2011 March | The Brainscape Blog: Learn How to Learn Faster

Knowing the Rules: What are the Pros and Cons of Explicit Grammar Instruction?

By Amanda Moritz, 3/31/2011 at 12:12 pm

What is the “right” way to teach grammar? The debate between implicit and explicit grammar instruction has been raging on in the academic world for almost a century now. Language teachers everywhere have argued both that grammar should be taught in a concealed, integrative manner and in an overt, separate manner. Conflicting evidence shows that both methods have their respective logics. But how can we tell which is best for our own purposes? Since most of us are used to explicit grammar instruction since our days in elementary school, let’s look at the pros and cons of this type of instruction and determine whether it is effective or not. (more…)

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Top 10 YouTube channels to learn French

By Sruthi Swami, 3/30/2011 at 12:33 pm

As an avid lover of la langue française,I am a huge fan of finding all things French related. That was why I jumped on the opportunity to review the massive body of popular French language learning YouTube channels. YouTube is a huge resource for learning about many different things, languages included. (more…)

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Brainscape was featured on Forbes.com

By Amanda Moritz, 3/29/2011 at 2:08 pm

Brainscape was featured in Ed Zitron‘s Tea and Technology blog on Forbes.com yesterday! Ed originally wanted a quote from Andrew for an article on educational technology in general, but after checking out Brainscape’s website, decided we warranted a whole article. He writes a nice profile of Brainscape, including Confidence Based Repetition, our founder Andrew Cohen, and how Brainscape was started. Thanks, Ed! Article here and below the cut:
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My Experience with “Flavor Tripping”

By Andrew Cohen, at 12:36 pm

A few months ago, I first heard about the centuries-old concept called “flavor tripping” – the partaking of a miracle fruit that temporarily makes sour & bitter foods (e.g. lemons, grapefruits, vinegar) taste amazingly delicious. These miracle berries are incidentally not a drug at all but are rather perfectly legal fruits that leave a flavor-distorting effect behind on our taste buds. A quick search of the many (disorganized) online resources about these miracle fruits revealed nothing but positive experiences from the increasing number of Westerners who had tried them. (See this article in the New York Times.)

So, having become both curious about these berries and frustrated about the lack of a comprehensive online information hub, I did what any self-respecting psychology geek would do: I bought several dozen of these miracle fruit berries and convinced my girlfriend to host a tasting party of our own! Below is the consensus among our 25 attendees’ experiences. (more…)

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Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

By Amanda Moritz, 3/28/2011 at 11:21 am

I am a huge HUGE fan of TED talks. So many interesting and inspiring talks given by some of my favorite thought leaders. I can spend whole afternoons watching one video then another. A talk by MIT cognitive scientist Rebecca Saxe led me to creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson. Then I ended up at this talk by Patricia Kuhl (below the cut) on how babies learn languages: babies take statistics. Watch this talk and she will present to you how babies can distinguish every single sound in every single language in the universe. Truly remarkable! (more…)

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How long should it take to learn a language? (As posted in The Linguist)

By Julia Helman, 3/24/2011 at 11:53 am

One of our primary areas of interest here at Brainscape is foreign language acquisition. Our language software programs offer one of the most convenient and effective ways to pick up a new language, and we are always looking for ways to improve on this process. One topic that seems to be of interest to language learners is the amount of time that it takes to become fluent. To be sure, this depends on a number of factors, and the term “fluent” is pretty ambiguous in itself. I found one really interesting post on this topic in a blog called The Linguist – check it out for yourself below. I know this is a pretty controversial, so I’m really interested in hearing about your own opinions and experiences – please post your comments below! (more…)

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All Work and No Play: Why You Need a Vacation

By Julia Helman, 3/23/2011 at 12:15 pm

A few months ago I wrote a post about the benefits of the study break for one’s retention. It appears that studying nonstop is actually less productive than taking intermittent breaks. But what about those of us who are done with school? What about the full-time workaholic who may not even be able to afford to take a lunch break, let alone a full night of sleep? I bet this sounds pretty familiar to many of you – especially if you’re a New Yorker! (more…)

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Why You Will Never Learn a Foreign Language from TV

By Andrew Cohen, 3/22/2011 at 12:59 pm

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that one of the best ways to get started learning a foreign language is to watch TV or movies in that language. “If you just keep watching,” say many language wonks, then you’ll eventually start to “pick it up.” This can’t be further from the truth.

Listening to entire conversations or plots in a foreign language, without having some significant language skills as a base, fails to provide an anchor for your learning. The result is hearing a string of gibberish from which little or no actual learning takes place. To achieve real learning, according to Krashen’s “Input Hypothesis”, the learner must be incrementally exposed to phrases that are just beyond her level of comprehension. (Krashen defines this concept as k + 1.) This is the equivalent of hearing a sentence in which all words or grammatical concepts are familiar except for just one. (more…)

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Getting It Straight: Posture and its Influence on Learning and Memory

By Amanda Moritz, 3/21/2011 at 2:34 pm

Can your lack of posture be the reason you are not learning and remembering efficiently? This question has been a point of debate for a while and we still have not come up with a clear answer. If it were up to teachers, the answer would probably be yes, pointing to slouching as a clear sign of student disinterest. And they might not be very wrong. Learning style researcher Dunn and Dunn has suggested that being “uncomfortable” engages the left side of the brain which is active in when we take in new information. On the other hand, a relaxed posture seems to engage the right side of the brain, the creative side. For Dunn and Dunn, being comfortable in your bed or sofa while studying is not exactly the best idea if your goal is memory retention.
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Brainscape reaches 100k users!

By Andrew Cohen, at 1:42 pm

Woohoo! Brainscape is now being used by a tenth of a million people! Somehow the number 100,000 feels so much greater than just 99,999. The milestone was hit some time last week. I wish the iPhone SDK had a plugin that made bells, whistles, and confetti go off when we had our 100,000th download.