problem solving in language learning

Problem-Based Language Learning

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• Loghman Ansarian 3 &
• Mei Lin Teoh 4  

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In this chapter, we take a more in-depth look at PBL and aim to justify how it refashions the language teaching and learning processes. We shall examine some of the main features of PBL presented in the previous chapter in more detail. We also seize this opportunity to distinguish what PBL is and is not by differentiating between it and other teaching and learning approaches in the language learning field. Throughout, we discuss some difficulties associated with implementing PBL in language classes.

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Ansarian, L., Teoh, M. (2018). Problem-Based Language Learning. In: Problem-based Language Learning and Teaching. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0941-0_2

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A Review of Research on Technology-Supported Language Learning and 21st Century Skills

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The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Modern society needs people to be equipped with 21st century skills (e.g., critical thinking, creativity, communication, digital literacy, or collaboration skills). For this reason, teaching and learning nowadays should promote not only students' knowledge acquisition in various learning contexts but also their 21st century skills, and language learning context is no exception. This study reviewed research on technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills. The reason is that earlier studies reviewed only articles related to language learning supported by technology and mostly focused on languages, language skills and technologies used. That is to say, 21st century skills were not considered in earlier review studies. The present study selected and reviewed 34 articles published between 2011 and 2022 (February) and focused on the following dimensions: (1) research focus such as language skills and 21st century skills; (2) theoretical foundations; (3) technologies; (4) learning activities; (5) methodology; and (6) findings. The present research found that reviewed studies had focused most frequently on such language skills as speaking and writing and on such 21st century skills as communication and collaboration. The social constructivism theory was often used by scholars to base their studies on. Facebook, Google Docs, and Moodle were popular technologies in reviewed studies to facilitate language and 21st century skills. Scholars in reviewed studies reported that technology-supported language learning activities provided learners with good learning experiences and enhanced their learning motivation, engagement, and confidence. However, some challenges that learners faced during learning activities were also reported. Based on the results of the review, this study made several recommendations for stakeholders such as educators and researchers in the field.

Introduction

It is important that our students not only acquire new knowledge when they learn, but also develop skills, such as problem-solving, social cooperation, creativity, and so on, in order to apply newly learned knowledge to the real world. Such knowledge and skills will help them adapt to modern society and will enhance their competitiveness (Shadiev et al., 2022a , b ). Many countries have put forward the 21st century skills framework to carry out education reform (Lin et al., 2020 ), and one of them was proposed by the Partnership for 21st Century (P21). The P21 (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008 ) provided a detailed conceptual framework and listed three types of skills: (1) learning and innovation skills (critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, and communication and collaboration), (2) digital literacy (information literacy, media literacy, and information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy), and (3) career and life skills (flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural interaction, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility). The essence of these skills is that they are key skills that learners will need for their social and professional life in the future. These skills also emphasize the ability of learners to use and transfer knowledge and solve problems in complex situations, so they can achieve deep levels of individual learning as well as lifelong learning (Shadiev et al., 2022a ).

Developing students' 21st century skills needs to be implemented in all disciplines, and foreign language learning is no exception (Shadiev et al., In Press ). This matter has been addressed in the documents related to Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ( 2004 ). Furthermore, researchers have carried out related studies, and pointed out the advantages of technology in developing both language skills and 21st century skills (Shadiev et al., In Press ). For example, Suzanne ( 2014 ) pointed out that when developing learners' reading skills, they deepened the learners' understanding of reading content, and also developed critical thinking skills. García-Sánchez and Burbules ( 2016 ) have found that students' skills such as problem solving, collaboration, listening and speaking improved after they completed online collaborative tasks. Srebnaja and Stavicka ( 2018 ) also pointed out that, in language learning projects supported by WebQuest, students' creativity, collaboration, and speaking skills have been developed. In the study by Chiang ( 2020 ), the digital storytelling activity was designed which promoted language learners' writing skills as well as their digital literacy skills.

A theoretical foundation to support technology supported language learning and development of 21st century skills can be built on various theories. The most relevant can be considered as second language acquisition theory, socio-cultural theory, and constructivism theory. For example, second language acquisition theory states that language acquisition is a process of input, absorption, and output. Language acquisition is acquired through exposure to contexts, understanding discourse, and then using language in natural communicative contexts (Krashen, 1985 ). According to socio-cultural theory, learning is a social phenomenon; it emphasizes the social nature of learning and argues that the development of learners' abilities arises from interpersonal interactions (Lantolf, 2000 ). Constructivism theory suggests that learning is a process in which a learner actively constructs meaning. That is, learners generate meaning and construct understanding based on prior knowledge and experience, often in the context of socio-cultural interactions. Constructivism theory emphasizes the social and contextual nature of learning (Vygotsky, 1978 ). Over the years, scholars have created technology-supported learning environments for language learning and 21st century skills development based on these theories. Such environments provide students with authentic learning materials, support social interaction, and facilitate their creative expression and construction of meaning actively using the target language.

Some related review studies already exist in the field. For example, Shadiev and Yang ( 2020 ) reviewed 398 articles related to technology-assisted language learning published in 10 Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals. The dimensions analyzed in their study included target language, language skills, technologies, and research findings. Shadiev and Yang ( 2020 ) found that the most commonly used language was English, followed by Chinese. The most targeted language skills were writing, speaking, and vocabulary acquisition. Digital games and online videos were the most commonly used technologies in these reviewed studies. In addition, most of the reviewed studies reported positive impacts of technology applications on language learning. Zhang and Zou ( 2020 ) reviewed 57 articles on technology applications for language learning that were published between 2016 and 2019 in 10 SSCI journals. The types of technology, the purpose of technology use, and the effectiveness of the technologies were reviewed by the authors. Zhang and Zou ( 2020 ) found that mobile learning, multimedia learning and socialization, voice to text recognition, text to speech recognition, and digital game-based learning were the most frequently investigated types of technology in the literature. The purposes for their use mainly covered four areas, including promoting practice, providing teaching content, promoting interaction, and reconstructing teaching methods. Scholars have claimed that technologies have positive effects on language learning. Goksu et al. ( 2020 ) reviewed 310 articles in 10 journals in the field of technology-assisted language learning. In addition, they evaluated a metadata set of 469 articles in the Web of Science database through bibliometric mapping. The review focused on the types, purposes, and effectiveness of the latest technologies on language learning. Goksu et al. ( 2020 ) found that most studies used quantitative research methods and were carried out with participants at higher academic levels. In addition, most studies focused on language skills as well as learning motivation and learner perceptions. Shadiev et al. ( 2017 ) studied 37 articles published in the top 10 SSCI journals related to educational technology from 2007 to 2016 (March). Scholars took mobile language learning in a real environment as the research object and summarized the results from four perspectives: journal publishing trends, language learning, research focus, and research methods. The results showed that the journal publishing trend was increasing. The most common research focus was cognition and language learner proficiency. The results also showed that mobile technology was positively perceived and accepted by students in most of these studies, and the technology was also found to have a positive impact on the students' language skills.

By exploring these review studies, the present review research found that 21st century skills were not considered in these earlier studies at all because scholars mainly focused on language skills. Therefore, several important aspects (e.g., theoretical foundations used to support the studies, methodology, and types of learning activities that promote language skills and 21st century skills) were ignored. These aspects are important for stakeholders in the design and implementation of language teaching and learning for 21st century skills development. In order to fill this gap in the literature, the present study was carried out, and the following research questions were addressed:

• What language skills and 21st century skills did the researchers focus on in the reviewed studies?
• What theories were used as a foundation in reviewed studies?
• What technologies were used to promote language skills and 21st century skills?
• What learning activities were used in the reviewed studies?
• What were the methodological characteristics of the reviewed studies?
• What research findings were obtained in the reviewed studies?

Research Method

The present study is a systematic review. The study used preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) for the electronic search. PRISMA is considered as a set of programs that facilitates researchers to prepare and report various systematic evaluations and meta-analyses (Moher et al., 2009 ). According to scholars, PRISMA has been widely and successfully applied in educational research. In addition to PRISMA, this review followed the general guidelines for searching and selecting research articles proposed by Avgousti ( 2018 ), Shadiev and Yang ( 2020 ), and Shadiev and Yu ( In Press ). The search and selection processes are shown in Figure 1 . Articles were found through a search on the Web of Science database and Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online Database (PRIMO). According to Kukulska-Hulme and Viberg ( 2018 ), PRIMO is a search tool and it contains several databases such as ERIC and Scopus. For this reason, PRIMO features a very comprehensive collection of full-text articles and bibliographic records, and it has been used by many researchers in their systematic reviews and meta-analyses to find relevant literature.

The search and selection process.

Based on general recommendations from previous review studies (Guan, 2014 ; Duman et al., 2015 ), this review used keywords such as 21st century skills, language learn * , and technology. 21st century skills were also included to widen the search results (e.g., creativity and innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, digital literacy, information literacy, media literacy, ICT literacy, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural interaction, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility). This review used these terms in different combinations to search articles.

A total of 9,162 articles were found from the search. This review narrowed down the selection of research articles based on the following criteria (see Figure 1 ): articles that were (1) published during 2011–2022 (February); (2) published in English; and (3) focused on technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills. Two researchers screened each article individually and excluded articles from the study that did not focus on technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills. The researchers discussed any discrepancies in their selection results until an agreement was reached. At the end of the selection process, 34 empirical studies were chosen for the review.

This review proposed an analytical framework (see Figure 2 ) to answer the research questions of the study and to better understand the research design of the reviewed studies and findings. This review also used this framework to help us better review articles and regarded it as the basis for coding the content of reviewed studies. This review used the open coding method to carry out content analysis (Creswell, 2002 ) which can enable us to segment research content and to form categories relevant to the phenomenon of interest. The analytical dimensions included the following (see Figure 2 ): (1) language skills and 21st century skills—skills related to language learning and 21st century skills, (2) technology—the tools and devices participants used for language learning, (3) learning activities supported by technology to cultivate 21st century skills and language skills, (4) theoretical foundation—theories, models or hypothesis involved in research, (5) methodology—participants' academic level and major, research duration, sample size, data collection tools, and research design, and (6) findings—results reported in research.

Analytical framework.

Two researchers were involved in the coding process. They read articles and coded content according to the above coding scheme. After that, they categorized codes into categories and identified attributes for each category. If there were any differences in coding, the researchers re-examined an article to resolve differences, and then finally completed the coding phase. Interrater reliability was measured using Cohen's kappa coefficient and the result was high (k = 0.886).

The present study starts this section with the results related to publication year, languages, and participants. Figure 3 shows the distribution of articles published in the past 10 years. Most studies were published in 2019 ( n = 8), and no articles were published in 2012. From the figure, it can also be seen that the research trend in this field is on the rise. Figure 4 demonstrates the frequency at which different languages were the focus in the reviewed studies. 29 studies focused on English. There were also studies focused on Chinese ( n = 2), Ukrainian ( n = 1), Japanese ( n = 1), and Spanish ( n = 1). As shown in Figure 5 , undergraduates were the most common academic level ( n = 17), and there was a relatively low number of studies conducted on junior high school ( n = 5), senior high school ( n = 2), and primary school ( n = 1) academic levels. As shown in Figure 6 , researchers were more willing to involve students who were majoring in the fields of education ( n = 9), management ( n = 4), or engineering ( n = 4).

Distribution of research year.

Distribution of languages.

Distribution of educational level.

Distribution of participants' major.

Research Focus

This section presents the results related to research focus of reviewed articles. As can be seen from Figure 7 (and from Appendix 1 ), researchers carried out technology-assisted language learning studies and focused on the development of listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary skills. Among these skills, speaking skills ( n = 20) received considerable attention from researchers, followed by writing skills ( n = 19) and vocabulary ( n = 13). Reading ( n = 5) skills received less interest from researchers.

Distribution of language skills.

According to Figure 8 (and Appendix 1 ), researchers pointed out that technology-supported language learning can also promote 21st century skills. These skills relate to the following three categories: 4C (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity), digital literacy, and career and life skills. The most common skills that scholars targeted were communication ( n = 15) and collaboration ( n = 15), followed by critical thinking ( n = 10) and social and cross-cultural interaction ( n = 10). Problem solving ( n = 5) skills have received the least attention from researchers.

Distribution of 21st century skills.

Theoretical Foundation

This section focuses on theoretical foundation in the reviewed articles. As shown in Appendix 2 , a total of 16 theories were used. The most used theory was the social constructivism theory ( n = 9), followed by Byram's intercultural competence model ( n = 3), project-based learning ( n = 2), content based instruction ( n = 2), task based approach to language teaching ( n = 2), and sociocultural theory ( n = 2). The rest of theories were used only once.

As shown in Appendix 3 , a total of 52 technologies were used in reviewed studies. This review grouped them into eight categories: Social tools ( n = 20), Creative tools ( n = 19), Collaboration tools ( n = 13), Learning management system ( n = 9), Multimedia materials ( n = 5), Classroom interactive tools ( n = 4), Presentation tools ( n = 2), Wearable devices ( n = 1). Among the most commonly used technologies were Facebook ( n = 4), Google Docs ( n = 4), Moodle ( n = 4), followed sequentially by Skype ( n = 3), Padlet ( n = 3), WhatsApp ( n = 2), YouTube ( n = 2), Blogs ( n = 2), Google Drive ( n = 2), and Wiki ( n = 2). The other 40 technologies have only been used once, i.e., Windows Movie Maker, Live On, Edmodo, Kahoot, and Prezi. In addition, one study involved a virtual reality production tool (EduVenture) and a wearable device (Google Cardboard).

Learning Activity

As shown in Appendix 4 , in reviewed studies, scholars designed the following five main types of learning activities: (1) collaborative task-based language learning ( n = 9); (2) learning activities based on online communication ( n = 9); (3) creative work-based language learning ( n = 8); (4) adaptive learning activities ( n = 4); and (5) learning activities based on multimedia materials ( n = 4).

Methodology

This section presents methodological details of reviewed studies, such as sample size, research duration, data collection tools and research design.

As shown in Figure 9 , the most common sample size was from 11 to 30 participants ( n = 11), followed by sample sizes between 61 and 90 ( n = 8) and between 31 and 7 ( n = 7). Only two studies selected a sample size between 1 and 10. The sample size of two studies was >151. As shown in Figure 10 , most of research duration was between 3 and 6 months ( n = 10). There were 12 studies that did not state any research duration.

Sample size distribution.

Research duration distribution.

As shown in Appendix 5 , the most common data collection method was questionnaires ( n = 17), followed by tests ( n = 15) and interviews ( n = 13). Two data collection methods were used only 2 times, they were scales ( n = 2) and rubric ( n = 2).

As shown in Appendix 6 , research designs related to technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills were categorized into three main categories, namely quasi-experimental research ( n = 14), case studies ( n = 12), and action research ( n = 8).

As shown in Appendix 7 , various findings were reported in reviewed studies. In addition, that learners' language skills acquisition and 21st century skills, technology-supported language learning activities provided learners with good learning experiences, enhanced motivation and engagement, and improved self-confidence. In reviewed studies, some scholars reported about challenges faced by students during learning activities; they included challenges from technology, from their own competence, challenges of collaborating with others and self-attitude.

