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Wizard Book Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5946 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 8 12 September 2014 at 9:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I’ve been experimenting with this method over the past couple of weeks, and the results seem very good; plus the end result looks like a spell book for language learning. To start you need a robust hard cover notebook of several hundred pages. It you’re feeling fancy you can purchase a leather bound notebook for the full effect. To fill your spell book, ahem, I mean notebook, you gather any language learning facts you want to commit to memory. This can be vocabulary, idioms, grammar rules, grammar tables, translated sentences, etc. The more variety in the material gathered the better. You can also use coloured pens and diagrams to liven up the appearance.
Now for the important part. When you add a fact to the book, you write it in three places. At the first available space in the book, and then in two subsequent pages, but at different parts of the page for the following two pages. The simple act of writing it three times is the first step in solidifying it in memory. As the book fills up, you’ll find you have pages crammed with similar information, but in a different order and scattered across different pages. You can then read the book cover to cover, or dip in an out of pages. The method is simply a low tech version of spaced repetition, with a prettier end result. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4144 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 8 12 September 2014 at 10:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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But is it effective in the long-term? Particularly, compared to SRS or massive exposure?
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4704 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 3 of 8 22 September 2014 at 8:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Sounds to me like it could be effective in the long-term. But I don't write much down, so it's not a method for me.
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| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4144 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 8 22 September 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Jeffers Um, if it were better/more effective than your current method, couldn't that be a reason
to start writing down? @DaraghM As for comparing efficiency to Anki; sparing you the details, I have a pace of 68.4 new words/hour of work in Anki. Is your speed comparable? Though I guess, using it for more than just vocabulary could make such comparison a tad more difficult. I also wouldn't call it "a low tech version of spaced repetition;" as reading it cover to cover would rather be massed repetition, and dipping in and out of pages, random repetition. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4704 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 5 of 8 22 September 2014 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course. And I would study better if I got enough sleep every night. It's still not happening.
One of the problems with SRS software is that it is extremely rigid. One advantage of DaraghM's book idea is that it allows random repetition. The same could be said for just taking notes. But the idea of taking the same notes down three times (as suggested) has merit. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4804 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 8 23 September 2014 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think SRS is that rigid, at least not necessarily. Memrise is rigid after the changes but anki keeps the same order only in the beginning or if you have a cluster of words you know all just as well or badly. The natural progress randomizes the list quite a lot in my opinion.
This method reminds me of the Gold List. I once tried. I think hand writing does have positive effect on memorisation however I am unable to do it. I'm one of those people who have always had trouble keepin nice and ordered notebooks at school (and teachers and parents mind that when you are a girl), I have trouble keeping to the commitment to a notebook. So, it might be useful for some learners but I am probably not the target audience. But the positives are surely the hand writing and having this kind of reference of your path. However, if the goal is randomization, there might be a different option. I hope I'll describe the idea well enough: Take a notebook and write the word three times, that would be the same. First copy comes on the line under where you left last time. Second copy goes to a randomly selected place several pages later. The last comes somewhere randomly later in the notebook. As you'd progress line by line from the beginning, you would later encounter words already writen there=copies 2 and 3 of previously learned words. You might as well make further copies based on whether or not you remembered the word. Is my idea clear? It would suit much more my sense of chaos and give more space in between the repetitions than just one page. And you would have not only random order. You would have randomized groups on the page, words would come in totally different lists. Hmm, I might even try that, now that I think of it! Thanks for the inspiration,DaraghM! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4328 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 8 23 September 2014 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
But isn't the whole advantage of SRS that it isn't random and that the words you are trying to learn are being reinforced at more-or-less the right moment? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4704 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 8 of 8 23 September 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is actually precisely what I meant by rigid. The order is randomized, but the user has little control over reviews then (other than choosing how well they know the word). The software makes the decisions for you, based on a magic formula (which can be adjusted somewhat). One of the possible appeals of the wizard book method is that it gives a lot of user choice.
I fully agree that this is an feature of SRS software. I'm not so sure it's an advantage. The Anki website has a lot of reference to "the right time" as though they've worked out a perfect formula. There are other SRS methods that don't use software, most notably the Leitner system. You can choose when a card is ready to move from one box to the next, and you can choose how often to review each box. The other problem is what happens when you can't quite remember an old card. With manual methods you can move that card down as little or as much as you feel you need (or just repeat it for a few days and then keep it at its level). This is where SRS software is extremely rigid. With Anki, if you get a card you haven't seen for a while and you're not sure about it, the only option is to pass it or fail it, which of course knocks it down to zero. I've suggested on the Ankiweb site that they should have a "postpone" button or something, so I could get that card again the next day. Or a "half" button, which simply cuts the next interval to half of the current interval rather than kicking the card back to zero. Some of the developers liked the idea, others didn't. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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