I know that there is already a lot of advice floating around the web about how to prepare for exams, and I'd like to add my two cents. Granted, some classes, like high school calculus, don't require much studying. If you just pay attention in class and do the homework, you'll be ready for the exam. But there are some classes that its good to study for, such as second semester college Spanish. When it comes to studying for a foreign language exam, there are some good ideas, some okay ideas, and some bad ideas.
Bad ideas:
1. Staring at lists of vocabulary, grammar rules, etc. Unless you have photographic memory, staring at lists isn't going to do you much good, unless you can really quickly reproduce the lists on the back of your exam when you first start the exam (okay idea). Most foreign college-level foreign language exams these days are designed around the concept of Communicative Language Learning, so you're mostly going to see fill-in-the-blanks and short-answer questions. When you stare a list you are memorizing the content in a very specific context (a list), and it can be very hard for your brain to apply information stored in lists into questions that require you to understand the context.
2. Not going to class, not doing homework, not paying attention in class, not practicing the language in class, etc. Basically, if you don't do what your instructor tells you to do leading up to the exam, you're shooting yourself in the foot. If they are a good instructor then the exam will be formatted very similarly to the stuff they have been having you do in class and at home.
Okay ideas:
1. Going back over stuff that you did in class and at home. This is okay because you will be studying the content in the type of context in which it will be presented in the exam. However, its not a great method because you have already done it (hopefully). Which means that you already know the right answer (again, hopefully). So its very easy for you to not pay full attention to the context of each item while studying. You will probably find yourself moving very quickly and confidently through the previously completed assignments.
2. Cramming. Okay, no matter how much I hate to admit it, cramming can help...somewhat. Cramming tends to be especially useful if your instructor doesn't use much of an imagination, and you can quickly jot down on the back of your exam the stuff that you have crammed right when the exam starts, before you get confused by the questions on the exam.
3. Look for practice exercises on the web. This one tends to be hit or miss for several reasons. First, you may wind up spending a whole lot of time just looking for the darn things. Second, they may not be formatted the same way you know that your instructor will format the items on your exam. Third, there is usually no guarantee as to the quality of the activities. Sure, there's probably some good stuff out there for studying just about anything in any language. But there's also a lot of crap.
4. Flash cards. Yet another traditional method that isn't bad, but isn't great. Flash cards are better than staring at lists, because you see the items out of order, and you don't see the answer right next to the question. However, they are still repetitious, which means that your brain will tend to have a harder time generalizing the stuff you practice into new contexts, and they are usually not formatted like the items on your exam will be.
Good ideas:
1. Prepare your body. Seriously. You'd be amazed how much better you can do on an exam when you have been eating the right foods, keeping yourself hydrated with water, and getting enough sleep. This page is a good resource on how to do this step.
2. Practice using what you'll be tested on. If you're exam is going to be covering the pluperfect subjunctive and vocabulary related to car parts, then practice making sentences (that make sense) using the pluperfect subjunctive and car parts. My favorite way to do this is to take your flash cards (okay idea) and put them in stacks: one for grammar, and one for vocabulary. Then you draw two cards at random (one from each pile), and write a sentence using those cards. I suggest that you do this a couple dozen times, and then take what you've done to your instructor's office hours and ask them to let you know how you're doing (i.e. where you screwed up.)
3. Doing the opposite of Bad Idea #2. If its already exam time, then it is too late to do this step, but if you still have a while, then you might seriously think about doing what your instructor expects you to do both in and out of class. If you don't believe me, you haven't tried it.
what do you think about spaced repitiion flashed cards like Anki? http://ankisrs.net/
ReplyDeleteI like it because then I can track vocab over months and years, plus I find normal flashcards are such a pain to manage that having the electronic flashcards means that if I have 60 seconds before bed everyday I can easily blow through 20 flashcards and the consistent daily practice yields big benefits for me.
Great question! Unfortunately I don't think that the answer is as cut and dry as we would like. Though my guess would be that online, spaced repetition flash cards are more than likely more beneficial than traditional flash cards. Here is some additional information to keep in mind:
DeleteResearch conducted about the use of flash cards with children (Michnick Golinkoff et al. 2004) and adults (Carrier 2003, Mackenzie 1994) has revealed that they are not very beneficial, especially compared with other strategies (such as play and summarizing respectively.) In fact, with the adults the more time spent using flashcards was actually negatively correlated with exam results (i.e. the more time spent with flashcards, the lower the score on an open-book exam).
If you are learning the language for a test, then usually the best way to study is based on how the test will be formatted. If you will be listening, practice listening, if you will be writing sentences, practice writing sentences, if you will be conjugating verbs, practice conjugating verbs, if you will translating random words, flash cards may be the way to go.
If you want to learn the language to be able to actually use it in real life, then the more context you can have the language wrapped up in the better (e.g. movies, video games, and books.) Because language in the real world is never going to be a single word on a flash card. It is always going to have much more context. If your brain is used to only using the language in situations bereft of any context you are likely to have a hard time switching over.
**However**, even more important than context is just the amount of exposure. That is, if you enjoy flash cards, so you use them daily, but you're not such a big fan of movies in the target language, so you only watch them once a month or so, then flash cards are probably the better way to go simply because you will be exposed to more of the language more regularly and you will probably enjoy it more as well.
If you really want to use flashcards and you are not studying for a course (with specific vocabulary), then what you might do is look at the captions file for a movie that you'd like to see in the language, choose a couple dozen words from the transcript, put those on your flashcards, and then once you have mastered them in the flashcards, see if you can understand them in the movie. (I'd be interested to know how this works out for you.)
Carrier, L. 2003. College Students' Choice of Study Strategies. Perceptual and Motor Skills 96.
Mackenzie, A. 1994. Examination preparation, anxiety and examination performance in a group of adult students. International Journal of Lifelong Education 13:5.
Michnick Golinkoff, R, K Hirsh-Pasek, & D Eyer. 2004. Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less. Rodale Books.