In 1980, a research study took 12 schools in the Fiji Islands and split them into two groups: one group studied English the way we normally do — through drills, exercises, rote memorisation, speaking practice, and grammar study.
The second group did something completely different. They just sat in silence with a book of their choice for an hour each class.
The study lasted a whole school year.
At the beginning of the year they tested the two groups on their English proficiency. And at the end of the year they tested them again.
The results were shocking to linguists and educators who believed the only way to learn a language is to practice and study it like we practice and study mathematics.
Here's an excerpt from the research paper where the authors explain the results in their own words:
"An inspection of the raw scores revealed that, between late February and early November, the two book groups gained by a mean of 4.9 points, compared with an expected 3.97 points.
In other words, the book groups produced 15 months reading growth in 8 months.
By contrast, the Control Group showed 2.1 points growth, which is equivalent to approximately 6.5 months in grade norm units. The pupils exposed to a rich supply of books were improving their general reading comprehension skill at over twice the normal rate."
— Elley & Mangubhai, The Impact of Reading on Second Language Learning
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Reading stories through Mother can be a challenge, especially if you've just picked up the language.
You do not need to understand every single word. Only the gist. The overall meaning.
The point is to keep reading, every single day, until words which used to be problematic start to click after enough exposure.
This is exactly how you picked up your native tongue.
The world around you was incomprehensible, but after enough exposure to similar sights and noises, things slowly started to make sense.
Fluency is forged in this process — not through shortcuts and memory hacks.
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