Language Skills

Regarding language skills, researchers have focused on improving learners' speaking, writing and vocabulary skills more. This shows that researchers are more concerned with the improvement of learners' skills related to language output. Researchers who reviewed studies on technology-supported language learning from 2014 to 2019 came to the same conclusion (Shadiev and Yang, 2020 ). However, the present study showed that reading skills received the least attention, while previous studies noted that grammar skills received less attention. This revealed that researchers are now beginning to pay more attention to previously neglected skills and are beginning to focus on the role of technology-supported language learning in facilitating learners' grammar skills. For example, Lai ( 2017 ) noted that grammar skills improved when learners completed activities to create vocabulary lists and greeting cards using multimedia resources. Jung et al. ( 2019 ) noted that students' grammar skills improved as they corrected each other's pronunciation and grammatical errors through video chat. Jamalai and Krish ( 2021 ) found that students' grammar skills improved through online forum discussions and knowledge sharing.

21st Century Skills

In terms of 21st century skills, communication and collaboration have received the most attention from researchers. It is probably because the 21st century society is more globalized and along with the increased complexity of related work, interpersonal communication and cooperation are being enhanced. The 21st century society emphasizes teamwork skills, and therefore scholars focus on collaborative and communication skills. Problem-solving skills have received little attention, and no researcher focused on career and life skills. In the face of the evolving and changing society of the future, problem-solving skills are among the core 21st century skills, emphasizing learners' ability to define problems, think critically, and solve problems. For example, scholars in reviewed studies have focused on learners' problem-solving skills in virtual technology-supported language learning (Chen et al., 2021 ).

Based on the results, this study has several recommendations for educators and researchers. First, input skills are an important component of language skills and an indispensable way for learners to develop output skills (Harmer, 2007 ). The present study suggests that researchers can focus on learners' input skills supported by technology, such as listening and reading. Second, problem-solving skills and career and life skills also deserve attention; therefore, future studies try to explore the effects of technology-supported language learning on these skills.

Theories Related to Instructional Design

The most commonly used instructional design theory in reviewed studies was social constructivism theory. The results of this research are consistent with those of previous review studies of technology-supported language learning (Parmaxi and Zaphiris, 2017 ). According to this theory (Vygotsky, 1978 ), knowledge is not a set of “facts” but rather a synthesis of information that is actively constructed and evolving in the learner's mind. The teacher does not “give” knowledge to the learner, but the learner should acquire knowledge actively. Learners' knowledge evolves as they process old and new information, as well as their experiences. The researchers designed collaborative, creative, and communicative activities based on a social constructivism perspective to encourage learners to input the target language and output the target language in a meaningful context. At the same time, researchers have used various learning and teaching activities to promote students' collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking and digital literacy skills (Yang et al., 2013 , 2014 , 2022 ; Lai, 2017 ; Sevilla-Pavón and Nicolaou, 2017 ; Huang, 2021 ).

Other researchers have also used theories based on learner-centered pedagogies such as problem-based or project-based theories. These pedagogies are all used to promote student-directed learning, adaptive learning, and personalized assessment. Learning theories were used to design activities that provided learners with opportunities for language input and output, e.g., to learn new knowledge and then apply it to the real world by creating own content. This allows learners to acquire language skills and develop 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration, and problem solving (Arnó-Macià and Rueda-Ramos, 2011 ; Yang et al., 2013 , 2014 ; Srebnaja and Stavicka, 2018 ).

Theories Related to Language Learning

Researchers have also designed learning activities based on theories related to foreign language learning, such as task-based language teaching, content-based instruction, and output-input theory. For example, digital story creation activities and integrated cross-cultural communication activities designed by the researcher are in line with these theoretical perspectives, in which learners have access to the target language through social tools and partner communication. The ability to use creative and collaborative tools to complete target-language based tasks also contributes to the acquisition of language skills and 21st century skills development, such as social and cross-cultural interaction, communication skills (Lewis and Schneider, 2015 ; Tseng, 2017 ).

Theories Related to Measuring Learning Outcomes

Since language learning is closely related to culture, scholars have designed foreign language courses based on cross-cultural communication, where learners acquired both language skills and cultural knowledge. Further, there are theories that have been used by scholars to assess and measure learners' outcomes. For example, researchers have focused on learners' intercultural competence along with their language skills and utilized the Byram' ICC model and the developmental model of intercultural sensitivity to measure their cross-cultural knowledge acquisition and skills development (Bennett, 1986 ; Byram, 1997 ). In addition, the Keller' ARCS motivational model (Keller, 1987 ) has been used by researchers to measure learners' perceived attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction in technology-supported language learning environments.

This review analyzed the theoretical foundation that was used by those few studies that focused on non-English languages such as Chinese, Ukrainian, Japanese, and Spanish. This review found that learning theories used by scholars in these studies were diverse. They were related to instructional design (e.g., social constructivism), language learning (e.g., language output and input), and cross-cultural learning (e.g., intercultural sensitivity).

Based on the findings, several suggestions for educators and researchers are proposed. First, the theories mentioned by researchers are instruction-related theories, language learning-related theories, and measurement-related theories; they were used to guide the design of technology-supported language learning activities that focus both on the acquisition of language skills and on the 21st century skills. These theories can be useful to inform the design of appropriate language learning activities for educators and researchers in the future. Second, this review found that many researchers did not indicate what theories were used in their studies. Theoretical foundations are important for the instructional design, language learning or measuring activities, so such information should be clearly indicated so that other researchers can gain a deeper understanding of them.

Eight Technologies With Different Functions

Based on the literature review, this study grouped technologies into eight categories based on their functions: (1) collaborative tools (e.g., Google Docs or Padlet) for supporting learners to collaborate on a task through co-editing and information sharing; (2) social tools (e.g., Facebook or Skype) for supporting learners to communicate and share content remotely or synchronously using text, audio and video; (3) creative tools (e.g., Photo Story or Adobe Spark) to support learners in creating work, such as digital stories or videos; (4) learning management system (e.g., Moodle) to integrate learning activities and learning resources for adaptive online learning; (5) classroom interaction tools (e.g., Quizlet or Kahoot) to support question-answering, polling, and other activities in the classroom; (6) multimedia materials are some audio and video resources on the web or multimedia textbooks; (7) presentation tools (e.g., PowerPoint) are used to support learners to present their learning content digitally; (8) wearable devices (e.g., Google Glass) to support learners to view or interact with content in virtual reality learning environments.

Most Commonly Used Technologies

Facebook (social tool), Google Docs (collaboration tool), and Moodle technologies (learning management system) were used the most in previous studies to facilitate language and 21st century skills. The study further analyzed which technologies are most often used by researchers to promote 21st century skills. Appendix 8 demonstrates these most commonly used tools. The study found that Facebook (social tool), Google Docs (collaboration tool) and Moodle (learning management system) were also the tools most often used by researchers to promote communication, collaboration and critical thinking, social and cross-cultural interaction skills. This indicates that scholars valued such 21st century skills as collaboration and communication among students in technology-supported language learning activities. For example, Sevy-Biloon and Chroman ( 2019 ) used social and collaborative tools (e.g., Google Docs, Facebook, etc.) to support communication between students from different cultural backgrounds and their results showed that students' speaking skills, social and cross-cultural interaction, and communication skills were promoted. Moodle is popular among researchers because this learning management system not only supports learners' adaptive and inquiry-based learning, but also helps teachers share learning resources with learners, design learning activities, and manage learners' learning progress (García-Sánchez and Burbules, 2016 ). For example, Yang et al. ( 2014 ) designed a language learning activity based on the Moodle platform that asked students to complete reading and writing tasks in the system to promote the development of reading, writing skills and critical thinking. In addition, researchers most often used Google Docs (collaboration tool), Prezi (presentation tool), Windows Movie Maker, Photo Story3 (creative tools) and Blogs (social tool) to support students' creativity and innovation skills, problem-solving skills, and ICT literacy. And only two studies have used films (multimedia materials) and blogs (social tool) to support students' media literacy.

Experienced Challenges of Using Technology

Scholars reported that technologies pose some challenges for learners. For example, students were not experienced to use technology and had no trainings before learning activities; then they complained about problems to use technology during learning (Lai, 2017 ). Students were also confused about the layout of the platform and noted that there were incompatibilities and connectivity issues with learning devices (Hosseinpour et al., 2019 ). When communicating remotely, students pointed out that there were problems with the network and they were not able to connect and participate in learning process (Mohamadi Zenouzagh, 2018 ; Jung et al., 2019 ).

The Distribution of Technology in non-English Language Studies and Different Theories

This review also analyzed technologies that were used by those few studies that focused on non-English languages. This review found that, in general, scholars in these studies used such technologies as creative tools (Adobe Spark), collaboration tools (Google Docs), and social tool (Facebook) to present multimedia content to learners and support collaborative, creative and communicative learning activities (Valdebenito and Chen, 2019 ).

With regard to the distribution of technology in theory. Social constructivism theory was the most commonly cited theory in reviewed research and scholars used various technologies such as learning management systems (e.g., Moodle), creative tools (e.g., iMovie) or social tools (e.g., Facebook) to support constructivism-based learning activities. That is, interactive and collaborative learning activities were designed for students to learn new knowledge and then apply it to construct meaning in authentic contexts.

Based on the results of this study, several recommendations for educators and researchers were proposed. First, it is recommended that learning activities supported by technologies are designed based on appropriate theoretical foundation. Second, teachers are encouraged to conduct appropriate technology training for students beforehand so that they become familiar with technology tools. Third, teachers and researchers should test learning tools with students in advance in order to identify any possible technical problems, and provide timely support during learning process.

Learning Activities Used to Promote Language Skills and 21st Century Skills

This section describes what technologies are used in each type of learning activity and how they contribute to the development of learners' language skills and 21st century skills. In addition, it offers relevant suggestions to researchers and educators.

Adaptive Language Learning Activities on Learning Platforms

As shown in Table 1 , in the reviewed study, researchers used the following tools: Moodle, Google classroom, Quantum leap, and WebQuest, to develop adaptive language learning activities on learning platforms. These tools are used to integrate different types of instructional resources and diverse language learning activities to provide learners with adaptive learning materials that meet their learning needs. Students can ask questions and receive feedback from other students or teachers, and take control of their own learning progress.

Adaptive language learning activities on learning platforms.

For example, Arnó-Macià and Rueda-Ramos ( 2011 ) designed tasks for reading, listening, and speaking practice in Quantum leap platform. Researchers have designed listening tasks in Moodle platform; students were required to analyze, evaluate, and summarize content after listening (Yang et al., 2013 , 2014 ). Srebnaja and Stavicka ( 2018 ) designed WebQuests-based speaking and writing tasks.

All of these studies noted that learners' performance in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar improved after completing the computer-assisted adaptive language learning tasks. In addition, students' critical thinking skills were developed.

Collaborative Task-Based Language Learning Activities

As shown in Table 2 , the following tools were used by researchers for the development of collaborative-based language learning activities: (1) collaboration tools: Google Docs, Google Drive, Wiki, Edmodo, and E-writing forum. These collaborative tools have the following functions: sharing, collaborative editing, cloud storage, synchronized display, and help students freely share information in various formats (e.g., text, images, videos, web links, audio recordings, music, etc.) on the platform so that they can exchange ideas and collaborate on editing content; (2) creative tools: Adobe Spark, to support students' expression of ideas; (3) social tools: Blogs or WordPress, to support students in reading and commenting on each other's work.

Collaboration-based language learning activities.

Collaboration-based language learning activities are those in which students work in groups to solve problems and complete tasks proposed by the teacher, such as asking students to provide an essay or present their ideas in other ways (e.g., a solution, a report, and a performance). For example, Amir et al. ( 2011 ) asked students to work in groups to publish six articles based on different topics over the course of 14 weeks, and one of the tasks required students to find and discuss software about computer-assisted writing.

Mohamadi Zenouzagh ( 2018 ) designed a collaborative writing activity based on the E-writing platform. Valdebenito and Chen ( 2019 ) designed a collaborative activity on the theme of “food and culture” in which students first had to use Google Maps to identify geographic areas related to the content, then use a Google Doc to record their ideas, and finally use video production tools such as Adobe Spark to express their ideas and share them on the WordPress platform. Huh and Lee ( 2020 ) designed a creative learning English collaborative activity in which students first used a mobile app to learn how to spell words, then the group took the words they learned and expressed them through the role play and song. Lai ( 2017 ) designed different collaborative tasks, for example, students needed to use the ThingLink tool to create vocabulary lists and greeting cards related to the topic, which were then shared on the Padlet platform and discussed. In addition, students were required to use HomeStyler to collaboratively design a dream home and use some vocabulary related to “location” to describe the design of their home.

Girgin and Cabaroglu ( 2021 ) designed an English learning project that integrates Web 2.0 technology and flipped classroom, and students used Padlet to watch videos in class. In grammar classes, students used Kahoot, Quizlet, Quizizz, Animoto, Powtoon, and Poster MyWall to answer grammar questions. In vocabulary and reading classes, students used tools such as Mind Meister, Voki, Canva, Cram, Go Animate and Story-bird to create mind maps, as well as create digital stories, which can be presented and shared. Chen et al. ( 2021 ) used virtual reality technology to design language learning activities. Learners were required to first watch a virtual reality scene and think about how to solve the problem based on a series of guiding questions provided by the teacher. Then students role-played in English to create a virtual reality video of the problem being solved.

The results of the abovementioned studies showed that collaborative-based language learning activities facilitated the development of learners' language skills. The researchers noted that collaborative problem-solving language learning activities provided learners with a large number of writing tasks, such as writing reports, essays, or creating storylines and designing works. The process of sharing with each other enabled to point out grammatical errors (Amir et al., 2011 ; Mohamadi Zenouzagh, 2018 ; Hosseinpour et al., 2019 ). When learners used multimedia resources to create vocabulary lists and greeting cards, their vocabulary and grammar skills were also improved (Lai, 2017 ).

At the same time, students' critical thinking was developed as they gave each other's critical and constructive comments (Valdebenito and Chen, 2019 ; Zou and Xie, 2019 ; Girgin and Cabaroglu, 2021 ). In addition, students completed tasks in small groups which promoted the development of communication and collaboration skills during discussions with each other (Amir et al., 2011 ; García-Sánchez and Burbules, 2016 ; Lai, 2017 ; Mohamadi Zenouzagh, 2018 ; Hosseinpour et al., 2019 ; Zou and Xie, 2019 ; Girgin and Cabaroglu, 2021 ). The process of students voicing digital content promoted the development of speaking skills (Huh and Lee, 2020 ). In the process of creating digital works, digital literacy was developed (García-Sánchez and Burbules, 2016 ; Valdebenito and Chen, 2019 ). Chen et al. ( 2021 ) pointed out that learners learn contextually in an immersive learning environment, and solving real problems through virtual reality technology improved learners' vocabulary as well as promoted their problem-solving skills.

Creative Work-Based Language Learning Activities

As shown in Table 3 , in reviewed studies, language learning activities based on creative works consisted of two main categories: creating digital stories or videos. The main models for this type of learning activity were as follows: students communicated in groups about how to create a digital story or video, then collected and processed relevant information, after that created a digital story, and finally shared content and communicated with each other about it.

Creative work-based language learning activities.

The researchers chose different tools to support such learning process, e.g., (1) creating digital stories, i.e., Photo Story3, Windows Movie Maker, or iMovie; (2) creating video scripts in collaboration, i.e., Google Docs or Google Drive; (3) presenting digital stories, i.e., Prezi or PPT; (4) sharing digital stories and communicating, i.e., Google+ forums, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google Classroom, and classroom management systems.

