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February 2012, Week 1

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LLTI Editor <[log in to unmask]>
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Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 1 Feb 2012 15:56:45 -0600
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Hi Derek,

Thanks for your feedback, both in the survey and the forum. The purpose of the survey is to get people's opinions about ideal intervals based on their intuition and experience and identify intervals to test. The examples I give are a mix of mathematical series you identified and ones that are actually used by other language learning programs, and are there to serve an illustrative purpose for people who are not familiar with the theory and don't know what I meant by intervals.

For the reasons you list and many more, there is no rigid set of intervals that works for everyone for every learning object, foreign language or otherwise.  Previous research has found some rough parameters and best practices, and not unexpectedly, many answers to the survey so far fall outside the range of those.

At Transparent Language, we currently have products that work almost identically to what you have described. The user first encounters the item in intervals of seconds and minutes while learning it, and then future practice and retention intervals are based on the individual's experience with that particular item; "harder" items for that individual will have shorter intervals than "easier" ones. The more the program is used, the more information it has to further optimize that individual's learning and retention of a new language. We are now testing new adaptive algorithms in order to see if we can optimize an individual's learning  experience even more.

Best,
Vimala


From: Derek Roff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:37 PM
To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum; Vimala Palaniswamy
Subject: Re: #9770 researching spaced repetition theory

This is certainly an interesting question.  I took the survey, and as is often the case with surveys, I think it asks the wrong questions.  Specifically, it assumes that there is a single best answer to the question of repetition interval.  The interval examples listed include simple mathematical series (Fibonacci, powers of 2, ~5x), and I doubt that they have any research base in language learning.  All of the listed intervals seem too long.  There has been quite a bit of learning research that suggests the first intervals should be measured in seconds, then minutes, then hours, rather than days.

Having reached the third millennium, I would hope that we would recognize the diversity of 1) individuals, 2) the learning challenges presented by different language elements, and 3) the continually changing needs of each student.  Current computer technology could treat each person and each vocabulary or grammatical item separately, and find the optimum repetition interval for each element in a dynamic way.  Each item could be presented to the student at varying intervals, with those intervals adjusted based on the speed and accuracy with which each one is recognized by the individual student.

I hope Transparent Language will consider developing a more sophisticated product, based on learning research and the power of current computers and software.

Derek

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