Memory Retention

Baddeley A (1990) Human memory Language Erlbaum London, 152-158.

Pimsleuer P (1967) Mordern Language Journal 51(2)73-75

Both of two articles indicated the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary with expanding repetition interval. For example, for the words learned to be put hold for a long time, the words should be taught right after the day the words are learned for the first time, but the interval for the next learning and next next learning should be expanded to the point when learner do not forget the word! With this strategy, teachers can have learners retain their words learned for much longer time than they learned words with equal interval.

Though it is difficult to develop the curriculum or syllabus in line with this truth above, I would like to apply this to my teaching in second language learning classrooms.

Skehan's Task-Based Learning

Peter Skehan (1998) A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning (Oxford Applied Linguistics)

This chapter is what i learned in a course named TESOL Method and Material 1 in TUJ. But at that time, this article is hard to understand for me. So I have hoped to read it again sometime. I read it yesterday. But still I couldn't understand it fully, but it turned out it is because of not my English proficiency, but this articles' perspective and content.

In the article he summarizes researches about Task-based learning, and do not offer readers his clear opinions and statements on TBL. That's why i could not feel refreshed after reading it.

But it was meaningful as a sort of guide to search other in-depth articles about TBL. Also it shows some results about investigation on Tasks characteristics such as accuracy, fluency, and complexity. What appeals to me is many tasks are not almighty, but have strong and weak side (For example, personal tasks helps to improve learner's fluency, but it is weak for developing their complexity). Implication we could elicit from this fact is that we should orchestrate a variety of tasks depending on students' proficiency and needs.

Get a feeling for a language!

The lecturer, Dr.C, in the class of Applied Linguistcs speaks and writes a lot about how we quickly can acquire our target languages. He researches it from the perspectives of pragmatics and psychology, and neuro-science. Though i had never though about the topic deeply, and i am no knowledge of the three perspectives, what he speaks and writes is really intriguing!

He said what learners grasp is not the traditional four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing), but a sort of language feeling. He seems to try a way for leanrers to get that feeling where they can easily in a mood of the world where the target languages are dinamically used. Moreover, once they get a feeling, it is likely to occur a transfer from the one mode like reading to other mode like listening.

I remembered my experience as a learner of my target language, English. I practiced speaking when i was in a conversational school, and i felt i was really motivated to learn English, because i could get a feeling of the language, in restrospect. I practiced speaking skill, but at the same time, I passed along the way to get close and close to a kind of core of English, which are surrounded by the four skills.

He writes about various cases of people who can speak other languages they hardly use in their daily lives, like people whose both brain hemispheres are the same size(most of people has larger left-brain than right one according to Dr.C), those who can seem to recall and speak other languages they almost never uses, believed by some as raincarneted soul, and those who can "use" other-self speaking other languages they never use, to handle severe situation, called dissociative identity disorder(DID), also called Tajujinkaku in Japan. Though the his research seems to scratch the surrounding, and core has not yet been clear, his articles, comments, and lecture give me lots of insight, and make me think seriously about how i should change my perspectives of English learning and teaching.

From Tokyo To Neanderthal

I went to Tokyo Station today, to pay for social insurance. I go to Tokyo once a month to do that. The snecery i saw on the train from Shinjuku to Tokyo is totally different from that i usually see around here in Hachioji. Lots of buildings, narrow road, and old fashoned Tokyo station really freshed me up!

Left is the photo of my closest station i usually use. It is of course comfortable station, but around this station has nothing but nature...

The article i read for the next week class said every tribe and kind of human living on the earth can say [a] [i] and [u], the basic vowels, but Neanderthal could not say [a] [i] or [u] due to their short distance from addams' apple to mouth chamber. They of course could communicate with each other much more satisfactory than ape do, but they could not so sufficiently communicative as moderm human do now. It is interesting. But i just wonder..how did they talk with each other?