{"id":523,"date":"2017-04-26T12:48:55","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T20:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/?p=523"},"modified":"2017-04-26T12:48:55","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T20:48:55","slug":"rakuten-japans-21st-century-online-powerhouse-to-launch-19th-century-language-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/rakuten-japans-21st-century-online-powerhouse-to-launch-19th-century-language-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Rakuten, Japan’s 21st Century Online Powerhouse, to Launch 19th Century Language School"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the\u00a0leading online retailers in Japan, Rakuten<\/a>, is getting into the English-teaching business. According to their press release, their\u00a0“Super English<\/a>”\u00a0lessons will use\u00a0software\u00a0developed by a\u00a0new startup in the language teaching “space,” Lingvist.io<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s how Lingvist summarizes its system:<\/p>\n

Lingvist applies mathematical optimization and statistics to make the language-learning process as fast as it can theoretically be. Learners are introduced to vocabulary according to statistical relevance, ensuring that they start by learning the most widely used words. The program keeps track of a user\u2019s mistakes and progress, and it adapts the course to each and every user with machine learning algorithms.<\/p>\n

A quick look at their lessons\u00a0reveals that what Lingvist\u00a0really does is spaced repetition<\/strong> to help you memorize vocabulary words, an idea\u00a0taken from the latest in cognitive science research,\u00a0Ebbinghaus (1885)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In most\u00a0variations of spaced repetition, you are presented with a series of “paired-associate learning” tasks: here’s a word in English, here’s that\u00a0word in Japanese. You are shown (or guess) the meaning first, then the\u00a0words are shown to you again at certain intervals that are supposed to help you remember them.<\/p>\n

There are at least four problems with this “scientific” system:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. No one actually knows<\/a> what the optimal “algorithm” for the spacing should be, nor for\u00a0what kinds of words – and it’s been studied continuously by scores\u00a0of psychologists\u00a0for more than 100 years.\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Teaching\u00a0a word by giving its\u00a0definition (or word and a one or two-word translation), a form of what is called\u00a0“shallow instruction,” isn’t nearly as effective\u00a0as other methods when it comes to helping you\u00a0comprehend real-world language use – \u00a0say, when you read something<\/a> with those memorized words in it. The results of shallow instruction, no matter how “mathematically optimized” you make it, will always be shallow.<\/li>\n
  3. Acquiring new words using spaced repetition\u00a0has not in fact proven to be any faster <\/a>than other, less complicated and painful ways of acquiring new words, like reading and listening to interesting language that is comprehensible to you.<\/li>\n
  4. There is no published evidence that I’m aware of that the solution can “scale;” that is, there’s no evidence that anyone has actually acquired a language<\/em> to a high level of fluency primarily through memorizing a large\u00a0number of\u00a0words via spaced repetition (remembering\u00a0that to read fluently in English requires upwards of 8,000 word families<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Studies<\/a> of spaced repetition usually report on their subjects’ success in\u00a0learning X number of words, not on acquiring fluency in a language, and even this encompasses a very short range of time (typically hours or a few days at most). Memorizing\u00a0isolated vocabulary words\u00a0is far from actually acquiring the full range of abilities needed to become fluent, and embedding the words in few sentences, as Lingvist does, is probably only slightly more useful.<\/p>\n

    There is, on the other hand,\u00a0a massive amount of evidence you can acquire\u00a0a language\u00a0through listening to and reading comprehensible input. Getting good\u00a0comprehensible input gives you not only a broader and deeper knowledge of vocabulary, but also grammatical fluency, writing, pronunciation, reading speed, spelling competence, and knowledge of the world (Krashen, 2004<\/a>). It is also much more enjoyable.<\/p>\n

    Despite\u00a0the slick website interface, fancy\u00a0charts and graphs, and promise of a “scientific” approach, Lingvist’s method <\/a>(and those like it) is in fact a\u00a0highly inefficient<\/a> use of time when it comes to language acquisition.<\/p>\n

    Full disclosure:<\/em> I help run a website<\/a> that teaches English to intermediate and advanced students based on giving them\u00a0comprehensible input.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of the\u00a0leading online retailers in Japan, Rakuten, is getting into the English-teaching business. According to their press release, their\u00a0“Super English”\u00a0lessons will use\u00a0software\u00a0developed by a\u00a0new startup in the language teaching “space,” Lingvist.io. Here’s how Lingvist summarizes its system: Lingvist applies mathematical optimization and statistics to make the language-learning process as fast as it can theoretically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/backseatlinguist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}