The researcher noted that digital storytelling promoted language skills, specifically, the process of writing story scripts promoted students' writing and vocabulary skills (Thang et al., 2014 ; Sevilla-Pavón and Nicolaou, 2017 ; Kulsiri, 2018 ; Yalçin and Öztürk, 2019 ; Chiang, 2020 ). It also promoted 21st century skills. Researchers mentioned three approaches for creating digital stories or videos such as free-writing, rewriting the ending of the story, and specifying the theme, and in this open-ended work creation process, students' sense of creativity, problem-solving skills, and digital literacy were developed (Thang et al., 2014 ; Sevilla-Pavón and Nicolaou, 2017 ; Kulsiri, 2018 ; Yalçin and Öztürk, 2019 ; Yang et al., 2022 ). Regarding the creation of digital stories on a specific theme, the researcher asked learners to design a new country, and students needed to understand a range of elements including different countries and cultures, such as national characteristics, language, national policies, climate and life. As a result, students' social and cross-cultural skills were improved. In addition, critical thinking was facilitated as students developed different ideas and perspectives as they evaluated each other's digital stories (Sevilla-Pavón and Nicolaou, 2017 ). Finally, students developed their communication and collaboration skills when working in groups (Thang et al., 2014 ; Sevilla-Pavón and Nicolaou, 2017 ; Kulsiri, 2018 ; Yalçin and Öztürk, 2019 ; Mirza, 2020 ; Huang, 2021 ).

Language Learning Activities Based on Multimedia Learning Materials

As shown in Table 4 , language learning activities based on multimedia materials involved such tools as (1) web-based learning management system, e.g., EDpuzzle; (2) social tool, e.g., YouTube; and (3) multimedia textbooks. All of them provided multimedia resources for students. There were also (4) collaboration tools, e.g., Padlet and Google docs, which supported learners to share ideas with each other.

Language learning activities based on learning multimedia materials.

Scholars have designed a variety of language learning activities based on multimedia materials, but the topics and learning tasks of the multimedia materials involved in these studies differed. For example, Tseng ( 2017 ) asked learners to watch a video on the topic of cultural differences, and then students gave oral presentations and reflections to present their views on cultural differences. Zou and Xie ( 2019 ) asked students to watch a video on EDpuzzle, then to discuss in groups, negotiate and compare answers, to share their output to the Padlet platform, and finally submit their reports in Google docs. Nikitova et al. ( 2020 ) asked students to watch videos from multimedia textbooks with different English contexts and then simulated learners' role play activities. Aristizábal-Jiménez ( 2020 ) asked learners to watch YouTube videos, analyze the structure and content of video content, and then create posters to present and share their ideas.

The researcher noted that language learning activities based on multimedia materials promoted learners' language skills and 21st century skills. Specifically, learners' listening skills were promoted after watching the videos (Tseng, 2017 ). Culturally relevant content in videos and culture-based communication among peers promoted students' social and cross-cultural interaction skills (Tseng, 2017 ). Learners actively used dictionaries and discussed grammar while completing tasks to make the information easier to understand, which also promoted students' vocabulary and grammar skills (Aristizábal-Jiménez, 2020 ). In addition, working in groups to complete tasks promoted speaking, writing, grammar, and vocabulary skills. This was also beneficial to develop students' problem solving, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication skills (Aristizábal-Jiménez, 2020 ; Nikitova et al., 2020 ).

Language Learning Activities Based on Online Communication

As shown in Table 5 , the researchers designed online communication-based language learning activities. Most of them were cross-cultural communication activities to support cross-cultural communication between students from different cultural backgrounds. In terms of technology, the researchers mainly used social tools to support textual or video communication, e.g., Facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp. In addition, researchers have utilized learning management systems to support students to view learning resources uploaded by teachers.

Language learning activities based on online communication.

The design of cross-cultural communication activities followed the same pattern—exposure to cross-cultural knowledge, reflection on cross-cultural differences, and cross-cultural exchange. For example, Calogerakou and Vlachos ( 2011 ) had students from two countries to watch movies and compare culture presented in movies with their own culture. Then students had to post comments on a blog and discuss their ideas. Chen and Yang ( 2016 ) asked students to share culturally specific folklore stories with their partners and to make videos of the stories to send to their partners. In addition, students were asked to perform a puppet show via videoconference. All of these were for students to learn about cultural similarities and differences. Chen and Yang ( 2014 ) designed a discussion activity based on cultural themes; for example, students discussed movies that involved culturally different content, and then students shared their opinions on Wiki. Lewis and Schneider ( 2015 ) asked learners to interact with native Spanish-speaking students and discuss cultural topics such as “local living conditions” and “how to celebrate holidays.” Learners were then asked to write a mini-biography or travel brochure for their study partner to demonstrate the cultural knowledge they gained during the exchange. Özdemir ( 2017 ) asked students to watch YouTube videos and discuss them based on cross-cultural questions prepared by the teacher. Sevy-Biloon and Chroman ( 2019 ) designed an intercultural exchange program in which students from Ecuador and the United States were randomly paired and then engaged in a cultural exchange based on the theme of the language course. Jung et al. ( 2019 ) asked students from different cultural backgrounds to discuss cultural topics, including “happiness factors, family, and food,” and finally, students reflected on the discussion, exchanged proverbs with each other, and then presented cultural differences. They reflected on their experiences in a reflective journal. Jamalai and Krish ( 2021 ) designed an online discussion activity, in which learners were required to engage in online discussions based on topics posted by teachers in a forum.

The results showed that students' speaking, vocabulary, writing, reading, and grammar skills improved when communicating through text and speech because students double-checked vocabulary spelling and grammar. Students identified errors they made when communicating using text and speech and corrected them to ensure that others understood their intended meaning (Calogerakou and Vlachos, 2011 ; Chen and Yang, 2014 , 2016 ; Lewis and Schneider, 2015 ; Özdemir, 2017 ; Hirotani and Fujii, 2019 ; Jung et al., 2019 ; Sevy-Biloon and Chroman, 2019 ; Jamalai and Krish, 2021 ). In addition, students' listening skills improved after watching YouTube videos (Özdemir, 2017 ).

At the same time, students' communication process using social tools developed the ability to use writing software, electronic dictionaries, and collect information on the Internet, and therefore media literacy was improved (Calogerakou and Vlachos, 2011 ). All studies point to the development of cultural interaction skills after students interacted and exchanged different cultural perspectives with partners (Calogerakou and Vlachos, 2011 ; Chen and Yang, 2014 , 2016 ; Lewis and Schneider, 2015 ; Özdemir, 2017 ; Hirotani and Fujii, 2019 ; Jung et al., 2019 ; Sevy-Biloon and Chroman, 2019 ). Communication (Chen and Yang, 2014 ; Lewis and Schneider, 2015 ; Hirotani and Fujii, 2019 ) and collaboration skills were also developed (Chen and Yang, 2014 ) in reviewed studies.

This review also analyzed learning activities that were used by those few studies that focused on non-English languages. This review found that most learning activities designed in these studies were online cross-cultural communicative activities. This shows that the primary goal of these learning projects was to develop students' foreign language and intercultural communication skills.

Based on the findings of the reviewed literature, the five types of language learning activities supported by technology had a positive impact on students' language skills as well as their 21st century skills development. Moreover, this review found that these learning activities followed similar pattern. The common pattern for language learning activities based on culture-related communication was exposure to cross-cultural knowledge, reflection on cross-cultural differences, and cross-cultural exchange. The common pattern of language learning activities for creative works was as follows: students communicated in groups about how to create a work (such as digital story or video), then collected and processed relevant information, created a work, and then shared content and communicated with each other about it. These patterns could provide suggestions for researchers and teachers to design similar instructional activities that target development of language skills and 21st century skills in the future.

Second, this review found that researchers designed similar instructional activities, but the research focus was different. For example, in the adaptive language learning activities on learning platforms, researchers focused on the development of students' speaking skills and lacked attention to reading skills. And in the collaborative task-based language learning activities, researchers have focused more on writing and vocabulary skills, collaboration, and communication skills, and lacked attention to listening skills. In creative writing-based language learning activities, researchers focused more on speaking and writing skills as well as creative and communication skills.

Research Duration, Participants' Academic Level, and Sample Size

The most common study samples were small ones with participants range from 11 to 30 ( n = 11) and medium samples with range between 61 and 90 ( n = 8) participants. Research durations were mostly between 3 and 6 months ( n = 10). Small sample size was acknowledged as a limitation in some studies (Hirotani and Fujii, 2019 ; Zou and Xie, 2019 ). The possible reason for this is that most of the studies were based on small classroom settings. In the reviewed studies, the most common academic level of participants was undergraduate level. There were 12 studies that did not specify research duration. Regarding this finding, there is a lack of attention in previous retrospective studies (Guan, 2014 ; Duman et al., 2015 ; Persson and Nouri, 2018 ).

Data Collection

Most of the studies collected both quantitative and qualitative data, which can help researchers to draw conclusions from different perspectives. Quantitative data included tests, scales, and rubrics; qualitative data included student's work, open-ended questions, student feedback, interviews, student chat transcripts, student reflections, teacher journals, and observations. One of the most common forms of quantitative data collection is a test ( n = 15), involving student language tests (tests of English speaking and listening) and tests of 21st century skills (critical thinking and creative thinking). The most common method of qualitative data collection was interview ( n = 13), where the researcher usually designed an interview outline and then asked learners questions to understand their learning experiences, attitudes, motivations, and challenges in the learning process. In addition, researchers have extensively used questionnaires ( n = 17), including both closed-ended and open-ended questions, to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. For example, the researchers used questionnaires to investigate learners' perceptions of technology-supported language learning, including effectiveness, usefulness, and students' perceptions of developing intercultural communicative competence and language skills through online discussions (Jung et al., 2019 ).

Based on the above findings, the recommendations of the present study for researchers and teachers are as follow. First, researchers could consider studies with longer time spans and collect data from bigger number of participants to investigate students' development over time and have generalizable conclusions. Second, researchers can collect multiple types of data, focus on students' learning processes and outcomes, and then interpret findings from different perspectives.

Research Design

There are a variety of research designs for reviewed studies on technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills. The most common are quasi-experimental studies. Such studies are characterized by using pre- and post-tests to measure changes in participants' language skills, 21st century skills and other learning outcomes and attitudes before and after participation in learning activities. In quasi-experimental studies, participants are not randomly assigned to an experimental or control group (Persson and Nouri, 2018 ; Huang, 2021 ). These findings are consistent with other reviews on technology-supported language learning (Persson and Nouri, 2018 ). The present study suggests that educators and researchers can use the three research methods mentioned above to validate their studies in future.

Positive Learning Experiences

In this section, the study discusses findings from reviewed studies and recommendations for educators and researchers. In reviewed studies, in addition to finding that technology-supported learning activities promoted learners' language skills and 21st century skills, researchers also found that these technologies led to positive learning experiences, which resulted in better learning outcomes. For example, learning through multimedia textbooks, collaborative blog-based writing activities, smartphone-based video filming activities and language learning projects based on intercultural exchange all increased students' motivation (Amir et al., 2011 ; García-Sánchez and Burbules, 2016 ; Sevy-Biloon and Chroman, 2019 ; Aristizábal-Jiménez, 2020 ; Huang, 2021 ). For example, Hosseinpour et al. ( 2019 ) noted that through collaborative writing activities, learners' motivation and self-confidence levels were increased. Mirza ( 2020 ) argued that through digital storytelling-based learning activities, students gained more confidence. Researchers have also looked at the different learning performance of students due to individual differences in abilities or their characteristics. Yang et al. ( 2014 ) found that in terms of writing, significant differences were found between “basic” and “low-intermediate” learners as a result of the difference in ability. Yalçin and Öztürk ( 2019 ) found that girls had a more negative attitude toward technology than boys.

Challenges Faced by Students

While many studies pointed to positive student attitudes toward technology-supported learning activities (Arnó-Macià and Rueda-Ramos, 2011 ; Girgin and Cabaroglu, 2021 ), several studies highlighted challenges that students faced when using technology for learning. Challenges from technology, with some learners finding it difficult to use in learning activities or being confused about the layout of mobile applications were mentioned. Students also noted problems with device incompatibility and poor network quality and speed when using technology. Self-competence challenges, with learners noting that learning tasks were difficult for them, for example, insufficient time to complete learning tasks, lack of research skills, or language skills needed to complete tasks, were reported. Difficulties in finding an interesting topic and choosing the right tools to create their work were also reported in reviewed studies. Challenges of collaborating with others, with some learners noting that they encounter uncoordinated teamwork, uneven distribution of work and unequal student contributions in collaborative tasks, were mentioned by scholars. Self-attitudes, as noted by learners who felt anxious about video chatting when they were communicating remotely, as well as fear of having their writing errors discovered by their partners when communicating in text, were reported in reviewed studies.

Based on the above findings, the present study recommends to educators and researchers, in addition to focusing on the impact of technology-supported learning activities on learners' language skills and 21st century skills, it is also important to focus on students' perceptions of technology, motivation, engagement, and confidence. This is because positive learning experiences can lead to better learning outcomes (Sevy-Biloon and Chroman, 2019 ; An et al., 2021 ). Regarding the technological challenges that students encounter in the learning process, it is recommended that they be addressed through advance trainings and through providing students with appropriate technological services during learning activities. Self-competence challenges can be addressed by designing collaborative tasks in which students with higher levels of competence can help students with lower levels of competence to complete the task. Regarding the challenges in collaborative activities, it is recommended that teachers and researchers design learning activities with clear rules for collaborative division of labor and rules regarding how learning performance of every learner will be evaluated. With regard to alleviating negative student attitudes, it is recommended that teachers design diverse teaching strategies and scaffolds to give students assistance during learning activities.

This study reviewed articles on technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills published from 2011 to 2022 (February) in terms of (a) research focus; (b) theoretical foundations; (c) technology; (d) learning activities; (e) methodology and (f) findings. The results indicate that research on technology-supported language learning and 21st century skills have shown an upward trend in the overall research in the covered time period, with most of the research focusing on English and the majority of participants in these studies majored in education.

Secondly, in terms of research focus, most of the researchers focused on learners' speaking skills (27.40%), followed by writing (26.03%) and vocabulary skills (17.81%). In terms of 21st century skills, most researchers focused on communication (20.83%), collaboration (20.83%), critical thinking (13.89%), and social and cross-cultural interaction skills (13.89%). In terms of theoretical foundations, social constructivist learning theory was most often adopted by researchers. In terms of technology, tools that support learners' creativity and socialization are often utilized by researchers, e.g., Facebook or Google Docs. In terms of learning activities, researchers have designed the following five types of learning activities to support learners' language learning and 21st century skills: (1) collaborative task-based language learning activities; (2) language learning activities based on online communication; (3) creative work-based language learning activities (4) adaptive language learning activities based on learning platforms; and (5) language learning activities based on multimedia learning materials. The results of reviewed studies indicate that these learning activities supported by technology are effective in promoting the development of learners' different language skills and 21st century skills. Finally, in terms of methodology, most of the studies had a sample of 11–30, the most common study period was 3–6 months, the data collection method often used by researchers was questionnaires, the most common method to collect quantitative data was tests, and the most common method to collect qualitative data was interviews.

In contrast to traditional paper and pencil-based learning, technologies used by researchers in reviewed studies allowed learners to improve language learning outcomes and 21st century skills through individual and collaborative learning activities. Some reported advantages are learning with technologies without the constraints of time and space, technologies enable personalized learning, technologies create authentic learning environments that provides adaptive learning content, helps create multimedia content actively, allows social interaction such as sharing, giving or receiving feedback, and reflecting on learning more efficiently.

