short stories:stories that teach: two days 'til spain
two days 'til spain
By Kelsey Gallant (2011)
Two days, thought Kara as she stared at the calendar on the wall. Two days until we move to Spain. Two days until I have to get adjusted to a whole new schedule, a whole new environment, and scariest of all, a whole new language. I’ve only taken two years of Spanish in high school so far! How am I going to communicate with everyone?
Kara knew that if she could only speak Spanish, it would be a whole lot easier to adjust to living in Spain. If she knew the language, people could explain the customs to her, she would be in on the culture, she could laugh at the jokes. Unfortunately, however, she didn’t speak Spanish. She knew some basic words, she could carry on a simple conversation with other non-native speakers, but the idea of trying to communicate with a whole neighborhood, a whole school, a whole country of rapid-Spanish-speakers, was daunting.
Is there any way to become fluent in Spanish in two days? she wondered. Too bad I’m not an expert on memory techniques.
A sudden brainstorm hit her. She wasn’t an expert in memory techniques…but she knew someone who was! Her cousin Jacob was studying cognitive psychology in college! Surely he would be able to help her.
She called Jacob, and explained her dilemma. “Ah!” he said. “Well…I can’t guarantee anything, but I do know some cognitive concepts that could help you.”
“That sounds great!” exclaimed Kara, and Jacob began:
“Well, let’s see. One thing I know can help you is the generation effect. The generation effect is when you have to generate information out of your own mind, instead of, say, reading the information over and over in a book. This works because it requires much more attention than just reading. I know that sometimes when I have to read something for class, my eyes are going across the page but my mind is somewhere else. If you’re quizzing yourself and you have to come up with the answer, you need to pay attention. There’s a lot more elaboration involved when you’re generating information from your own head. Elaboration is when you have to interpret information, connect it with stuff you already know, and think about it in different ways. Have you ever heard the expression, ‘You learn better by doing’, or, ‘you learn better when you teach someone else’?”
“Yeah, my mom tells me that all the time. Are you saying that’s actually true?”
“Yes, it’s completely true. For instance, if you’re learning to ride a bike, you can’t really learn just by observing others riding their bikes. You need to practice on your own. The same goes for learning Spanish. Don’t try to learn Spanish just by reading the words and their definitions over and over again. Quiz yourself on them. Make flashcards. Flashcards have been proven to be very effective because they involve retrieving the information from your own brain, which enhances the encoding of the information into your long-term memory.”
“So…I should do flashcards, like writing casa on one side and house on the other, so when I see the word house, I search in my brain for the Spanish word casa, and that helps my brain encode the connection better?”
“Yes. Some psychologists did an experiment about the generation effect. They had a large group of people and split them in half. Then they gave half the people a pair of words such as unhappy and sad, or pad and sad. The people had to say whether the pair of words were synonyms or rhymes for each other. Meanwhile, the other group got a pair of words such as unhappy and s___, or pad and s___. Those people had to come up with a synonym or a rhyme for the first word to fill in the blank. Later, all the people were tested on what the second word was, given the first. The ones who’d had to retrieve a word from their own mind to fill in the blank did much better on the memory task than did those who just had to say whether the words were synonyms or rhymes.
“And that leads me to my next piece of advice for you,” he continued. “It was also found, during this experiment, that the people were more likely to remember the synonyms than the rhymes, suggesting that meaning has meaning.”
“Meaning has meaning? What’s the meaning of that?”
Jacob laughed. “I’m talking about levels of processing. Some things you do require shallow processing and others require deep processing. Shallow processing is like counting the number of letters in a word or deciding whether they are uppercase or lowercase—not very helpful. Deep processing, on the other hand, requires you to give the word semantic meaning. Thinking of synonyms is an example of deep processing, because you have to know the meaning of something in order to come up with a synonym. More examples of deep processing include picturing the object in your mind or categorizing it. If you’re trying to learn the word perro, picture a dog in your mind every time you see or say the word perro. You could even think, ‘Perro…synonym for dog.’ This works again because of elaboration: thinking about it and making connections in your brain.”
“Okay, I get it. But what about the things I can’t visualize? How am I ever going to keep those verb tenses straight?”
“Hmmm…” for a moment, Jacob seemed stumped. Then he said, “Well, the best thing I can think of is transfer appropriate processing. Transfer appropriate processing means that how you learn something matters. The more overlap there is between the processing you have to do to learn something and the processing you have to do to recall it, the better. If you were going to be taking a test in which you have to write essays, would you study by doing multiple choice questions, matching, or writing essays?”
“Writing essays?”
“Exactly! You would write essays, because that is what you’d have to do on the quiz. Similarly, you need to learn Spanish so that you can communicate with the people in Spain. Therefore, I’d suggest that you practice Spanish by speaking Spanish. Contact a friend from Spanish class and have a conversation with them. When you get to Spain, just immerse yourself in the language. You’ll learn quickly enough.”
