Impact of Memory Method in Second/Foreign Language Fluency Development

• In Event: Poster session 2

Proposal

As far as second language acquisition is concerned, language learners often complain that they cannot adequately retrieve language knowledge acquired in the classroom and apply it in a real world context. It is also common for language teachers to observe that language class learners often experience “ups and downs” of their ability to speak fluently and effortlessly. While language learners may communicate successfully with peers in the classroom setting itself, language fluency levels will fluctuate widely in different settings outside of the classroom. To achieve language fluency goals and expand language communication performance, it would be ideal if our brain could function in an extraordinary fashion so as to retrieve formal learning and efficiently apply that knowledge in informal settings. Unfortunately, quite to the contrary, we often may easily lose information obtained in the language class if we do not make the conscious and determined effort to retain it.
In this article, I will investigate varied evidence showing how language fluency fluctuates in different contexts and how the brain functions differently when retrieving knowledge obtained in the classroom setting to outside settings and contexts. The theoretical framework of this project is based on Oxford’s taxonomy, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). According to Oxford (1990), language learning strategies are specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, more effective, more self-directed, and more transferable to new contexts. This study is based on three of the four sets of memory strategies classified by Oxford (1990). These three sub-strategies are (1) grouping, (2) making acronyms, and (3) using imagery. These strategies enable learners to retain language knowledge and then retrieve that specific knowledge when needed for communication. This study is an empirical research with an evidence-based qualitative analysis. The methodology of this research is a combination of Ethnography and interview.
Participants for this study are intermediate level Persian language learners who are studying Persian in a language institute in the California Bay Area. Ten language learners will be considered, and gender is not a factor in this study; participants will be women and men, with an age range spanning 25 to 40 years old. First, the ten Persian learners will be interviewed regarding strategies employed for language learning and fluency development. Then the memory method will be applied in the classroom in order to investigate that method’s effect on the language learners’ fluency development. The memory method will be to use newly encountered Persian words in a sentence so as to facilitate the language learners’ subsequent memory of new vocabulary by forming a mental relationship between vocabulary already known and the new vocabulary items. The study will investigate the ability of and effect on Persian learners when using the strategy of acquiring and effectively remembering new Persian words and sentences by making a mental picture of a situation wherein each vocabulary item might be properly used. A second interview will be conducted after applying the memory method in the Persian lesson plan. The interviewees will be the same language learners who participated in the first interview.
The purpose of this empirical research is to explore the impact which language instruction through the memory method may have on a group of Persian language students’ continued acquisition towards the desired end goal of fluency. Moreover, this study is an attempt to introduce this memory-based method to language teachers for use as a part of classroom instruction in order to also improve the students’ language fluency in a variety of different settings and contexts.
The following research questions are formulated for accomplishing this research investigation:
(1) In what ways do the participants describe their experiences in Persian language fluency development through the use of the communicative method and memory method, and (2) how do participants evaluate their language fluency level both in formal and informal settings before and after learning Persian through memory method.
In summary, the results derived from this present research project may have pedagogical implications. To improve language fluency development it is essential for students to use and apply the memory method for language learning to obtain language knowledge in the classroom and retain it effectively in order to recall and use that acquired knowledge outside of the language classroom. The findings of this study may enable and further refine language learners’ awareness of the memory method as a means to facilitate the language learning process. Ultimately, the results of this study may (a) provide further support in offering the memory method as a suggestion to language teachers for consideration in classroom use, and (b) help language learners in fostering and raising their awareness of the advantages of the memory method’s proper use when learning a second/foreign language. The researcher of this study proposes explicit language learning strategies in the classroom in order to fill a gap in language fluency development that is obvious under current teaching methods and textbook materials.

Author

• Malihe Eshghavi, University of San Francisco