Based on the above findings, recommendations for researchers and educators in this study include: (1) In terms of language skills, in addition to focusing on output skills, input skills (reading, listening) also deserve attention from researchers. In terms of 21st century skills, learners' problem-solving skills and career and life skills also need more attention from researchers in the future; (2) Advanced technology training for learners to familiarize them with technology and its effective usage as well as teachers need to check in advance for possible technology problems, such as network problems. These suggestions can help teachers address the technological barriers that learners encounter in the learning process; (3) The use of various theoretical approaches, such as instructional design-related theories and language learning-related theories, is important for the rational design of instructional activities that promote learners' language and 21st century skills; (4) Researchers and educators can follow the general model of conducting the five types of instructional activities summarized above to design instructional activities. In addition, it is recommended that researchers and educators use variety of technologies and design different instructional activities to promote learners' language and 21st century skills. It is also important to be aware of the challenges that students may encounter in terms of technology, learning activity tasks, peer collaboration and self-attitudes when implementing learning activities; (5) Teachers and educators could involve more participants and consider longer time spans in future studies to focus on more learners' development and to collect diverse quantitative and qualitative data to explain students' learning processes and outcomes.

There are few limitations to this study. Articles reviewed in this study were sourced from PRIMO and Web of Science databases, and some conference papers, books and dissertations were excluded. For this reason, this study reviewed smaller number of articles. Future studies may consider this limitation and address it by including more relevant sources.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

RS and XW contributed to the conception, designed the work, collected the data, analyzed, and interpreted data. XW drafted the work and RS substantively revised it. RS was responsible for correspondence. All authors approved the submitted version and agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and to the accuracy the work.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 Articles reviewed in this study.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.897689/full#supplementary-material

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How Does Learning a Language Affect the Brain, and How Can Teachers Harness the Benefits?

Learning another language has a huge effect on our brains, from boosting brain plasticity to increasing empathy and critical thinking. Let’s take a look at the research and pinpoint the most important benefits of learning languages, and how teachers can amplify these advantages to improve outcomes.

It is thought that over half the people in the world  speak more than one language  and, as the world becomes more globalised and we face more shared challenges, speaking more than one language takes on new importance. To address future global issues, we’ll need to work together across languages, cultures, religions and nationalities and for that, we need the language skills, better empathy, to be able to think critically and to be able to adapt quickly to new situations. Luckily, these are all skills that learning a second language helps to foster.

How learning a language affects the brain

When exploring what learning a language does to the brain, it makes sense to start with neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, since that determines how well we learn and for how long. The more the brain can adapt and change, the more we can learn. Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to develop and change in response to stimuli, and learning a second language has a significant, positive effect on plasticity. Recent  studies  have spoken of these benefits helping to hold age-related conditions such as dementia at bay.

When we increase the information in our brains, we need to be able to file and sort that information so we can find it again quickly when we need it. The mental structures that we use to organise knowledge are known as  schema.  As cognitive processes go, these schemas are vital for everything from memory, understanding others, problem-solving and critical thinking. When we speak another language, we become adept at categorising and accessing information quickly, using our executive function skills.

Executive function – the CEO section of the brain

From self-awareness and non-verbal working memory to self-motivation and problem solving,  executive function  covers a crucial set of mental skills. The term executive functions is a business metaphor that pinpoints the essential skills we use to organise and regulate our lives, in the same way a chief executive would use their skills to run a business. They include attention, planning, working memory, abstract thinking, self-control, moral reasoning and decision making. The brains of bilingual children become accustomed to looking for different solutions that consider context, a key element of problem solving. This is because the ability to select the right language for the right context relies on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is the area of the brain thought necessary to disregard the appropriate distractors; in this case, the other language. The brain needs to work at suppressing the other language to allow the right one to take over and that hones our ability to manage cognitive conflict.

When to stop, when to go – thinking critically and building control

There is a simple cognitive conflict test in which the names of colours are written in different colours (‘green’ written in blue, for instance) and respondents have to say the colour that the word is written in. This is trickier than it sounds because it takes our brains longer to process the colour of the letters than it does to read the word. Those who speak more than one language perform better in this test than monolingual participants. And although the brain isn’t a muscle, it often behaves like one, so this constant work results in more grey matter in the ACC amongst bilingual people than their monolingual counterparts.

In addition, the process of ‘switching’ a language on and actively suppressing the words, grammar and structure of your other language also helps improve self-control, which is often a good indicator of academic success.

Make the most of autonomy, games and active learning

When looking at ways to capitalise on the beneficial changes to the brain that language learning brings, building on self-control and self-direction to help students become independent learners should be top of the list. In part, this is because independent learning extends learning beyond the school in meaningful ways, and this will be useful if we face future school closures as a result of lockdowns. A useful method to try for this is flipped learning.

A teaching tactic that uses metacognitive principles, the flipped classroom dates back quite a few years now but we are paying more attention to it, and to blended learning, as a result of school closures. A simple concept, flipped learning asks students to tackle the lower levels of learning before the class then engage in higher cognitive levels of learning with their peers and teachers.  For teachers who want to try this approach out, free webinars can be a useful guide.

It’s never just play

Contemporary US author and play specialist O. Fred Donaldson said it well; “Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play, children learn how to learn.”

I saw the evidence of this time and time again in the classroom. Young children learn well when they’re engaged, and they respond best to humour and whimsy in the learning process. They need to be able to use imagination to create context for the things they are learning that they cannot readily see, touch or interact with. When we created games for our students we quickly found that these games helped children build a solid foundation in a new language, and games can be a great tool for scaffolding learning for students.

In light of the disruption to education this year, the benefits of learning a new language should not be ignored. As schools return, helping young learners overcome the past few months is understandably a priority; helping their brains develop so that learning becomes even more effective isn’t just sensible, it’s necessary.

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this article make me feel proud of being bilingual person

thanks for the article 😊

Great work. Thanks for sharing. My students and I think this is very helpful.

It’s very important subject. Thank you for sharing it with us,

Insightful topic…

Very true,make our students more independent learners.

Very nice and interesting topic.

Very true! Now I understand, among all other things, why teaching within context is to, indirectly, make our students more independent learners, in a more meaningful way, rather than fostering their dependency on us!

Really insightful.

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Speaking skills: Speaking matters

• 1 Speaking skills: Speaking matters
• 2 Speaking matters: Developing fluency
• 3 Speaking matters: Developing and dealing with accuracy
• 4 Speaking matters: Assessing speaking
• 5 Speaking matters: Personalization
• 6 Speaking matters: Problem-solving
• 7 Speaking matters: Role-play
• 8 Speaking matters: Pairwork

Speaking matters: Problem-solving

By Adrian Tennant

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This article looks at problem-solving activities and what they are like. It covers how to set them up, why it's good to use them, the disadvantages and what you should do after the activity.

Introduction

Students need a reason to speak in the classroom. Many speaking activities seem to have no aim other than to get students to talk to each other, but for what reason? By doing the activity what will they achieve? Some activities, like pairwork activities, try to create a purpose by creating an information gap - i.e. where one student has some of the information and another student the rest and, only by speaking to each other can they complete the task. However, this simple transference of information only replicates a small part of what speaking in real life is used for.

Role-plays are another favourite classroom activity designed to get students speaking, but these often focus on creating scenarios or situations where students practise functional language such as giving directions, asking for information, etc. Although this is realistic, it is still often on a level of one student having information that another student doesn't. In real life, we often speak about something when we both, or all, share a lot of the same information. This can take the form of a discussion or a debate where we have opinions, but it can also take the shape of a discussion based on having to solve a problem. In this article, we'll take a closer look at problem-solving speaking activities.

What are problem-solving activities like?

There are a number of types of problem solving activities. For the sake of simplicity I'll split them into three types:

1. The opinion problem-solving activity.

In this type of activity students are given information to discuss where there is not necessarily one right or wrong answer. This type of activity differs from a normal discussion in that there is a built-in problem within the information.

You and three friends rowed out to a small island in the middle of a lake. When you landed you forgot to tie the boat up properly and it has drifted away. Night is now approaching. It is 3km back to the shore, but one of your friends can't swim. You do not have any food with you and you don't know if anyone knows where you are. What do you do?

Students are then expected to discuss the problem and come up with a solution. To help students you can provide a set of ideas/options for them to choose from. You can also make the activity more complicated by giving each student a 'role card' with an extra piece of information on it (that might be a problem) i.e.

There is no wood on the island so you can't build a fire. At night the temperature drops to freezing .

2. The logical thinking problem-solving activity.

In this type of problem-solving activity there is usually one correct solution. To arrive at the solution the students need to discuss information they are given and logically work out what the solution is. There are two ways in which the information can be given, either split between a number of students so that they don't have the same information and they must share it, or where they all have the same information and simply have to discuss things together. In the later version a set of questions can often help students work out the answer. (See activity 2 in the 'Practical ideas' section below for a logical thinking activity).

3.The information gap problem-solving activity.

How does this differ from a normal information gap (i.e. a pairwork information gap where one student has information that the other student doesn't)? Well, the main difference is that in a normal information gap activity it is simply a matter of transferring the information, i.e. two students have a profile of a person. Student A knows the person's age and nationality, etc. Student B then asks 'How old is he?' and fills in the missing information they obtain in the correct space, etc. In a problem-solving information gap, getting the missing information is not the ultimate aim, but merely a stepping stone on the way to solving a problem.

Why use problem-solving activities?

Apart from the fact that these kinds of activities can be a lot of fun they are also very stimulating. They usually require students to communicate information to each other where the focus is on expressing ideas and opinions and not simply repeating phrases. In many ways, problem-solving activities replicate 'real' speaking in that people have a need to speak. Problem-solving activities can also be an effective way of practising language items that have been taught, i.e. both grammar and vocabulary. They are also a great way of developing students' cognitive abilities helping them to process language in a meaningful way.

Are there any disadvantages to problem-solving activities?

Yes, there are. One of the major problems is that stronger students often dominate the discussions, taking over and giving the less able students little opportunity to contribute. Often, this is due to the need for one person to organize and collate information and ideas. One way around this is to give certain students specific tasks, i.e. someone to 'chair' the discussion, someone to make sure everyone has a turn, etc.

Another disadvantage of this type of activity is that students may become frustrated when trying to solve the problem and, especially if they don't have the language skills in English, will switch to their L1. To avoid this it is important that you, the teacher, consider what language they are likely to need in order to complete the task and to pre-teach any necessary phrases, expressions or vocabulary you think they do not possess. Remember, using a problem-solving activity is not the main focus of your lesson/teaching but simply a way in providing students with a forum for using the language they have learnt.

How do you set up a problem-solving activity?

As with other speaking activities, how you set up the activity will often be the difference between a successful activity and one that doesn't work. The first thing to consider is whether the activity uses the language you want the students to practise. If not, then ask yourself why exactly you are using it. Then, it is important to look at the language that is needed and make sure that you pre-teach any new language before they start the activity. This will help the activity run smoothly with the focus being on solving the problem rather than working out the meaning of any new language. Finally, think about whether you want students to work alone to begin with and then discuss the problem with other students or whether you will start with pair or groupwork. Whenever you decide to use pair or groupwork think about who you get to work together so that there is a balance in each group.

What should I do after the activity?

Just as with roleplays, don't just move onto a different activity. If you move on immediately after the activity and don't at least discuss what happened, then students will often lose interest in problem-solving activities, or at least won't benefit to the full. There needs to be an obvious outcome and a rounding-up of the activity. Opening up the activity to a class discussion where you compare solutions is an obvious follow-up. It is also important that during the activity you note down any mistakes students made with the language and think about how you will tackle these either after the activity or in a subsequent lesson.

Some practical ideas

An opinion problem-solving activity

Here I am going to use the idea I mentioned earlier but give a few variations to show how it can be run in a number of different ways.

Variation 1

Put students in groups of 3-5 and give each group a copy (or copies) of the following handout:

Ask students to talk to each other and make a list of possible solutions. Ask them to also think about what problems they might face/encounter with each solution. i.e. If they stay on the island, where will they sleep and what will they eat? What if there is no food on the island? etc.

Variation 2

Give the students the same handout, but also give them the following options (either as part of the handout or written on the board).

• One of you swims to the shore to get help.
• Try and make a fire on the island to attract attention.
• Find somewhere to sleep for the night and then try and get off in the morning.
• Look for the boat and get one person to try and swim to it and bring it back.
• All swim back to the shore taking it in turns to help the person who can't swim.

Variation 3

Give the students the same handout, but also give each one a role card with extra information. i.e.

  A logical thinking problem-solving activity

A new teacher starts working at school. In her class there are a set of triplets, Ana, Bryan and Carl. Unfortunately, the teacher can't remember which one is which, but she has some notes about the three kids.

She knows that two of the triplets are boys and one is a girl.

Carl, one of the boys, is always calm and patient.

• One of the triplets likes playing football and he has a tattoo on his arm.

One of the triplets has red hair, one brown and one blonde.

• The triplet who doesn't get angry easily has short blonde hair.

The triplet with red hair has an earring and she likes to sing.

The triplet who has a tattoo gets angry easily.

Can she work out who is who?

Students should be able to work out the answer simply with the information provided, but, if you want to help them you could also give them a set of questions to answer. e.g.

• Should the teacher have known which triplet was Ana? Why?
• Which triplet likes to sing? How do you know?
• What colour is Ana's hair?
• What else do you know about Ana?
• What kind of person is Carl?
• Does he have a tattoo?
• How do you know?
• What colour is Carl's hair?
• Does Carl like football?
• Which triplet likes football?

These questions guide students through step-by-step, enabling them to work out the answer.

An information gap problem-solving activity

A simple example of this would be to use the same worksheet as above but cut the information about the triplets into strips, put students in small groups and give each student one or two strips. Tell students they have the information between them but that they must not show their information to the other students in their group.

A new teacher starts working at school. In her class there are a set of triplets, Ana, Bryan and Carl. Unfortunately, the teacher can’t remember which one is which, but she has some notes about the three kids. Can she work out who is who?

One of the triplets likes playing football and he has a tattoo on his arm

The triplet who doesn’t get angry easily has short blonde hair.

• British English

Speaking matters: Developing fluency

Speaking matters: developing and dealing with accuracy, speaking matters: assessing speaking, speaking matters: personalization, speaking matters: role-play.

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Pronunciation skills with Adrian Underhill: Overcoming common pronunciation challenges

By Adrian Underhill

In the last article in this series, ELT pronunciation expert Adrian Underhill looks at how to overcome common pronunciation problems.

Pronunciation skills: Consonants – consciously rediscovering the ON and OFF voice buttons

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Pronunciation skills: Minimal pairs /θ/ and /ð/

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A Problem-Solving Approach to Language Arts

roblem-solving might not be the first thing you think of when you hear “language arts,” but taking a problem-solving approach to reading and writing can be a powerful way to motivate students to want to learn.

Problem-Solving isn’t just a math thing.

Whenever we “do” language arts—in other words, any time we read, write, speak, or interpret—we are problem solving. If you’ve ever researched a car before you purchased it, or seen through a politician’s hedging, or tried to describe your symptoms to a doctor, you’ve solved a language arts problem.

Problem-solving in language arts means using language skills to understand or communicate an idea: Is this car worth the money? What’s that guy’s agenda? How can I get my doctor to understand what I’m experiencing? By some combination of reading, writing, speaking, and interpretation, you have probably solved thousands of language arts problems in your lifetime.

