language or poetry or song I have learnt remains in my brain for a long time so I can recall it rapidly?”. It seems one has to use (hear, speak, see, etc.) a new term as much as a couple of hundred times before it becomes part of our long term ability. In an “immersive” situation this threshold is likely to be reached within a few months or at most an year. However, in absence of being “immersed” the effort and discipline needed makes it hard to reach this threshold – unless one uses the functionalities of Encore!!! Language app described above. Indeed Encore!!! gives a user an immersive experience because of the unique functionality.

Author: Dr. Jasprit Singh, President Gurmentor, Inc.

A Learning Company https://gurmentor.com

Professor Emeritus, Electrical Engg. & Comp. Sci. and Applied Physics

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor