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TROLL014 Read for Krashen

Read, Read, Read (For Krashen!) | TROLL 014

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TROLL014 Read for Krashen

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Back in the 5th Rule of Language Learning, we had a very pithy rule that was summed up like this: Review, Review, Reviewโ€ฆ

Genius, I thought!

Another bullet-proof rule of language learning, delivered in three simple wordsโ€ฆ

Good job Olly!

Or so I thoughtโ€ฆ for all of about 5 minutes. Until I checked Twitter and saw myself being firmly put in my place by a certain Stephen Krashenโ€ฆ

โ€œReview review review, what about read read read?โ€ โ€” he said!

  • I started to panicโ€ฆ
  • Beads of sweat started to run down my faceโ€ฆ
  • My heart started racingโ€ฆ

Had I just got it epically wrong? Itโ€™s not review, review, review, Olly, you muppetโ€ฆ itโ€™s read, read, read!!!

Thatโ€™s how you learn a language!

Now, when Stephen Krashen speaks, you pay attentionโ€ฆ

After all, heโ€™s done as much for language learning and teaching in the last 30 years than anyone else aliveโ€ฆ

Heโ€™s good fun over a beerโ€ฆ

And gave a particularly good interview on this blogโ€ฆ

By the way, if you're looking for a language learning method takes you from beginner to confident intermediate speaker thanks to reading, look no further.

My courses teach you through StoryLearningยฎ, a fun and effective method that gets you fluent thanks to stories, not rules. Find out more and claim your free 7-day trial of the course of your choice.

Read, Read, Read Or Review, Review, Review?

Soโ€ฆ

Which is it?

  • Review, review, review?
  • Read, read, read?
  • Who wins the battle of ideas when it comes to learning foreign languages?

Thereโ€™s a very simple concept behind the idea โ€œreview, review, reviewโ€, which is this:

We very rarely learn things first time.

The first time you see a new word, or a new grammar construction, the normal thing to happen is that you completely forget it within 5 minutes.

Thatโ€™s totally normal, totally fineโ€ฆ and part of the learning experience.

You can see this pattern of โ€œforgettingโ€ visually in the whatโ€™s called the โ€œforgetting curveโ€, which basically shows that the more times you review something, the longer you remember it.

ForgettingCurve
The original uploader was Icez at English Wikipedia. [Public domain]. The red line shows forgetting without review. The green lines represent review sessions and increased retention.

And so the fundamental principle here is that you need to get plenty of review of the stuff youโ€™re learning, in order to remember it.

Simple, right?

Straightforwardโ€ฆjust the way we like it!

So nowโ€ฆ

If the higher-order principle is that you need to get lots of review, then the next question is: How do you get that review?

And this is where Krashen and I start to convergeโ€ฆ

Because, when I say the word โ€œreviewโ€, you might have a certain image come to mindโ€ฆ

You might have an image of sitting down with a notebook or flashcards, looking back over your notes from classโ€ฆ โ€œreviewing your notesโ€, if you like.

And thatโ€™s one way to do it.

But thereโ€™s another way to get regular reviewโ€ฆ

Another less obvious way to review stuffโ€ฆ

Drum roll pleaseโ€ฆ

Reading!

That's right.

Reading is also a source of review. Let me explain why.

Obispo, Me, & An Argentinian Mountain Top

I remember the very first book I ever read in Spanish. It was called Crรณnica de una Muerte Anunciada, or Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Garcia Marquez.

A fantastic book.

But, you see, I read this book on top of a mountain in Argentinaโ€ฆ back in 2005, ladies and gentlemenโ€ฆ 2005!

Back when smartphones didn't exist. And even if they had existed, I certainly wouldn't have data coverage on top of that mountain. So I couldn't Google anything.

I didn't even have an old fashioned paper dictionary.

All I had was the bookโ€ฆ

And I read it cover to cover.

Right at the very beginning of the book, they started talking about this thing called an Obispo.

Obispo, in Spanish.

I had no idea what that meant, but I kept reading anyway.

As I carried on through the story, I still didn't know exactly what Obispo meant, but I did figure out he was an important figure that everybody revered, and he had something to do with the churchโ€ฆ

So that was enough for me to know basically what it meant. Enough for it to make sense in the story.

Now, this word came up over and over again, because this Obispo, was central to the storyโ€ฆ

The word would crop up on every page, sometimes multiple times

And because of that repetition, by the end of the book, that word Obispo was firmly embedded in my memoryโ€ฆ and has been for the last 15 years!

(And Obispo, in case you're curious, means โ€œbishopโ€.)

TROLL014_3

Soโ€ฆ

Built into the act of reading is review.

Review, review, review.

You see something new, you see it again, and you see it again.

As you read, you're learning new things, and then reviewing them.

The most important stuff crops up a lot, and so you review it more.

And guess whatโ€ฆ

If you keep it up, you end up knowing that stuff really rather well!

Krashen himself has called learning vocabulary in this way โ€œdistributed exposure to vocabularyโ€ โ€ฆwhich sounds altogether more convincing.

But I'll stick with the basic concept of โ€œreviewโ€ right hereโ€ฆ because that's exactly what it is!

So, ladies and gentlemen, when Stephen Krashen tells you to read, read, readโ€ฆ he's absolutely right, and you should do exactly what he says!

So How Do You Implement The Read, Read, Read Method?

Nowโ€ฆ

You might be wonderingโ€ฆ

Well, I'll let you into a little secretโ€ฆ

This โ€œread read readโ€ method is also the easiest language learning method in the world.

Krashen, who has a knack for giving this stuff fancy names, suggests โ€œFree Voluntary Readingโ€โ€ฆ

TROLL014_5

So, it's reading that's not dictated by a course or a teacher, but rather reading that you do out of choice, in free and unstructured time.

And here's some of the โ€œFree Voluntary Readingโ€ that I've done in the last few monthsโ€ฆ

And if you're wondering why I read my own bookโ€ฆ

Well, I didn't, I'm just trying to promote itโ€ฆ you'll forgive me, I know.

So let's make this simpleโ€ฆ

1) You find a book you likeโ€ฆ(here's a few suggestions from yours trulyโ€ฆsorry)
2) You make sure it's not too hardโ€ฆ
3) You read it, enjoy itโ€ฆ
4) And then you do it all over again! (With a new book)

You learn a tonne of new stuff, and have a great time in the process.

So, thanks for reading, and rememberโ€ฆ

Do yourself a favour, and

Read, Read, Read

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Olly Richards

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearningยฎ Method

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Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearningยฎ method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preachesโ€”he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.

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