But language arts problems aren’t just personal—they can happen on a large scale, and they can impact people in very real ways. Take medical brochures, for example. In 2017, NPR reported on a problem that hospitals in the UK were experiencing . At the time, the average reading level in the UK was fourth grade, but most hospital literature was written at a twelfth-grade level. This meant that, if you needed hip-replacement surgery, your doctor was likely to hand you a brochure on par with Shakespeare or Dickens, when you were more comfortable reading Judy Blume. Granted, we tend to read at a higher level when we’re reading something that is deeply interesting to us (and what could be more interesting than your own impending surgery?), but asking patients to jump eight grade levels to understand what was going to happen to them during surgery was a problem—a language arts problem.

To find new ways of solving this problem, researchers recruited actual fourth-graders to take a crack at writing hip-replacement brochures. The students’ brochures—equal parts adorable, strange, and honest—provided a totally new perspective on what hospital literature could look like. Drawing lessons from the fourth-graders, the researchers argued for more honesty and simplicity in patient literature. In other words, the students’ writing was a small but real step toward solving a real problem.

The hospital problem crystallizes what we mean when we say “language arts problem.” For the hospitals, it was a writing problem—a need to communicate to patients in clear language, “Here’s what’s going to happen to you.” For the patients, it was a reading problem—a need to understand what was going to happen to their bodies. I love this example because it shows both sides of a language arts problem: communicating (writing) and understanding (reading).

Any time we’re trying to communicate or understand something by reading, writing, or speaking—and that’s pretty much all the time—we are solving a language arts problem.

But not all language arts problems are created equal. A good language arts problem, like a good math problem, is one that really needs to be solved. In some cases, it literally needs to be solved—patients need to understand their surgeries, you need to know whether you should buy that car or not. In other cases, a good language arts problem is just too enticing to walk away from.  

Think about the last time you read a really good novel. Remember how it felt to need to read on, to not want to put the book down because you just had to know what would happen next? That’s how a good language arts problem feels.

That’s how students should experience language arts, too—and they can.

By building problem-solving into language arts curriculum, we can turn ELA subjects like reading, writing, speaking, interpretation—even grammar—into compelling problems that demand solutions.

Imagine how those fourth-graders must have felt when real researchers approached them and said, “We have these patients who really need to understand the surgeries they’re about to have, but the brochures we wrote are confusing. You’re really good at writing in a way that our patients can understand. Can you help?”

It’s hard to say no to a request like that.

That’s because the proposal doesn’t feel like an assignment—it feels like a mission. Students can clearly see the problem, they can see why they need to solve it, and there isn’t already an obvious solution. Moreover, by solving the problem, students are creating a piece of writing that people actually need. In other words, with problem-solving, students aren’t practicing reading and writing skills for the sake of practice—they’re using reading and writing skills to make something that needs to exist.

Every lesson students encounter in language arts should feel like this. The challenge is to engineer a curriculum that has problem-solving built in at every turn. This is no small task, especially when you consider the breadth of language arts education. How do you build problems that make students need to learn grammar? To master academic writing? To read nonfiction? How do you get students to really, genuinely need to think critically about information they encounter outside of school? In other words:

How do you create truly compelling problems that help students develop skills across the broad spectrum of language arts?

This is a question we’ve been grappling with as we build a language arts curriculum at AoPS. There is no formula for a really great language arts problem. (And, really, part of the fun of problem-solving is figuring out lots of creative approaches—even when the problem you’re trying to solve is how to make a good problem.) But, by working closely with students and teachers, collaborating with our math colleagues, and looking to models like the hospital problem, we have developed a few big ideas that are guiding the curriculum we’re building.

These ideas are the foundation of our Beast Academy Language Arts books, and we think they can help anyone who is interested in engineering good language arts problems for students.  

1. Make it a problem, not a prompt

A prompt is an assignment: Create an informational brochure about a medical topic. Research a sea animal and write an essay that teaches readers about your animal. Write a story about a time you stood up for an idea. A student’s motivation to respond to a prompt comes mainly from outside the prompt itself. You respond to a prompt because it’s required—it’s an assignment. Some prompts are interesting or fun, and many younger students are happy to complete assignments because they want to be good students. That’s great, but it’s incidental to the prompt itself: a prompt starts from the assumption that students are going to do the assignment—it doesn’t do the work of getting students to the table.

A problem, on the other hand, starts from motivation. When you’re designing a problem, the first question you have to ask—and keep asking—is, “What makes a student want to do this?”

There are many ways to create motivation. Motivation could come from the intriguing nature of the problem itself, as with a good word puzzle or a really provocative question. Or, motivation could come from a well-crafted scenario—a writing project that’s built like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, or a grammar lesson framed as an escape room. If you’re working directly with students, you can create motivation by letting your students choose their own problems to solve, as in this compelling case study where 7th-graders took on child labor in their community and developed a range of skills—nonfiction reading, online research, analyzing and synthesizing multiple sources, public speaking, academic writing, and more—in the service of solving a problem they really cared about.

In short, creating motivation means never assuming that students will want to do something just because it’s an assignment. Good language arts problems come from a process of recognizing and rooting out this assumption at every turn.

2. Let reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary work together.

We often think of language arts as a set of subjects, each with its own chunk of class time. In an elementary classroom, students might spend a chunk of time reading independently, another chunk doing online research for a writing project, another chunk reading nonfiction, and another chunk listening to their teacher read an authentic text like a novel or a collection of stories. Often, these separate chunks of time are devoted to separate projects: we’re researching and writing about sea animals, and then we’re reading fables; we’re learning how to read subtitles in an article about weather, and then we’re writing personal narratives. This variety can be a good thing—if you’re not jazzed about weather, at least that’s only one part of what you’re doing that day. But variety can also erase opportunities to create motivation.

Take the student who’s not interested in weather. She might be deeply invested in the other chunks of the day, but there’s little to motivate her to engage with the weather article, so she’s less likely to connect with the lesson about subtitles. What if, instead of treating it as its own chunk, we embedded the weather article in a larger problem that integrated all of the language arts chunks for that day?

Here’s how a problem like that might look in a classroom. Imagine that this is a block of about two hours in a third-grade classroom, with students transitioning between independent work, group work, and class discussion as they move through the problem. The block begins with an independent-reading warm-up, and the problem is introduced in step two:

• Independent reading (15 minutes): In this unit, we’re learning about mythology. Find a reading spot in the classroom, and continue reading the book you have chosen from our mythology and ancient history library.
• Class read-aloud (10 minutes): Gather on the rug to hear the next installment of our adventure story. Today, we find out that Zeus has gone undercover. We need to find him before he hurts someone! He’s hiding out somewhere in North America, but there’s one way to figure out where he is: as the god of lightning, he can’t help but attract unusual weather wherever he goes. Find the weird weather, and you’ll find Zeus.
• Nonfiction text practice (15 minutes): Here are two texts. One is a page from a reference book describing typical weather patterns in North America; the other is a page from a website that shows the weather in North America last week. Go back to your desk, and work with your group to compare both texts to find out where Zeus is hiding. One thing before you go: we need to work quickly to find Zeus before someone gets hurt—here’s how you can use subtitles to efficiently navigate these two texts. Okay, go!
• Share and check (10 minutes): Time’s up! Who figured out where Zeus is hiding? Which group wants to share where you think he is and explain how you figured it out?
• Writing (20 minutes): Now, you’ll work independently. Write a dispatch that will be read on the news in the area where Zeus is hiding. It’s really important to be clear in your dispatch—you’ve got to convince the people who hear it that Zeus is definitely in their region and urge them to get out, fast. If they don’t understand you or if they think you’re wrong, they might not leave, and that could be dangerous for them. Make it really clear in your first sentence that Zeus is in their region, and then give a couple more sentences to show them how you used weather patterns in the two texts you examined to figure this out. One tip: remember how we learned yesterday that “because” and “so” can help us join clauses in a sentence? Those words might be helpful tools for you. Okay, go!
• Share and check (10 minutes): Who wants to volunteer to share what they wrote? Class, imagine if you were the people this student is trying to warn. What in their dispatch would convince you that you need to heed their warning?
• Class read-aloud (15 minutes): Nice work! Come back to the rug and we’ll continue reading our class book, D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths . Today we’re reading about Odin. As we read, let’s think about how Odin compares to Zeus.

When it’s integrated into a larger problem-solving activity like this, the weather text feels a lot more relevant. The problem— We need to find Zeus before someone gets hurt! —provides motivation for deciphering the weather article, and the nonfiction text feature we set out to teach (subtitles) becomes a helpful and necessary tool for solving the problem. The problem also motivates the day’s writing and grammar practice, and the whole lesson is bookended by readings that take students deeper into the world where the problem is rooted.

Put more broadly, integrating multiple language arts skills into a single problem creates motivation: it gives students a reason to need to learn each skill. We need subtitles to find Zeus quickly; we need conjunctions (“because” and “so”) to make our warning clear for the people who are in danger; we need to cite evidence to convince those people to get out of Zeus’s way. Practicing any one of these skills by itself can feel boring and unmoored from how language actually works; practicing all of them together in the context of an engaging problem makes each skill feel relevant and important.

3. Think big.

A lot goes into building a lesson like the Zeus problem. Beyond inventing the problem itself, you have to gather just the right texts for each stage of the problem. Some of those texts need to be authentic literature—for example, the independent reading at the very beginning, and the class reading at the end. You’ll also need two nonfiction texts about weather that will line up in a way that suggests where Zeus is hiding. And those two texts need to lend themselves to teaching subtitles. And they should be engaging. And one should be an online source while the other is a print source. Actually, there’s a good chance you’ll need to write those texts yourself. On top of all this, students need to have been practicing persuasive writing just before you get to this lesson, and they need to have just learned “because” and “so” so that they can apply those skills when they write their dispatches. Oh, you’ll also need to write a story that sets up the whole Zeus-is-hiding-quick-let’s-find-him scenario.

All of this may sound daunting. If you’re knee-deep in teaching your own classroom, pulling off a problem like this might actually be impossible. Building problems that knit together multiple language arts skills in engaging and meaningful ways is like assembling a ten-thousand-piece puzzle: you really need to see the whole picture before you can start putting the individual pieces together. But, with time, resources, expertise, and careful big-picture planning, a team of curriculum developers can build not just one lesson like this but entire grade levels of lessons that have problem solving built-in.

That’s exactly what AoPS’s language arts team is doing right now, as we’re creating our Beast Academy Language Arts curriculum. We are teachers, writers, and problem solvers ourselves, and—just as AoPS has done for math—we are creating the curriculum we wish we’d had when we were in school. We’ve already launched a pilot of our third-grade Beast Academy Language Arts curriculum at AoPS Academy , and we’re hard at work refining this pilot and developing our third-grade guide and practice books (including some new teachers who will be joining the faculty at Beast Academy—that’s Professor Isabella Bird, Beast Academy’s resident archaeologist and librarian, at the top of this article).

Building this curriculum is our own, rather massive language arts problem. Like any good language arts problem, it doesn’t have an obvious solution, so it will take some time for us to produce our books. But, when we do, we are confident that we are making something that really needs to exist.

Problem-solving might not be the first thing you think of when you hear “language arts,” but taking a problem-solving approach to reading and writing can be a powerful way to motivate students to want to learn.

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7 Thinking, Language, and Problem Solving

What is the best way to solve a problem? How does a person who has never seen or touched snow in real life develop an understanding of the concept of snow? How do young children acquire the ability to learn language with no formal instruction? Psychologists who study thinking explore questions like these and are called cognitive psychologists.

In other chapters, we discussed the cognitive processes of perception, learning, and memory. In this chapter, we will focus on high-level cognitive processes. As a part of this discussion, we will consider thinking and briefly explore the development and use of language. We will also discuss problem solving and creativity. After finishing this chapter, you will have a greater appreciation of the higher-level cognitive processes that contribute to our distinctiveness as a species.

Table of Contents

7.1 What is Cognition? 7.2 Language 7.3 Problem Solving

7.1 What is Cognition?

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe cognition
• Distinguish concepts and prototypes
• Explain the difference between natural and artificial concepts
• Describe how schemata are organized and constructed

Imagine all of your thoughts as if they were physical entities, swirling rapidly inside your mind. How is it possible that the brain is able to move from one thought to the next in an organized, orderly fashion? The brain is endlessly perceiving, processing, planning, organizing, and remembering—it is always active. Yet, you don’t notice most of your brain’s activity as you move throughout your daily routine. This is only one facet of the complex processes involved in cognition . Simply put,  cognition  is thinking, and it encompasses the processes associated with perception, knowledge, problem solving, judgment, language, and memory. Scientists who study cognition are searching for ways to understand how we integrate, organize, and utilize our conscious cognitive experiences without being aware of all of the unconscious work that our brains are doing (for example, Kahneman, 2011).

Upon waking each morning, you begin thinking—contemplating the tasks that you must complete that day. In what order should you run your errands? Should you go to the bank, the cleaners, or the grocery store first? Can you get these things done before you head to class or will they need to wait until school is done? These thoughts are one example of cognition at work. Exceptionally complex, cognition is an essential feature of human consciousness, yet not all aspects of cognition are consciously experienced.

Cognitive psychology  is the field of psychology dedicated to examining how people think. It attempts to explain how and why we think the way we do by studying the interactions among human thinking, emotion, creativity, language, and problem solving, in addition to other cognitive processes. Cognitive psychologists strive to determine and measure different types of intelligence, why some people are better at problem solving than others, and how emotional intelligence affects success in the workplace, among countless other topics. They also sometimes focus on how we organize thoughts and information gathered from our environments into meaningful categories of thought, which will be discussed later.

Concepts and Prototypes

The human nervous system is capable of handling endless streams of information. The senses serve as the interface between the mind and the external environment, receiving stimuli and translating it into nervous impulses that are transmitted to the brain. The brain then processes this information and uses the relevant pieces to create thoughts, which can then be expressed through language or stored in memory for future use. To make this process more complex, the brain does not gather information from external environments only. When thoughts are formed, the mind synthesizes information from emotions and memories ( Figure 7.2 ). Emotion and memory are powerful influences on both our thoughts and behaviors.

Concepts are informed by our semantic memory (you will learn more about semantic memory in a later chapter) and are present in every aspect of our lives; however, one of the easiest places to notice concepts is inside a classroom, where they are discussed explicitly. When you study United States history, for example, you learn about more than just individual events that have happened in America’s past. You absorb a large quantity of information by listening to and participating in discussions, examining maps, and reading first-hand accounts of people’s lives. Your brain analyzes these details and develops an overall understanding of American history. In the process, your brain gathers details that inform and refine your understanding of related concepts like democracy, power, and freedom.

Concepts can be complex and abstract, like justice, or more concrete, like types of birds. Some concepts, like tolerance, are agreed upon by many people, because they have been used in various ways over many years. Other concepts, like the characteristics of your ideal friend or your family’s birthday traditions, are personal and individualized. In this way, concepts touch every aspect of our lives, from our many daily routines to the guiding principles behind the way governments function.

Another technique used by your brain to organize information is the identification of prototypes for the concepts you have developed. A  prototype  is the best example or representation of a concept. For example, what comes to your mind when you think of a dog? Most likely your early experiences with dogs will shape what you imagine. If your first pet was a Golden Retriever, there is a good chance that this would be your prototype for the category of dogs.

