Becoming Fluent

As a foreign language learner, it’s important to understand what causes interference effects, and what to do when you experience them. If you’ve been studying a list of Spanish nouns and find yourself making many mistakes as you attempt to recall them, you’re likely to feel frustration. Instead of giving up, however, you would be well advised to shift your study to a different set of words, like adjectives or verbs, or to a different task entirely, such as grammar. When you return to the list of nouns, you may find that your recall has improved. Researchers call this improved performance in memory after a change in study material release from proactive interference. This suggests that it is wise to study different materials over shorter periods of time rather than one type of material over a longer period. For example, rather than study vocabulary for thirty minutes and then grammar for thirty minutes, it may better to alternate them every fifteen minutes and then take a break.