Their study, published by the scientific journal PLOS ONE,
revealed that using fun, informal ways of learning not only helped
complete novices to acquire a new language but also made more
traditional methods of language learning more effective.
PhD student Marie-Josée Bisson of the University's School of
Psychology, who led the study along with Drs Walter van Heuven, Kathy
Conklin and Richard Tunney, said: "The results of this study have
implications not only for language learning and teaching, but also for
anyone interested in improving their knowledge of a foreign language.
"They show that informal exposure can play an important role in
foreign language word learning. Through informal exposure, learning can
occur without intention, in a more effortless manner. Anyone attempting
to learn another language would benefit from activities such as simple
games using foreign language words and pictures, or foreign language
films with subtitles where they can enjoy the activity without focusing
on trying to learn the words. The results of this study suggest that
these kinds of informal activities can facilitate language learning,
even days afterwards."
There are many advantages to learning a foreign language, such as a
better understanding of another culture or better employment prospects
in an increasingly multilingual society. However, picking up another
language can be a difficult process.
Many language learners believe that informal learning -- for example,
watching a foreign language film or spending time in another country
immersing oneself in the culture -- is helpful for learning the lingo.
This has now been validated by the results of the Nottingham study,
which used spoken and written foreign language words along with pictures
depicting their meaning to measure foreign vocabulary learning in
complete novices.
In the first phase of the study, English speakers who did not know
any Welsh, viewed Welsh words on a computer screen and were asked to
indicate whether a particular letter appeared in each word. While
viewing the word, they also heard the word being spoken and saw a simple
picture showing its meaning. Importantly, the pictures and spoken words
were irrelevant to their task and they had not been asked to 'learn'
the Welsh words.
In the second phase of the study, English speakers were explicitly
asked to learn the correct translations of Welsh words. They were
presented with pairs of written English words and spoken Welsh words and
had to indicate each time whether the English word was the correct
translation of the Welsh. Information about whether or not their
responses were correct was provided so that they could learn the correct
translations. Importantly, half of the Welsh words had been presented
in the first phase of the study.
Results indicated that participants performed better on the Welsh
words they had previously been exposed to, indicating that during their
informal exposure they had started to learn the meaning of the Welsh
words.
Better performance in the explicit learning task was found
immediately after the informal exposure as well as the next day. The
researchers found that participants retained knowledge unintentionally
learnt during the informal phase even as much as a week later following
further explicit learning of the Welsh words.