Natural and Artificial Concepts

In psychology, concepts can be divided into two categories, natural and artificial. Natural concepts  are created “naturally” through your experiences and can be developed from either direct or indirect experiences. For example, if you live in Essex Junction, Vermont, you have probably had a lot of direct experience with snow. You’ve watched it fall from the sky, you’ve seen lightly falling snow that barely covers the windshield of your car, and you’ve shoveled out 18 inches of fluffy white snow as you’ve thought, “This is perfect for skiing.” You’ve thrown snowballs at your best friend and gone sledding down the steepest hill in town. In short, you know snow. You know what it looks like, smells like, tastes like, and feels like. If, however, you’ve lived your whole life on the island of Saint Vincent in the Caribbean, you may never have actually seen snow, much less tasted, smelled, or touched it. You know snow from the indirect experience of seeing pictures of falling snow—or from watching films that feature snow as part of the setting. Either way, snow is a natural concept because you can construct an understanding of it through direct observations, experiences with snow, or indirect knowledge (such as from films or books) ( Figure 7.3 ).

An  artificial concept , on the other hand, is a concept that is defined by a specific set of characteristics. Various properties of geometric shapes, like squares and triangles, serve as useful examples of artificial concepts. A triangle always has three angles and three sides. A square always has four equal sides and four right angles. Mathematical formulas, like the equation for area (length × width) are artificial concepts defined by specific sets of characteristics that are always the same. Artificial concepts can enhance the understanding of a topic by building on one another. For example, before learning the concept of “area of a square” (and the formula to find it), you must understand what a square is. Once the concept of “area of a square” is understood, an understanding of area for other geometric shapes can be built upon the original understanding of area. The use of artificial concepts to define an idea is crucial to communicating with others and engaging in complex thought. According to Goldstone and Kersten (2003), concepts act as building blocks and can be connected in countless combinations to create complex thoughts.

A  schema (plural: schemata)  is a mental construct consisting of a cluster or collection of related concepts (Bartlett, 1932). There are many different types of schemata, and they all have one thing in common: schemata are a method of organizing information that allows the brain to work more efficiently. When a schema is activated, the brain makes immediate assumptions about the person or object being observed.

There are several types of schemata. A  role schema  makes assumptions about how individuals in certain roles will behave (Callero, 1994). For example, imagine you meet someone who introduces himself as a firefighter. When this happens, your brain automatically activates the “firefighter schema” and begins making assumptions that this person is brave, selfless, and community-oriented. Despite not knowing this person, already you have unknowingly made judgments about him. Schemata also help you fill in gaps in the information you receive from the world around you. While schemata allow for more efficient information processing, there can be problems with schemata, regardless of whether they are accurate: Perhaps this particular firefighter is not brave, he just works as a firefighter to pay the bills while studying to become a children’s librarian.

An  event schema , also known as a  cognitive script , is a set of behaviors that can feel like a routine. Think about what you do when you walk into an elevator ( Figure 7.4 ). First, the doors open and you wait to let exiting passengers leave the elevator car. Then, you step into the elevator and turn around to face the doors, looking for the correct button to push. You never face the back of the elevator, do you? And when you’re riding in a crowded elevator and you can’t face the front, it feels uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Interestingly, event schemata can vary widely among different cultures and countries. For example, while it is quite common for people to greet one another with a handshake in the United States, in Tibet, you greet someone by sticking your tongue out at them, and in Belize, you bump fists (Cairns Regional Council, n.d.)

Because event schemata are automatic, they can be difficult to change. Imagine that you are driving home from work or school. This event schema involves getting in the car, shutting the door, and buckling your seatbelt before putting the key in the ignition. You might perform this script two or three times each day. As you drive home, you hear your phone’s ring tone. Typically, the event schema that occurs when you hear your phone ringing involves locating the phone and answering it or responding to your latest text message. So without thinking, you reach for your phone, which could be in your pocket, in your bag, or on the passenger seat of the car. This powerful event schema is informed by your pattern of behavior and the pleasurable stimulation that a phone call or text message gives your brain. Because it is a schema, it is extremely challenging for us to stop reaching for the phone, even though we know that we endanger our own lives and the lives of others while we do it (Neyfakh, 2013) ( Figure 7.5 ).

Remember the elevator? It feels almost impossible to walk in and  not  face the door. Our powerful event schema dictates our behavior in the elevator, and it is no different with our phones. Current research suggests that it is the habit, or event schema, of checking our phones in many different situations that makes refraining from checking them while driving especially difficult (Bayer & Campbell, 2012). Because texting and driving has become a dangerous epidemic in recent years, psychologists are looking at ways to help people interrupt the “phone schema” while driving. Event schemata like these are the reason why many habits are difficult to break once they have been acquired. As we continue to examine thinking, keep in mind how powerful the forces of concepts and schemata are to our understanding of the world.

7.2 LAnguage

• Define language and demonstrate familiarity with the components of language
• Understand the development of language
• Explain the relationship between language and thinking

Language  is a communication system that involves using words and systematic rules to organize those words to transmit information from one individual to another. While language is a form of communication, not all communication is language. Many species communicate with one another through their postures, movements, odors, or vocalizations. This communication is crucial for species that need to interact and develop social relationships with their conspecifics. However, many people have asserted that it is language that makes humans unique among all of the animal species (Corballis & Suddendorf, 2007; Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003). This section will focus on what distinguishes language as a special form of communication, how the use of language develops, and how language affects the way we think.

Components of Language

Language, be it spoken, signed, or written, has specific components: a lexicon and lexicon grammar .  Lexicon  refers to the words of a given language. Thus, lexicon is a language’s vocabulary.  Grammar  refers to the set of rules that are used to convey meaning through the use of the lexicon (Fernández & Cairns, 2011). For instance, English grammar dictates that most verbs receive an “-ed” at the end to indicate past tense.

Words are formed by combining the various phonemes that make up the language. A  phoneme  (e.g., the sounds “ah” vs. “eh”) is a basic sound unit of a given language, and different languages have different sets of phonemes. For example, the phoneme English speakers associate with the letter ‘L’ is not used in the Japanese language. Similarly, many Southern African languages use phonemes, sometimes referred to as ‘click consonants’ that are not used in English.

Phonemes are combined to form  morphemes , which are the smallest units of language that convey some type of meaning. Some words are morphemes, but not all morphemes are words.  For example, “-ed” is a morpheme used to convey the past-tense in English, but it is not a word. The word “review” contains two morphemes: re- (meaning to do something again) and view (to see). Finally, some words like “I” and “a” are both a phonemes and morphemes.

We use semantics and syntax to construct language. Semantics and syntax are part of a language’s grammar.  Semantics  refers to the process by which we derive meaning from morphemes and words by connecting those morphemes and words to stored concepts.  Syntax  refers to the way words are organized into sentences (Chomsky, 1965; Fernández & Cairns, 2011). For example, you would never say “the dog walked I today” to let someone know you took your dog for a walk–that sentence does not obey English syntax and is therefore difficult to make sense of.

We apply the rules of grammar to organize the lexicon in novel and creative ways, which allow us to communicate information about both concrete and abstract concepts. We can talk about our immediate and observable surroundings as well as the surface of unseen planets. We can share our innermost thoughts, our plans for the future, and debate the value of a college education. We can provide detailed instructions for cooking a meal, fixing a car, or building a fire. Through our use of words and language, we are able to form, organize, and express ideas, schema, and artificial concepts.

Language Development

Given the remarkable complexity of a language, one might expect that mastering a language would be an especially arduous task; indeed, for those of us trying to learn a second language as adults, this might seem to be true. However, young children master language very quickly with relative ease. B. F.  Skinner  (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement. Noam  Chomsky  (1965) criticized this behaviorist approach, asserting instead that the mechanisms underlying language acquisition are biologically determined. The use of language develops in the absence of formal instruction and appears to follow a very similar pattern in children from vastly different cultures and backgrounds. It would seem, therefore, that we are born with a biological predisposition to acquire a language (Chomsky, 1965; Fernández & Cairns, 2011). Moreover, it appears that there is a critical period for language acquisition, such that this proficiency at acquiring language is maximal early in life; generally, as people age, the ease with which they acquire and master new languages diminishes (Johnson & Newport, 1989; Lenneberg, 1967; Singleton, 1995).

Children begin to learn about language from a very early age ( Table 7.1 ). In fact, it appears that this is occurring even before we are born. Newborns show preference for their mother’s voice and appear to be able to discriminate between the language spoken by their mother and other languages. Babies are also attuned to the languages being used around them and show preferences for videos of faces that are moving in synchrony with the audio of spoken language versus videos that do not synchronize with the audio (Blossom & Morgan, 2006; Pickens, 1994; Spelke & Cortelyou, 1981).

DIG DEEPER: The Case of Genie

In the fall of 1970, a social worker in the Los Angeles area found a 13-year-old girl who was being raised in extremely neglectful and abusive conditions. The girl, who came to be known as Genie, had lived most of her life tied to a potty chair or confined to a crib in a small room that was kept closed with the curtains drawn. For a little over a decade, Genie had virtually no social interaction and no access to the outside world. As a result of these conditions, Genie was unable to stand up, chew solid food, or speak (Fromkin, Krashen, Curtiss, Rigler, & Rigler, 1974; Rymer, 1993). The police took Genie into protective custody.

Genie’s abilities improved dramatically following her removal from her abusive environment, and early on, it appeared she was acquiring language—much later than would be predicted by critical period hypotheses that had been posited at the time (Fromkin et al., 1974). Genie managed to amass an impressive vocabulary in a relatively short amount of time. However, she never developed a mastery of the grammatical aspects of language (Curtiss, 1981). Perhaps being deprived of the opportunity to learn language during a critical period impeded Genie’s ability to fully acquire and use language.

You may recall that each language has its own set of phonemes that are used to generate morphemes, words, and so on. Babies can discriminate among the sounds that make up a language (for example, they can tell the difference between the “s” in vision and the “ss” in fission); early on, they can differentiate between the sounds of all human languages, even those that do not occur in the languages that are used in their environments. However, by the time that they are about 1 year old, they can only discriminate among those phonemes that are used in the language or languages in their environments (Jensen, 2011; Werker & Lalonde, 1988; Werker & Tees, 1984).

After the first few months of life, babies enter what is known as the babbling stage, during which time they tend to produce single syllables that are repeated over and over. As time passes, more variations appear in the syllables that they produce. During this time, it is unlikely that the babies are trying to communicate; they are just as likely to babble when they are alone as when they are with their caregivers (Fernández & Cairns, 2011). Interestingly, babies who are raised in environments in which sign language is used will also begin to show babbling in the gestures of their hands during this stage (Petitto, Holowka, Sergio, Levy, & Ostry, 2004).

Generally, a child’s first word is uttered sometime between the ages of 1 year to 18 months, and for the next few months, the child will remain in the “one word” stage of language development. During this time, children know a number of words, but they only produce one-word utterances. The child’s early vocabulary is limited to familiar objects or events, often nouns. Although children in this stage only make one-word utterances, these words often carry larger meaning (Fernández & Cairns, 2011). So, for example, a child saying “cookie” could be identifying a cookie or asking for a cookie.

As a child’s lexicon grows, she begins to utter simple sentences and to acquire new vocabulary at a very rapid pace. In addition, children begin to demonstrate a clear understanding of the specific rules that apply to their language(s). Even the mistakes that children sometimes make provide evidence of just how much they understand about those rules. This is sometimes seen in the form of  overgeneralization . In this context, overgeneralization refers to an extension of a language rule to an exception to the rule. For example, in English, it is usually the case that an “s” is added to the end of a word to indicate plurality. For example, we speak of one dog versus two dogs. Young children will overgeneralize this rule to cases that are exceptions to the “add an s to the end of the word” rule and say things like “those two gooses” or “three mouses.” Clearly, the rules of the language are understood, even if the exceptions to the rules are still being learned (Moskowitz, 1978).

Language and Thought

When we speak one language, we agree that words are representations of ideas, people, places, and events. The given language that children learn is connected to their culture and surroundings. But can words themselves shape the way we think about things? Psychologists have long investigated the question of whether language shapes thoughts and actions, or whether our thoughts and beliefs shape our language. Two researchers, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, began this investigation in the 1940s. They wanted to understand how the language habits of a community encourage members of that community to interpret language in a particular manner (Sapir, 1941/1964). Sapir and Whorf proposed that language determines thought. For example, in some languages there are many different words for love. However, in English we use the word love for all types of love. Does this affect how we think about love depending on the language that we speak (Whorf, 1956)? Researchers have since identified this view as too absolute, pointing out a lack of empiricism behind what Sapir and Whorf proposed (Abler, 2013; Boroditsky, 2011; van Troyer, 1994). Today, psychologists continue to study and debate the relationship between language and thought.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? The Meaning of Language

Think about what you know of other languages; perhaps you even speak multiple languages. Imagine for a moment that your closest friend fluently speaks more than one language. Do you think that friend thinks differently, depending on which language is being spoken? You may know a few words that are not translatable from their original language into English. For example, the Portuguese word  saudade  originated during the 15th century, when Portuguese sailors left home to explore the seas and travel to Africa or Asia. Those left behind described the emptiness and fondness they felt as  saudade  ( Figure 7.6 ) .  The word came to express many meanings, including loss, nostalgia, yearning, warm memories, and hope. There is no single word in English that includes all of those emotions in a single description. Do words such as  saudade  indicate that different languages produce different patterns of thought in people? What do you think??

One group of researchers who wanted to investigate how language influences thought compared how English speakers and the Dani people of Papua New Guinea think and speak about color. The Dani have two words for color: one word for  light  and one word for  dark . In contrast, the English language has 11 color words. Researchers hypothesized that the number of color terms could limit the ways that the Dani people conceptualized color. However, the Dani were able to distinguish colors with the same ability as English speakers, despite having fewer words at their disposal (Berlin & Kay, 1969). A recent review of research aimed at determining how language might affect something like color perception suggests that language can influence perceptual phenomena, especially in the left hemisphere of the brain. You may recall from earlier chapters that the left hemisphere is associated with language for most people. However, the right (less linguistic hemisphere) of the brain is less affected by linguistic influences on perception (Regier & Kay, 2009)

7.3 Problem Solving

• Describe problem solving strategies
• Define algorithm and heuristic
• Explain some common roadblocks to effective problem solving and decision making

People face problems every day—usually, multiple problems throughout the day. Sometimes these problems are straightforward: To double a recipe for pizza dough, for example, all that is required is that each ingredient in the recipe be doubled. Sometimes, however, the problems we encounter are more complex. For example, say you have a work deadline, and you must mail a printed copy of a report to your supervisor by the end of the business day. The report is time-sensitive and must be sent overnight. You finished the report last night, but your printer will not work today. What should you do? First, you need to identify the problem and then apply a strategy for solving the problem.

Problem-Solving Strategies

When you are presented with a problem—whether it is a complex mathematical problem or a broken printer, how do you solve it? Before finding a solution to the problem, the problem must first be clearly identified. After that, one of many problem solving strategies can be applied, hopefully resulting in a solution.

A  problem-solving strategy  is a plan of action used to find a solution. Different strategies have different action plans associated with them ( Table 7.2 ). For example, a well-known strategy is  trial and error . The old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” describes trial and error. In terms of your broken printer, you could try checking the ink levels, and if that doesn’t work, you could check to make sure the paper tray isn’t jammed. Or maybe the printer isn’t actually connected to your laptop. When using trial and error, you would continue to try different solutions until you solved your problem. Although trial and error is not typically one of the most time-efficient strategies, it is a commonly used one.

