Why we forget words

Talofa lava,

To continue the topic of vocabulary learning it is probably right and proper if we ask why we forget words.

I am beginning to appreciate as I get older that forgetting is part of the human condition, and this is as true for young people as for the older person. So what do we know about the forgetting of words and chunks?

Beginning learners of another language apparently forget quite a lot at first, probably because they have limited webs of meaning to hang the new words on, but as their language webs increase forgetting new material is reduced considerably.

Estimates are that for beginners about 80% of new material is forgotten within a day. Research has shown though that when a learner stops using their second language the initial loss of language is rapid over the first 3 or 4 years but after that there is little further deterioration even up to 50 years later. (reported in Thornbury, S. 2002. p 26) My guess is that the language which remains is that which was highly usable and well connected to the learner’s web of words and meanings.

We tend to forget the words which were harder to learn and connect to our web, and also those which we tried to learn in short intense bursts without revisiting them afterwards. Hard to learn words may be those that are really different from what we already know in either language. Perversely some words may be displaced in memory by words which are almost the same.

The other factor is learning load, in other words trying to learn too many words at a time without being able to revisit and recycle them sufficiently.

It seems that the solution is to learn vocabulary in manageable amounts, spread the learning out over days and weeks, and make every opportunity to re-encounter them and use them in new contexts at different levels of depth.

Ia manuia lou aso,

Chris

Reference: How To Teach Vocabulary. Scott Thornbury,
2002, Published by Pearson Longman.