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Unanswered Questions

31 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
12 votes
1 answer
157 views

Evidence that translating L2 into L1 improves L2 acquisition

I run a project where young bilingual volunteers translate English-language media into the home language for their families. I believe one of the benefits is that, because our volunteers have to ...
10 votes
0 answers
149 views

Research on effectiveness of language teaching in ulpans / ulpanim?

After the creation of Israel in 1948, ulpans (or ulpanim) were set up for the intensive study of Hebrew. Today, ulpans still exist; they are institutes or schools "designed to teach adult immigrants ...
9 votes
0 answers
153 views

Evidence that the European Day of Languages motivates EU citizens to learn foreign languages?

Today, 26 September, is (or was) the European Day of Languages. The Council of Europe came up with the idea of a European Day of Languages in 2001, the European Year of Languages. The initiative has ...
7 votes
1 answer
71 views

Is it more advantageous to learn the writing system or the spoken form of a language first?

There are several primary aspects of a language, including both the writing system and the spoken form of a language. What does scientific research say about the order to learn these two factors when ...
7 votes
0 answers
61 views

Are there any studies showing that you will tend to be more fluent in the first L2 you learn compared to your L3?

As an example, take the case of someone who speaks English as an L1, and wants to become fluent in both Spanish and French. If they learn Spanish first and French second, will they tend to be more ...
6 votes
0 answers
175 views

How does stopping reading to look up the definition of an unknown word affect the comprehension in general?

Looking up the definition of an unknown word when you read a text is an important part of learning. However, like doing every other task, if you have to switch to do another one, then your performance ...
6 votes
0 answers
106 views

According to research, how well do speed reading skills transfer to other languages?

According to Wikipedia, speed reading is any of several techniques used to improve one's ability to read quickly. Speed reading methods include chunking and minimizing subvocalization. There are ...
6 votes
1 answer
88 views

Is there a scientific evidence of class / teacher importance for adult learners?

The role of a teacher in teaching languages to adults is not clear. By roles, I mean, for example: facilitator, manager, assessor, resources, participant and counselor. Suppose learners concentrate ...
6 votes
1 answer
237 views

Evidence that learning radicals speeds up character learning in Japanese?

Characters — in Chinese or Japanese (or Korean Hanja) — can be learnt in various ways, and it is plausible that paying attention to radicals helps memorization and retention. But is there any hard ...
5 votes
0 answers
92 views

Based on research, is it better to learn a new language in your mother tongue?

I live in a multilingual country and often people that visit a language course will have the class in one of the languages spoken here, let's say French. But most of these people do not speak a lot of ...
5 votes
0 answers
75 views

Is the number of exposures required for retaining new words related to the teaching method?

Recently, Rebecca J. Stones asked, Does it take “about 50 exposures for most words to be retained in long term memory”? The question was about a claim by Terry Waltz that classroom learners need a few ...
5 votes
0 answers
47 views

Is there any evidence that correcting a learner's oral mistakes in class has a negative impact?

In a comment on the question Is there a scientific evidence of class / teacher importance for adult learners? Gavenkoa makes the following claim: There is evidence that certain teaching activities ...
5 votes
0 answers
396 views

What's a Japanese language-learning website with interlinear gloss translations?

I've been trying to find one of these for years. I love the wikipedia examples where they have a sentence, a word-by-word gloss, and an English translation. Like this: 太陽が|東の|空に|昇る。 taiyō ga | ...
5 votes
0 answers
115 views

How long does the "priming" effect last for vocabulary study?

I'm looking for studies or other scientifically-solid information on the topic. But first, an explanation. I'm interested in the psychological phenomenon of priming as it relates to vocabulary study. ...
5 votes
0 answers
78 views

Does ethnic background affect language learning strategies?

Drawing inspiration from the question Does ethnic background affect the speed of foreign language acquisition?, I would like to ask something more specific: Is there any research on how ethnic ...

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