Another type of strategy is an algorithm. An  algorithm  is a problem-solving formula that provides you with step-by-step instructions used to achieve a desired outcome (Kahneman, 2011). You can think of an algorithm as a recipe with highly detailed instructions that produce the same result every time they are performed. Algorithms are used frequently in our everyday lives, especially in computer science. When you run a search on the Internet, search engines like Google use algorithms to decide which entries will appear first in your list of results. Facebook also uses algorithms to decide which posts to display on your newsfeed. Can you identify other situations in which algorithms are used?

A heuristic is another type of problem solving strategy. While an algorithm must be followed exactly to produce a correct result, a  heuristic  is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. A “rule of thumb” is an example of a heuristic. Such a rule saves the person time and energy when making a decision, but despite its time-saving characteristics, it is not always the best method for making a rational decision. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, but the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

• When one is faced with too much information
• When the time to make a decision is limited
• When the decision to be made is unimportant
• When there is access to very little information to use in making the decision
• When an appropriate heuristic happens to come to mind in the same moment

Working backwards  is a useful heuristic in which you begin solving the problem by focusing on the end result. Consider this example: You live in Washington, D.C. and have been invited to a wedding at 4 PM on Saturday in Philadelphia. Knowing that Interstate 95 tends to back up any day of the week, you need to plan your route and time your departure accordingly. If you want to be at the wedding service by 3:30 PM, and it takes 2.5 hours to get to Philadelphia without traffic, what time should you leave your house? You use the working backwards heuristic to plan the events of your day on a regular basis, probably without even thinking about it.

Another useful heuristic is the practice of accomplishing a large goal or task by breaking it into a series of smaller steps. Students often use this common method to complete a large research project or long essay for school. For example, students typically brainstorm, develop a thesis or main topic, research the chosen topic, organize their information into an outline, write a rough draft, revise and edit the rough draft, develop a final draft, organize the references list, and proofread their work before turning in the project. The large task becomes less overwhelming when it is broken down into a series of small steps.

EVERYDAY CONNECTION: Solving Puzzles

Problem-solving abilities can improve with practice. Many people challenge themselves every day with puzzles and other mental exercises to sharpen their problem-solving skills. Sudoku puzzles appear daily in most newspapers. Typically, a sudoku puzzle is a 9×9 grid. The simple sudoku below ( Figure 7.7 ) is a 4×4 grid. To solve the puzzle, fill in the empty boxes with a single digit: 1, 2, 3, or 4. Here are the rules: The numbers must total 10 in each bolded box, each row, and each column; however, each digit can only appear once in a bolded box, row, and column. Time yourself as you solve this puzzle and compare your time with a classmate.

Here is another popular type of puzzle ( Figure 7.8 ) that challenges your spatial reasoning skills. Connect all nine dots with four connecting straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper:

Not all problems are successfully solved, however. What challenges stop us from successfully solving a problem? Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Imagine a person in a room that has four doorways. One doorway that has always been open in the past is now locked. The person, accustomed to exiting the room by that particular doorway, keeps trying to get out through the same doorway even though the other three doorways are open. The person is stuck—but she just needs to go to another doorway, instead of trying to get out through the locked doorway. A  mental set  is where you persist in approaching a problem in a way that has worked in the past but is clearly not working now.

Functional fixedness  is a type of mental set where you cannot perceive an object being used for something other than what it was designed for. Duncker (1945) conducted foundational research on functional fixedness. He created an experiment in which participants were given a candle, a book of matches, and a box of thumbtacks. They were instructed to use those items to attach the candle to the wall so that it did not drip wax onto the table below. Participants had to use functional fixedness to solve the problem ( Figure 7.10 ). During the  Apollo 13  mission to the moon, NASA engineers at Mission Control had to overcome functional fixedness to save the lives of the astronauts aboard the spacecraft. An explosion in a module of the spacecraft damaged multiple systems. The astronauts were in danger of being poisoned by rising levels of carbon dioxide because of problems with the carbon dioxide filters. The engineers found a way for the astronauts to use spare plastic bags, tape, and air hoses to create a makeshift air filter, which saved the lives of the astronauts.

Researchers have investigated whether functional fixedness is affected by culture. In one experiment, individuals from the Shuar group in Ecuador were asked to use an object for a purpose other than that for which the object was originally intended. For example, the participants were told a story about a bear and a rabbit that were separated by a river and asked to select among various objects, including a spoon, a cup, erasers, and so on, to help the animals. The spoon was the only object long enough to span the imaginary river, but if the spoon was presented in a way that reflected its normal usage, it took participants longer to choose the spoon to solve the problem. (German & Barrett, 2005). The researchers wanted to know if exposure to highly specialized tools, as occurs with individuals in industrialized nations, affects their ability to transcend functional fixedness. It was determined that functional fixedness is experienced in both industrialized and nonindustrialized cultures (German & Barrett, 2005).

In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. Sometimes, however, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the $2,000 home? Why would the realtor show you the run-down houses and the nice house? The realtor may be challenging your anchoring bias. An  anchoring bias  occurs when you focus on one piece of information when making a decision or solving a problem. In this case, you’re so focused on the amount of money you are willing to spend that you may not recognize what kinds of houses are available at that price point.

The  confirmation bias  is the tendency to focus on information that confirms your existing beliefs. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis.  Hindsight bias  leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did.  Representative bias  describes a faulty way of thinking, in which you unintentionally stereotype someone or something; for example, you may assume that your professors spend their free time reading books and engaging in intellectual conversation, because the idea of them spending their time playing volleyball or visiting an amusement park does not fit in with your stereotypes of professors.

Finally, the  availability heuristic  is a heuristic in which you make a decision based on an example, information, or recent experience that is that readily available to you, even though it may not be the best example to inform your decision .  Biases tend to “preserve that which is already established—to maintain our preexisting knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and hypotheses” (Aronson, 1995; Kahneman, 2011). These biases are summarized in  Table 7.3 .

Were you able to determine how many marbles are needed to balance the scales in  Figure 7.9 ? You need nine. Were you able to solve the problems in  Figure 7.7  and  Figure 7.8 ? Here are the answers ( Figure 7.11 ).

Chapter Summary

7.1 what is cognition.

In this section, you were introduced to cognitive psychology, which is the study of cognition, or the brain’s ability to think, perceive, plan, analyze, and remember. Concepts and their corresponding prototypes help us quickly organize our thinking by creating categories into which we can sort new information. We also develop schemata, which are clusters of related concepts. Some schemata involve routines of thought and behavior, and these help us function properly in various situations without having to “think twice” about them. Schemata show up in social situations and routines of daily behavior.

7.2 Language

Language is a communication system that has both a lexicon and a system of grammar. Language acquisition occurs naturally and effortlessly during the early stages of life, and this acquisition occurs in a predictable sequence for individuals around the world. Language has a strong influence on thought, and the concept of how language may influence cognition remains an area of study and debate in psychology.

Many different strategies exist for solving problems. Typical strategies include trial and error, applying algorithms, and using heuristics. To solve a large, complicated problem, it often helps to break the problem into smaller steps that can be accomplished individually, leading to an overall solution. Roadblocks to problem solving include a mental set, functional fixedness, and various biases that can cloud decision making skills.

thinking; or, all of the processes associated with perception, knowledge, problem solving, judgement, language, and memory.

A modern school of psychological thought that empirically examines mental processes such as perception, memory, language, and judgement.

a category or grouping of linguistic information, images, ideas or memories, such as life experiences.

knowledge about words, concepts, and language-based knowledge and facts

the best example or representation of a concept, specific to an individual

concepts developed through direct or indirect experiences with the world

a concept defined by a specific set of characteristics.

a mental construct consisting of a cluster of related concepts

a set of ideas relating to how individuals in certain roles will behave.

also known as a cognitive script; a set of behaviors associated with a particular place or event

also known as an event schema; a set of behaviors associated with a particular place or event

a communication system that involves using words and systematic rules to organize those words to transmit information from one individual to another.

the words of a language

the rules of a language used to convey meaning through the use of the lexicon

the basic sounds that make up a language

the smallest unit of language that conveys meaning

the process by which we derive meaning from morphemes and words

the rules guiding the organization of morphemes into words and words into sentences.

Psychology 2e Copyright © 2020 by Openstax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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44 Language and Problem Solving

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define language and demonstrate familiarity with the components of language
• Understand how the use of language develops
• Explain the relationship between language and thinking
• Describe problem solving strategies
• Define algorithm and heuristic
• Explain some common roadblocks to effective problem solving

Language  is a communication system that involves using words and systematic rules to organize those words to transmit information from one individual to another. While language is a form of communication, not all communication is language. Many species communicate with one another through their postures, movements, odors, or vocalizations. This communication is crucial for species that need to interact and develop social relationships with their conspecifics. However, many people have asserted that it is language that makes humans unique among all of the animal species (Corballis & Suddendorf, 2007; Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003). This section will focus on what distinguishes language as a special form of communication, how the use of language develops, and how language affects the way we think.

COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE

Language, be it spoken, signed, or written, has specific components: a lexicon and grammar.  Lexicon  refers to the words of a given language. Thus, lexicon is a language’s vocabulary.  Grammar  refers to the set of rules that are used to convey meaning through the use of the lexicon (Fernández & Cairns, 2011). For instance, English grammar dictates that most verbs receive an “-ed” at the end to indicate past tense.

Words are formed by combining the various phonemes that make up the language. A  phoneme  (e.g., the sounds “ah” vs. “eh”) is a basic sound unit of a given language, and different languages have different sets of phonemes. Phonemes are combined to form  morphemes , which are the smallest units of language that convey some type of meaning (e.g., “I” is both a phoneme and a morpheme). We use semantics and syntax to construct language. Semantics and syntax are part of a language’s grammar.  Semantics  refers to the process by which we derive meaning from morphemes and words.  Syntax  refers to the way words are organized into sentences (Chomsky, 1965; Fernández & Cairns, 2011).

We apply the rules of grammar to organize the lexicon in novel and creative ways, which allow us to communicate information about both concrete and abstract concepts. We can talk about our immediate and observable surroundings as well as the surface of unseen planets. We can share our innermost thoughts, our plans for the future, and debate the value of a college education. We can provide detailed instructions for cooking a meal, fixing a car, or building a fire. The flexibility that language provides to relay vastly different types of information is a property that makes language so distinct as a mode of communication among humans.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Given the remarkable complexity of a language, one might expect that mastering a language would be an especially arduous task; indeed, for those of us trying to learn a second language as adults, this might seem to be true. However, young children master language very quickly with relative ease. B. F.  Skinner  (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement. Noam  Chomsky  (1965) criticized this behaviorist approach, asserting instead that the mechanisms underlying language acquisition are biologically determined. The use of language develops in the absence of formal instruction and appears to follow a very similar pattern in children from vastly different cultures and backgrounds. It would seem, therefore, that we are born with a biological predisposition to acquire a language (Chomsky, 1965; Fernández & Cairns, 2011). Moreover, it appears that there is a critical period for language acquisition, such that this proficiency at acquiring language is maximal early in life; generally, as people age, the ease with which they acquire and master new languages diminishes (Johnson & Newport, 1989; Lenneberg, 1967; Singleton, 1995).

Children begin to learn about language from a very early age ( Table ). In fact, it appears that this is occurring even before we are born. Newborns show preference for their mother’s voice and appear to be able to discriminate between the language spoken by their mother and other languages. Babies are also attuned to the languages being used around them and show preferences for videos of faces that are moving in synchrony with the audio of spoken language versus videos that do not synchronize with the audio (Blossom & Morgan, 2006; Pickens, 1994; Spelke & Cortelyou, 1981).

In the fall of 1970, a social worker in the Los Angeles area found a 13-year-old girl who was being raised in extremely neglectful and abusive conditions. The girl, who came to be known as Genie, had lived most of her life tied to a potty chair or confined to a crib in a small room that was kept closed with the curtains drawn. For a little over a decade, Genie had virtually no social interaction and no access to the outside world. As a result of these conditions, Genie was unable to stand up, chew solid food, or speak (Fromkin, Krashen, Curtiss, Rigler, & Rigler, 1974; Rymer, 1993). The police took Genie into protective custody.

Genie’s abilities improved dramatically following her removal from her abusive environment, and early on, it appeared she was acquiring language—much later than would be predicted by critical period hypotheses that had been posited at the time (Fromkin et al., 1974). Genie managed to amass an impressive vocabulary in a relatively short amount of time. However, she never developed a mastery of the grammatical aspects of language (Curtiss, 1981). Perhaps being deprived of the opportunity to learn language during a critical period impeded Genie’s ability to fully acquire and use language.

You may recall that each language has its own set of phonemes that are used to generate morphemes, words, and so on. Babies can discriminate among the sounds that make up a language (for example, they can tell the difference between the “s” in vision and the “ss” in fission); early on, they can differentiate between the sounds of all human languages, even those that do not occur in the languages that are used in their environments. However, by the time that they are about 1 year old, they can only discriminate among those phonemes that are used in the language or languages in their environments (Jensen, 2011; Werker & Lalonde, 1988; Werker & Tees, 1984).

Visit this  website  to learn more about how babies lose the ability to discriminate among all possible human phonemes as they age.

After the first few months of life, babies enter what is known as the babbling stage, during which time they tend to produce single syllables that are repeated over and over. As time passes, more variations appear in the syllables that they produce. During this time, it is unlikely that the babies are trying to communicate; they are just as likely to babble when they are alone as when they are with their caregivers (Fernández & Cairns, 2011). Interestingly, babies who are raised in environments in which sign language is used will also begin to show babbling in the gestures of their hands during this stage (Petitto, Holowka, Sergio, Levy, & Ostry, 2004).

Generally, a child’s first word is uttered sometime between the ages of 1 year to 18 months, and for the next few months, the child will remain in the “one word” stage of language development. During this time, children know a number of words, but they only produce one-word utterances. The child’s early vocabulary is limited to familiar objects or events, often nouns. Although children in this stage only make one-word utterances, these words often carry larger meaning (Fernández & Cairns, 2011). So, for example, a child saying “cookie” could be identifying a cookie or asking for a cookie.

As a child’s lexicon grows, she begins to utter simple sentences and to acquire new vocabulary at a very rapid pace. In addition, children begin to demonstrate a clear understanding of the specific rules that apply to their language(s). Even the mistakes that children sometimes make provide evidence of just how much they understand about those rules. This is sometimes seen in the form of  overgeneralization . In this context, overgeneralization refers to an extension of a language rule to an exception to the rule. For example, in English, it is usually the case that an “s” is added to the end of a word to indicate plurality. For example, we speak of one dog versus two dogs. Young children will overgeneralize this rule to cases that are exceptions to the “add an s to the end of the word” rule and say things like “those two gooses” or “three mouses.” Clearly, the rules of the language are understood, even if the exceptions to the rules are still being learned (Moskowitz, 1978).

LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

When we speak one language, we agree that words are representations of ideas, people, places, and events. The given language that children learn is connected to their culture and surroundings. But can words themselves shape the way we think about things? Psychologists have long investigated the question of whether language shapes thoughts and actions, or whether our thoughts and beliefs shape our language. Two researchers, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, began this investigation in the 1940s. They wanted to understand how the language habits of a community encourage members of that community to interpret language in a particular manner (Sapir, 1941/1964). Sapir and Whorf proposed that language determines thought, suggesting, for example, that a person whose community language did not have past-tense verbs would be challenged to think about the past (Whorf, 1956). Researchers have since identified this view as too absolute, pointing out a lack of empiricism behind what Sapir and Whorf proposed (Abler, 2013; Boroditsky, 2011; van Troyer, 1994). Today, psychologists continue to study and debate the relationship between language and thought.

