I came across an article in the New York Times entitled, "Chunking," by Ben Zimmer, that talks about children learning languages by chunking words together, rather than memorizing them word by word. He gives the example of his son learning the phrases "Won't you come in?," and "Make yourself at home," and how simpler it is to learn the whole phrase rather than breaking the sentence up into pieces. Zimmer talks about non native English speakers wanting to become fluent in English, and how teachers would rather teach by chunks, instead of individual words. "This is especially so among teachers of English as a second language, since it's mainly the knowledge of chunks that allows non-native speakers to advance toward nativelike fluency" (Zimmer, Ben). Some critics don't believe this method would help non-native speakers achieve fluency because students would only know phrase-book approaches of speaking and disregard the grammatical system of language. I believe, with practice, chunking would be easier for someone learning a language because of our brains natural inclination to chunk information together; however, a possible combination of the two methods -individual and chunking -might prove beneficial in the end.
The process of chunking could not only help increase our memory, but increase the speed at which we spit out information; the student effectively memorizing a great amount of numbers is just one example. I find it amazing that the young man was able to achieve this! By understanding our conscious, how we learn, and how we group information together, we could potentially master the ability to chunk information and increase our memory span exponentially.
Sources:
Zimmer, Ben. "Chunking." The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2010. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19FOB-OnLanguage-Zimmer.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1382061980-1Bf4uGL/wjZoUtHFLf2Dfw>.
Bor, Daniel. The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.
I found your blog rather interesting. When I think of chunking, things like credit card and telephone numbers come to mind. I believe you are right when you say that humans are naturally inclined to memorizing things in chunks. It almost has a rhythmical aspect to it.
ReplyDeleteWith something like learning a new language, I believe that chunking is helpful, but not an absolute means of comprehension. In other words, there are multiple layers to comprehending a new language at a native level. Things like word order, grammar rules and colloquial speech make chunking much more complex.
In the example with the subject who memorized 80 numbers, chunking proved to be much more effective because the extent of the task was nothing more than memorization. When comprehension and rules come into play, I believe chunking only plays a limited role in addressing these complexities
Being bilingual and helping a friend learn the language I know, I believe that chunking can be very helpful in mastering a new language. Even Rosetta Stone has its students learn whole phrases instead of individual words. Learning the words separately may make it more difficult to learn tenses and place things together and make complete sentences on your own. When learning a language, you may memorize a phrase by chunking, but might need to replace one of those words in the phrase when speaking and individual learning may help with that.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I find this concept of chunking to be very interesting and believe that it can be very useful in memorizing things but it does need to be paired with individual learning in order to be the most effective.
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ReplyDeleteMs. Fuentes, I owe you, Zimmer, and Bor a big thank you for reminding me of the "magic" of chunking just in time for my second wave of exams. Sometimes I feel like we, as students, concentrate so heavily on memorizing Powerpoints and doing all the readings that we forget there's little tricks we can use to help us, such as chunking or even acronyms. Personally speaking, I don't think I could have gotten through organic chemistry (which is basically a whole language all on its own) without chunking reactions and chemical compounds. I agree with my fellow commenter, Ms. Kalogriopoulous, that it does need be paired with actual, individual learning in order to be effective. Simply memorizing lists won't do one any good in practice unless they understand the big picture. Starting on page 72 of his book, Bor wrote, "there is a remarkably common tendency for information stored on one level to combine to create a richer concept at a higher level." I think this is especially important in reference to our topic of chunking, because simple memorization involves almost no understanding, chunking introduces it by creating small connections, but it is not only we network the ideas and concepts behind those memorized phrases that we reach a higher level of understanding. It's how we pass organic chemistry.
ReplyDeleteBut does chunking only work for second language English learners? I could see it transferring fairly well to the romance languages, though what about complex and phonetic languages like Cantonese and Mandarin?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was studying abroad, I was given a "crash course" in Italian 101, where we were taught more in a "chunking style", with phrases and sayings that we needed in order to function in daily life. I do think I learned how to communicate much faster than what I'm working at now in 102, but I only think it helped me with /recalling/ what I wanted to say. When it comes to /recognition/ of what's said to me, especially if one or two words are different from the chunk I learned, then I'm almost always thrown through a loop.
My second language abilities aside, I would be interested to know how chunking effects recall versus recognition into long term memory, especially with things that are more complex than just numbers (80 numbers is impressive, but is it practical?). I think for something that requires higher cognitive ability, like actually comprehending language rather than just repeating it, would require the age-old individual, word for word learning. Perhaps if chunking was used as categories, like colors, greetings, adjectives, etc., rather than phrases, then the added benefit would be clearer.
While I've been aware of the concept of "chunking" for some time now, I had never thought of it in the context of language. However, now that I'm thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense and is incredibly fascinating. I learned Spanish at a very young age and as a result I can speak it nearly fluently; I can think in it. Because it was technically a second, and not a native language, I was forced to take Spanish classes in high school. Having never learned a second language the "conventional" way I was always fascinated by what was going on in people's minds as they were learning. I soon noticed, of course, that other people had to translate in their minds before speaking, instead of encoding the word straight to the object, as I had been able to do at the age of four. For a long time, I thought that that was the only difference, but something more still always felt off. Many of my classmates could remember pre-constructed phrases, but could not identify which word meant what. Having read this post, it has suddenly become extremely obvious to me that they were "chunking" the whole time. Thanks to this insight about the role that chunking can play in language learning, I'm not a little closer to fully understanding something I've wondered about for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI know this does not relate to the topic of language you spoke about, but I would like to see research about how recalling stressful or traumatic events could be affected by chunking. If we take in whole bits of info at a time while possibly excluding some details, there is the possibility that we may leave out an important detail about the event, or that we may mix up some bits of info with other bits of info from another memory we may have stored away. Seems like this could be useful for those who work in the criminal justice system & therapy.
ReplyDeleteThe example you brought up of learning language principles via chunking is interesting, especially when you compare it to modern theories of language development. The nativist theory in particular comes to mind here. If Chomsky is correct in proposing that children possess a language acquisition device that give them innate laws of syntax and grammar regardless of language, then chunking could indeed be a very useful way to teach language. All they would need would be the acquired vocabulary, and chunking could help them encode those words into memory. They wouldn't need the environmental cues, and would hopefully already have comprehension of these words.
ReplyDeleteYour post also reminded me of a book that I read last year called 'Moonwalking with Einstein' by Joshua Foer. Foer is a journalist who attended memory competitions and grew interested in mnemonic devices for memory. Foer interviewed experts on memory and found that most of the individuals who had "prodigious" memories did not possess higher a IQ; rather they were just skilled at training their memories. The author then goes on to test whether a normal person with an average memory could go on to win one of these intense memory competitions. He used the method of loci and visual imagery to place the items that he was attempting to remember in a familiar setting in his mind, like his home growing up. Then, when he was attempting to recall these items, he would virtually "walk" through the house and recall each item. Interestingly enough, although the author was able to win the US memory championship, he stated that his memory really hasn't improved that much and the techniques are mostly suited for structured information.