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How many hours of sleep do you get every night? Doctors recommend that most adults get seven to nine hours of sleep per night, but have you ever thought to ask why? A good night’s sleep improves your brain performance for the next day. That is why sleep is so important for students who are learning a foreign language.
What are the Benefits?
Research from the last 20 years has shown that sleep does more for students than simply giving them enough energy to get through a day of classes. A good night’s rest can actually energize students to study more and perform better on tests. Not to mention, sleep studies have shown again and again that students need quality rest to learn, memorize, retain, and recall what they learned in class to apply it to real life scenarios. Without sleep we would be unable to take this knowledge and use it to develop creative and innovative solutions for the problems we face everyday.
Memorizing Vocabulary
For those familiar with introductory foreign language courses, usually the first step towards learning a new language is to memorize vocabulary words. It can be tempting for students to try and learn as many words as they can but it is more important to focus on the quality of words you learn over the quantity. Students should work on adding useful words to their vocabulary that will come up in conversations for them to practice. Studies have even shown that you can learn between 10-20 words a day.
However, this study goal is easier to achieve if you are in the right headspace. We need sleep to recharge our brains for the next day. In addition to your study goal you should also plan to get good sleep every night so you can move forward on your journey to become bilingual or multilingual. You will need rest in order to memorize these words and have them sink into your active memory.
Avoid Cram Sessions
Students who are new to learning languages may think that they can cram before an exam like they do for other classes.The reason that this doesn’t work well for languages is that cramming loads too much information into the brain’s short-term memory. This may be possible with material that is less demanding but words and grammar are something we have to think harder about.
Learning a language is also a lot of fun but when done in a stressful manner it does not give you the best results. I recommend studying a language for a small amount of time every day so it fits with your schedule and does not become overbearing like a typical cram session. You will be surprised by how much more information you retain. All you need to do after that is get some rest and you are sure to do well in your language classes.
What’s Next?
Need some extra help with your study plan? ReDefiners has you covered!
Visit theReDefiners World Languages website if you are interested in learning more extraordinary lessons from languages across the world. Our communication-and-conversation approach is proven to be the most effective method for learning a new language. Each class is taught by teachers with native-like proficiency, and the small classes allow for unique curriculums that are molded to your learning speed. We offer online classes inEnglish, Spanish, Arabic, and Mandarin.