Comprehensible Input Explained: Can You Learn a Language by Listening?
Comprehensible input, Krashen's 1982 idea, builds vocabulary and listening skill, but speaking with feedback adds what input alone rarely gives.
Learning How to Learn
Evidence-based study techniques and how to pick up new skills faster.
Learning a language
How to Learn a Language as an Adult: What the Research Supports
Adults can learn a language well, but slowly: US government trainees study 24 to 88 weeks full-time. Five research-backed steps, and what apps can do.
Techniques for deeper understanding
How to Use Dual Coding: Combining Words and Visuals When You Study
Dual coding pairs words with a visual of the same idea, giving a memory two routes back. 5 steps to use it when you study, and when pictures backfire.
The Feynman Technique: Learn a Topic by Explaining It in Plain Words
The Feynman technique in 4 steps: explain a topic aloud in plain words, find where you stall, then fix it. What research on learning by explaining supports.
Deliberate practice and learning skills fast
The Four Stages of Competence: From Clueless to Automatic
The four stages of competence, best known from a 1969 column (not Maslow), with what skill research adds and why experts find their own skills hard to teach.
Exam preparation
How to Study for an Exam: A Research-Backed Plan
How to study for an exam in 5 steps, working back from the date: map the syllabus, space sessions, test yourself, mix topics, then review.
Test Anxiety: Why Your Mind Goes Blank and What Helps
On average across OECD countries, 55% of 15-year-olds in PISA 2015 felt very anxious before tests even when prepared. Why minds go blank, and what helps.
How learning works
Metacognition Explained: How to Think About Your Own Learning
What is metacognition? Its 2 parts: judging what you know and changing how you study. Judging later, with the answer hidden, makes the first far sharper.
Learning How to Learn: A Research-Backed Guide for Beginners
Learning how to learn: a 2013 review rated only 2 of 10 study techniques highly useful, self-testing and spacing. How beginners can use them, step by step.
Retrieval practice and spaced repetition
Active Recall: How to Study by Testing Yourself
Active recall means answering from memory before you check. In a 2008 lab study, repeated recall, not rereading, decided what students kept a week later.
Learning myths and critiques
The 10,000-Hour Rule: What the Original Research Really Found
The 10,000-hour rule began as an average from one 1993 violin study. Later research finds practice matters but explains far less than the rule implies.
Learning Styles Are a Myth: What the Research Actually Shows
Nearly 9 in 10 educators surveyed believe matching teaching to a learning style helps. The few experiments designed to test that claim found no benefit.