“Great! So that’s it?”
“Well…one more thing. If you’re going to be studying with flashcards, use the spacing effect. Don’t study for four hours straight and then call yourself done. Instead, take a little time here and there to go over your deck of flash cards maybe once or twice each time. It’s more beneficial that way for a couple of reasons. One is because you give your brain time to process the information, and the context changes. People are more likely to remember things in the context in which they first learned it, or spent a lot of time studying it. The more different places you study, the more retrieval routes your brain will be able to create. Also, it’s much more advantageous to separate your studying, in other words, not to cram. A very famous psychologist named Herman Ebbinghaus wrote a book about how 38 equals 68.”
“Huh? How is that possible?" Kara was confused.
“He found out that 38 repetitions of something over three days had the same result on memory as 68 repetitions in the same day. One of the major reasons for this is sleep. It’s important to get sleep between rehearsals, because when you are sleeping, your brain works to consolidate the memories.”
“Do you mean that I would learn just as much studying my flashcards a few times every day as I would if I just studied them constantly for the entire plane ride to Spain?”
“Absolutely. You’d better start now.”
“Oh, I will. Thank you so much. I think these techniques will really help me.”
“No problem! I’ll talk to you later, probably when you’re in Spain.”
As Kara hung up the phone, she thought about the four techniques Jacob had given her: the generation effect, levels-of-processing, transfer appropriate processing, and the spacing effect. If she used all four together, she could easily improve her Spanish. First she would make some flashcards with common Spanish words on one side and the English translation on the other. When she read the Spanish word, if she knew the translation, she would picture whatever it was in her mind and repeat the word in Spanish. If she didn’t know the translation, she would look at the English side of the card and then do the same thing. Then she would move on to the next card, and the next, until she had gone through the whole deck. Of course, she would do this at various times, in different places. She could start here in her bedroom in the United States, and then go over them a few times at the airport, and a few more times on the plane before falling asleep, then when she got to the new house in Spain, and periodically while she was there…Once she knew all those words, she could go “immerse herself” in the language, as he had suggested, and try speaking with people using the words she had memorized. Hanging out with them would provide her with some new words as well, which she could in turn make new flashcards for, and then memorize those words and do the same thing…
Two days, she thought to herself as she got ready for bed that night. Two days until we move to Spain. Two days until I get to try out these techniques on my own. I can’t wait!
Kara knew that if she could only speak Spanish, it would be a whole lot easier to adjust to living in Spain. If she knew the language, people could explain the customs to her, she would be in on the culture, she could laugh at the jokes. Unfortunately, however, she didn’t speak Spanish. She knew some basic words, she could carry on a simple conversation with other non-native speakers, but the idea of trying to communicate with a whole neighborhood, a whole school, a whole country of rapid-Spanish-speakers, was daunting.
Is there any way to become fluent in Spanish in two days? she wondered. Too bad I’m not an expert on memory techniques.
A sudden brainstorm hit her. She wasn’t an expert in memory techniques…but she knew someone who was! Her cousin Jacob was studying cognitive psychology in college! Surely he would be able to help her.
She called Jacob, and explained her dilemma. “Ah!” he said. “Well…I can’t guarantee anything, but I do know some cognitive concepts that could help you.”
“That sounds great!” exclaimed Kara, and Jacob began:
“Well, let’s see. One thing I know can help you is the generation effect. The generation effect is when you have to generate information out of your own mind, instead of, say, reading the information over and over in a book. This works because it requires much more attention than just reading. I know that sometimes when I have to read something for class, my eyes are going across the page but my mind is somewhere else. If you’re quizzing yourself and you have to come up with the answer, you need to pay attention. There’s a lot more elaboration involved when you’re generating information from your own head. Elaboration is when you have to interpret information, connect it with stuff you already know, and think about it in different ways. Have you ever heard the expression, ‘You learn better by doing’, or, ‘you learn better when you teach someone else’?”
“Yeah, my mom tells me that all the time. Are you saying that’s actually true?”
“Yes, it’s completely true. For instance, if you’re learning to ride a bike, you can’t really learn just by observing others riding their bikes. You need to practice on your own. The same goes for learning Spanish. Don’t try to learn Spanish just by reading the words and their definitions over and over again. Quiz yourself on them. Make flashcards. Flashcards have been proven to be very effective because they involve retrieving the information from your own brain, which enhances the encoding of the information into your long-term memory.”
“So…I should do flashcards, like writing casa on one side and house on the other, so when I see the word house, I search in my brain for the Spanish word casa, and that helps my brain encode the connection better?”
