The complicated science behind learning a foreign language

Katy Clemens - Sophomore | Feature

People trying to learn languages— within the school system and outside of it— should consider adjusting their methods according to science to ensure that they are learning efficiently.

There are many factors that go into the process of learning, and many ways to apply them. Most recognize studying only as its most traditional form- as the process of reading a textbook or going through worksheets. However, research suggests that we can learn languages differently.

Listening is one of the most important parts of learning, and often just as beneficial as studying. The Learning Center of North Carolina at Chapel Hill describes it as “...comprehensible input, which is a fancy way of saying being exposed to (hearing or reading) something in the new language and learning to understand it,” in the “Learning Languages” section of their website. This suggests that practicing a back-and-forth conversation with your friends could work as a form of study.

Grammar is also important- and most people know that. However, in some cases it is not the best option. Research Digest’s ‘Five Unusual, Evidence-Based Ways to Learn a Language’ defers to a study to explain- “Consider a 2014 study by Amy Finn at MIT and colleagues that found the harder adults worked at the structure and use of units of an artificial language – such as root words, suffixes and prefixes – the worse they did.” As for including this within your personal study procedures- you should ensure that you’re balancing the parts of language that you’re studying. Consider consuming media in the language you’re studying!

Our interviewee and CHS foreign language teacher, Ivania Perez-Cirigo, has defined the ways that you are able to learn languages into two terms: ‘Learning vs. Acquisition.’ When asked to describe this concept, Perez-Cirigo said: “We acquire our first language, meaning we start to speak the words that we’ve heard from the people that live in our home and we say the words that we have heard a million times. Learning is sitting down and taking out a book and learning the rules of something. Our first language is not learned that way.”

This does not necessarily mean that learning your second language versus acquiring it is a “lesser” form of learning. When asked if any method of learning was less effective than others, Perez-Cirigo said, “Really, languages can be learned, or they can be acquired. My personal experience is that I have acquired two languages, but I know people who have acquired their first language and who have learned their second, meaning that they have learned it at school, that they practiced on their own, they did it learning the structure of it, learning vocabulary, and through a textbook.”

No matter what you prioritize in your journey to language fluency, it’s important to remember first and foremost that language is unique. It’s your choice, whether you wish to practice by having out-loud conversations with your friends, or by reading your French textbook, or by immersion.