“Yes. Some psychologists did an experiment about the generation effect. They had a large group of people and split them in half. Then they gave half the people a pair of words such as unhappy and sad, or pad and sad. The people had to say whether the pair of words were synonyms or rhymes for each other. Meanwhile, the other group got a pair of words such as unhappy and s___, or pad and s___. Those people had to come up with a synonym or a rhyme for the first word to fill in the blank. Later, all the people were tested on what the second word was, given the first. The ones who’d had to retrieve a word from their own mind to fill in the blank did much better on the memory task than did those who just had to say whether the words were synonyms or rhymes.
“And that leads me to my next piece of advice for you,” he continued. “It was also found, during this experiment, that the people were more likely to remember the synonyms than the rhymes, suggesting that meaning has meaning.”
“Meaning has meaning? What’s the meaning of that?”
Jacob laughed. “I’m talking about levels of processing. Some things you do require shallow processing and others require deep processing. Shallow processing is like counting the number of letters in a word or deciding whether they are uppercase or lowercase—not very helpful. Deep processing, on the other hand, requires you to give the word semantic meaning. Thinking of synonyms is an example of deep processing, because you have to know the meaning of something in order to come up with a synonym. More examples of deep processing include picturing the object in your mind or categorizing it. If you’re trying to learn the word perro, picture a dog in your mind every time you see or say the word perro. You could even think, ‘Perro…synonym for dog.’ This works again because of elaboration: thinking about it and making connections in your brain.”
“Okay, I get it. But what about the things I can’t visualize? How am I ever going to keep those verb tenses straight?”
“Hmmm…” for a moment, Jacob seemed stumped. Then he said, “Well, the best thing I can think of is transfer appropriate processing. Transfer appropriate processing means that how you learn something matters. The more overlap there is between the processing you have to do to learn something and the processing you have to do to recall it, the better. If you were going to be taking a test in which you have to write essays, would you study by doing multiple choice questions, matching, or writing essays?”
“Writing essays?”
“Exactly! You would write essays, because that is what you’d have to do on the quiz. Similarly, you need to learn Spanish so that you can communicate with the people in Spain. Therefore, I’d suggest that you practice Spanish by speaking Spanish. Contact a friend from Spanish class and have a conversation with them. When you get to Spain, just immerse yourself in the language. You’ll learn quickly enough.”
“Great! So that’s it?”
“Well…one more thing. If you’re going to be studying with flashcards, use the spacing effect. Don’t study for four hours straight and then call yourself done. Instead, take a little time here and there to go over your deck of flash cards maybe once or twice each time. It’s more beneficial that way for a couple of reasons. One is because you give your brain time to process the information, and the context changes. People are more likely to remember things in the context in which they first learned it, or spent a lot of time studying it. The more different places you study, the more retrieval routes your brain will be able to create. Also, it’s much more advantageous to separate your studying, in other words, not to cram. A very famous psychologist named Herman Ebbinghaus wrote a book about how 38 equals 68.”
“Huh? How is that possible?" Kara was confused.
“He found out that 38 repetitions of something over three days had the same result on memory as 68 repetitions in the same day. One of the major reasons for this is sleep. It’s important to get sleep between rehearsals, because when you are sleeping, your brain works to consolidate the memories.”
“Do you mean that I would learn just as much studying my flashcards a few times every day as I would if I just studied them constantly for the entire plane ride to Spain?”
“Absolutely. You’d better start now.”
“Oh, I will. Thank you so much. I think these techniques will really help me.”
“No problem! I’ll talk to you later, probably when you’re in Spain.”
As Kara hung up the phone, she thought about the four techniques Jacob had given her: the generation effect, levels-of-processing, transfer appropriate processing, and the spacing effect. If she used all four together, she could easily improve her Spanish. First she would make some flashcards with common Spanish words on one side and the English translation on the other. When she read the Spanish word, if she knew the translation, she would picture whatever it was in her mind and repeat the word in Spanish. If she didn’t know the translation, she would look at the English side of the card and then do the same thing. Then she would move on to the next card, and the next, until she had gone through the whole deck. Of course, she would do this at various times, in different places. She could start here in her bedroom in the United States, and then go over them a few times at the airport, and a few more times on the plane before falling asleep, then when she got to the new house in Spain, and periodically while she was there…Once she knew all those words, she could go “immerse herself” in the language, as he had suggested, and try speaking with people using the words she had memorized. Hanging out with them would provide her with some new words as well, which she could in turn make new flashcards for, and then memorize those words and do the same thing…
Two days, she thought to herself as she got ready for bed that night. Two days until we move to Spain. Two days until I get to try out these techniques on my own. I can’t wait!
The Story Behind The Story:
Cognitive Psychology class. I think the assignment was to write an essay that dealt with four cognitive concepts we'd learned about in class. I chose the generation effect, levels of processing, transfer appropriate processing, and the spacing effect. I remember trying to write an essay and just getting frustrated because I couldn't figure out how to start it. So I started writing it as a story, and that worked a lot better for me. |
"If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn."
-Ignacio 'Nacho' Estrada