Think about what you know of other languages; perhaps you even speak multiple languages. Imagine for a moment that your closest friend fluently speaks more than one language. Do you think that friend thinks differently, depending on which language is being spoken? You may know a few words that are not translatable from their original language into English. For example, the Portuguese word  saudade  originated during the 15th century, when Portuguese sailors left home to explore the seas and travel to Africa or Asia. Those left behind described the emptiness and fondness they felt as  saudade  ( Figure ) .  The word came to express many meanings, including loss, nostalgia, yearning, warm memories, and hope. There is no single word in English that includes all of those emotions in a single description. Do words such as  saudade  indicate that different languages produce different patterns of thought in people? What do you think??

Language may indeed influence the way that we think, an idea known as linguistic determinism. One recent demonstration of this phenomenon involved differences in the way that English and Mandarin Chinese speakers talk and think about time. English speakers tend to talk about time using terms that describe changes along a horizontal dimension, for example, saying something like “I’m running behind schedule” or “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” While Mandarin Chinese speakers also describe time in horizontal terms, it is not uncommon to also use terms associated with a vertical arrangement. For example, the past might be described as being “up” and the future as being “down.” It turns out that these differences in language translate into differences in performance on cognitive tests designed to measure how quickly an individual can recognize temporal relationships. Specifically, when given a series of tasks with vertical priming, Mandarin Chinese speakers were faster at recognizing temporal relationships between months. Indeed, Boroditsky (2001) sees these results as suggesting that “habits in language encourage habits in thought” (p. 12).

One group of researchers who wanted to investigate how language influences thought compared how English speakers and the Dani people of Papua New Guinea think and speak about color. The Dani have two words for color: one word for  light  and one word for  dark . In contrast, the English language has 11 color words. Researchers hypothesized that the number of color terms could limit the ways that the Dani people conceptualized color. However, the Dani were able to distinguish colors with the same ability as English speakers, despite having fewer words at their disposal (Berlin & Kay, 1969). A recent review of research aimed at determining how language might affect something like color perception suggests that language can influence perceptual phenomena, especially in the left hemisphere of the brain. You may recall from earlier chapters that the left hemisphere is associated with language for most people. However, the right (less linguistic hemisphere) of the brain is less affected by linguistic influences on perception (Regier & Kay, 2009)

Language is a communication system that has both a lexicon and a system of grammar. Language acquisition occurs naturally and effortlessly during the early stages of life, and this acquisition occurs in a predictable sequence for individuals around the world. Language has a strong influence on thought, and the concept of how language may influence cognition remains an area of study and debate in psychology.

Review Questions

________ provides general principles for organizing words into meaningful sentences.

• Linguistic determinism

________ are the smallest unit of language that carry meaning.

The meaning of words and phrases is determined by applying the rules of ________.

• overgeneralization

________ is (are) the basic sound units of a spoken language.

Critical Thinking Questions

How do words not only represent our thoughts but also represent our values?

How could grammatical errors actually be indicative of language acquisition in children?

Personal Application Question

Can you think of examples of how language affects cognition?

Problem Solving

People face problems every day—usually, multiple problems throughout the day. Sometimes these problems are straightforward: To double a recipe for pizza dough, for example, all that is required is that each ingredient in the recipe be doubled. Sometimes, however, the problems we encounter are more complex. For example, say you have a work deadline, and you must mail a printed copy of a report to your supervisor by the end of the business day. The report is time-sensitive and must be sent overnight. You finished the report last night, but your printer will not work today. What should you do? First, you need to identify the problem and then apply a strategy for solving the problem.

PROBLEM-SOLVING STRATEGIES

When you are presented with a problem—whether it is a complex mathematical problem or a broken printer, how do you solve it? Before finding a solution to the problem, the problem must first be clearly identified. After that, one of many problem solving strategies can be applied, hopefully resulting in a solution.

A  problem-solving strategy  is a plan of action used to find a solution. Different strategies have different action plans associated with them ( Table ). For example, a well-known strategy is  trial and error . The old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” describes trial and error. In terms of your broken printer, you could try checking the ink levels, and if that doesn’t work, you could check to make sure the paper tray isn’t jammed. Or maybe the printer isn’t actually connected to your laptop. When using trial and error, you would continue to try different solutions until you solved your problem. Although trial and error is not typically one of the most time-efficient strategies, it is a commonly used one.

Another type of strategy is an algorithm. An  algorithm  is a problem-solving formula that provides you with step-by-step instructions used to achieve a desired outcome (Kahneman, 2011). You can think of an algorithm as a recipe with highly detailed instructions that produce the same result every time they are performed. Algorithms are used frequently in our everyday lives, especially in computer science. When you run a search on the Internet, search engines like Google use algorithms to decide which entries will appear first in your list of results. Facebook also uses algorithms to decide which posts to display on your newsfeed. Can you identify other situations in which algorithms are used?

A heuristic is another type of problem solving strategy. While an algorithm must be followed exactly to produce a correct result, a  heuristic  is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. A “rule of thumb” is an example of a heuristic. Such a rule saves the person time and energy when making a decision, but despite its time-saving characteristics, it is not always the best method for making a rational decision. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, but the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

• When one is faced with too much information
• When the time to make a decision is limited
• When the decision to be made is unimportant
• When there is access to very little information to use in making the decision
• When an appropriate heuristic happens to come to mind in the same moment

Working backwards  is a useful heuristic in which you begin solving the problem by focusing on the end result. Consider this example: You live in Washington, D.C. and have been invited to a wedding at 4 PM on Saturday in Philadelphia. Knowing that Interstate 95 tends to back up any day of the week, you need to plan your route and time your departure accordingly. If you want to be at the wedding service by 3:30 PM, and it takes 2.5 hours to get to Philadelphia without traffic, what time should you leave your house? You use the working backwards heuristic to plan the events of your day on a regular basis, probably without even thinking about it.

Another useful heuristic is the practice of accomplishing a large goal or task by breaking it into a series of smaller steps. Students often use this common method to complete a large research project or long essay for school. For example, students typically brainstorm, develop a thesis or main topic, research the chosen topic, organize their information into an outline, write a rough draft, revise and edit the rough draft, develop a final draft, organize the references list, and proofread their work before turning in the project. The large task becomes less overwhelming when it is broken down into a series of small steps.

Problem-solving abilities can improve with practice. Many people challenge themselves every day with puzzles and other mental exercises to sharpen their problem-solving skills. Sudoku puzzles appear daily in most newspapers. Typically, a sudoku puzzle is a 9×9 grid. The simple sudoku below ( Figure ) is a 4×4 grid. To solve the puzzle, fill in the empty boxes with a single digit: 1, 2, 3, or 4. Here are the rules: The numbers must total 10 in each bolded box, each row, and each column; however, each digit can only appear once in a bolded box, row, and column. Time yourself as you solve this puzzle and compare your time with a classmate.

Here is another popular type of puzzle ( Figure ) that challenges your spatial reasoning skills. Connect all nine dots with four connecting straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper:

Take a look at the “Puzzling Scales” logic puzzle below ( Figure ). Sam Loyd, a well-known puzzle master, created and refined countless puzzles throughout his lifetime (Cyclopedia of Puzzles, n.d.).

PITFALLS TO PROBLEM SOLVING

Not all problems are successfully solved, however. What challenges stop us from successfully solving a problem? Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Imagine a person in a room that has four doorways. One doorway that has always been open in the past is now locked. The person, accustomed to exiting the room by that particular doorway, keeps trying to get out through the same doorway even though the other three doorways are open. The person is stuck—but she just needs to go to another doorway, instead of trying to get out through the locked doorway. A  mental set  is where you persist in approaching a problem in a way that has worked in the past but is clearly not working now.

Functional fixedness  is a type of mental set where you cannot perceive an object being used for something other than what it was designed for. During the  Apollo 13  mission to the moon, NASA engineers at Mission Control had to overcome functional fixedness to save the lives of the astronauts aboard the spacecraft. An explosion in a module of the spacecraft damaged multiple systems. The astronauts were in danger of being poisoned by rising levels of carbon dioxide because of problems with the carbon dioxide filters. The engineers found a way for the astronauts to use spare plastic bags, tape, and air hoses to create a makeshift air filter, which saved the lives of the astronauts.

Check out this  Apollo 13  scene  where the group of NASA engineers are given the task of overcoming functional fixedness.

Researchers have investigated whether functional fixedness is affected by culture. In one experiment, individuals from the Shuar group in Ecuador were asked to use an object for a purpose other than that for which the object was originally intended. For example, the participants were told a story about a bear and a rabbit that were separated by a river and asked to select among various objects, including a spoon, a cup, erasers, and so on, to help the animals. The spoon was the only object long enough to span the imaginary river, but if the spoon was presented in a way that reflected its normal usage, it took participants longer to choose the spoon to solve the problem. (German & Barrett, 2005). The researchers wanted to know if exposure to highly specialized tools, as occurs with individuals in industrialized nations, affects their ability to transcend functional fixedness. It was determined that functional fixedness is experienced in both industrialized and nonindustrialized cultures (German & Barrett, 2005).

In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. Sometimes, however, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the $2,000 home? Why would the realtor show you the run-down houses and the nice house? The realtor may be challenging your anchoring bias. An  anchoring bias  occurs when you focus on one piece of information when making a decision or solving a problem. In this case, you’re so focused on the amount of money you are willing to spend that you may not recognize what kinds of houses are available at that price point.

The  confirmation bias  is the tendency to focus on information that confirms your existing beliefs. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis.  Hindsight bias  leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did.  Representative bias  describes a faulty way of thinking, in which you unintentionally stereotype someone or something; for example, you may assume that your professors spend their free time reading books and engaging in intellectual conversation, because the idea of them spending their time playing volleyball or visiting an amusement park does not fit in with your stereotypes of professors.

Finally, the  availability heuristic  is a heuristic in which you make a decision based on an example, information, or recent experience that is that readily available to you, even though it may not be the best example to inform your decision .  Biases tend to “preserve that which is already established—to maintain our preexisting knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and hypotheses” (Aronson, 1995; Kahneman, 2011). These biases are summarized in  Table .

Please visit this  site  to see a clever music video that a high school teacher made to explain these and other cognitive biases to his AP psychology students.

Were you able to determine how many marbles are needed to balance the scales in  Figure ? You need nine. Were you able to solve the problems in  Figure  and  Figure ? Here are the answers ( Figure ).

Many different strategies exist for solving problems. Typical strategies include trial and error, applying algorithms, and using heuristics. To solve a large, complicated problem, it often helps to break the problem into smaller steps that can be accomplished individually, leading to an overall solution. Roadblocks to problem solving include a mental set, functional fixedness, and various biases that can cloud decision making skills.

A specific formula for solving a problem is called ________.

• an algorithm
• a heuristic
• a mental set
• trial and error

A mental shortcut in the form of a general problem-solving framework is called ________.

Which type of bias involves becoming fixated on a single trait of a problem?

• anchoring bias
• confirmation bias
• representative bias
• availability bias

Which type of bias involves relying on a false stereotype to make a decision?

What is functional fixedness and how can overcoming it help you solve problems?

How does an algorithm save you time and energy when solving a problem?

Which type of bias do you recognize in your own decision making processes? How has this bias affected how you’ve made decisions in the past and how can you use your awareness of it to improve your decisions making skills in the future?

[glossary-page] [glossary-term]algorithm:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]problem-solving strategy characterized by a specific set of instructions[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]anchoring bias:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]faulty heuristic in which you fixate on a single aspect of a problem to find a solution[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]availability heuristic:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]faulty heuristic in which you make a decision based on information readily available to you[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]confirmation bias:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]faulty heuristic in which you focus on information that confirms your beliefs[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]functional fixedness:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]inability to see an object as useful for any other use other than the one for which it was intended[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]grammar:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]set of rules that are used to convey meaning through the use of a lexicon[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]heuristic:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]mental shortcut that saves time when solving a problem[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]hindsight bias:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]belief that the event just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]language:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]communication system that involves using words to transmit information from one individual to another[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]lexicon:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]the words of a given language[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]mental set:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]continually using an old solution to a problem without results[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]morpheme:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]smallest unit of language that conveys some type of meaning[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]overgeneralization:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]extension of a rule that exists in a given language to an exception to the rule[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]phoneme:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]basic sound unit of a given language[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]problem-solving strategy:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]method for solving problems[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]representative bias:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]faulty heuristic in which you stereotype someone or something without a valid basis for your judgment[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]semantics:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]process by which we derive meaning from morphemes and words[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]syntax:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]manner by which words are organized into sentences[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]trial and error:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]problem-solving strategy in which multiple solutions are attempted until the correct one is found[/glossary-definition]

[glossary-term]working backwards:[/glossary-term] [glossary-definition]heuristic in which you begin to solve a problem by focusing on the end result[/glossary-definition] [/glossary-page]

General Psychology Copyright © by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Best Ways to Learn a Language According to Research

Learning a new language can be a challenging yet rewarding experience. Whether you would like to travel to a foreign country, communicate with family members, or enhance your employment prospects, learning a new language serves as an excellent method to better your life. However, since there are several ways to learn a new language, you may face difficulty in figuring out which method to use. Research can serve as an excellent guide when choosing the right way to learn a language. In this blog post, you will explore the best ways to learn a language according to research.

Mastering a new language brings numerous benefits beyond simply expanding your vocabulary. It opens up opportunities for cultural exploration, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and lifestyles. Learning a new language improves cognitive abilities, enhancing memory, attention span, and problem-solving skills. Research also suggests that being bilingual or multilingual can delay the onset of dementia and other age-related cognitive decline. And in today’s globalized world, linguistic proficiency can significantly boost career prospects, making you a highly sought-after candidate in the international job market.

Researchers have employed a variety of methods to study how people best learn languages. They have conducted experimental studies, where they apply different teaching methods and observe the results. Such studies often involve control groups for comparison, and the performance of the learners is measured through tests and evaluations. Another widely used research approach is observational studies, where researchers visit language classes in action, taking notes on teaching techniques and their effectiveness.

Some researchers also rely on case studies, delving into the experiences of individual language learners over an extended period. These case studies provide insights into the personal factors that affect language learning, including motivation, learning environment, and cognitive abilities. Surveys and questionnaires have also been used extensively, allowing researchers to gather data from a large number of language learners. These surveys often include questions about learners’ study habits, resources they find useful, and challenges they face in the learning process. In addition, meta-analysis, which involves statistically analyzing results from multiple studies, helps researchers draw broader conclusions about the most effective language learning methods.

Many research findings have been published in academic journals about this subject. But what are the main findings uncovered in the academic world? Here are five of the key pieces of advice about language learning that researchers have discovered time and again.

1. Immersion

According to research, immersion is one of the best ways to learn a new language. This method requires you to fully immerse yourself in the target language environment. This could be achieved by interacting with native speakers, watching and listening to content in the target language, or even living in a foreign country for a certain period. Immersion helps you learn a language quickly since you get to practice speaking and listening to the language daily.

Immersion replicates the way we naturally learn our first language as children, making it an intuitively effective method. It emphasizes practical, everyday use of language, which tends to facilitate better, longer-lasting language retention. Additionally, immersion encourages active learning, pushing you to use the language in real-life situations, which significantly enhances your understanding and fluency.

2. Learning Through Association

When learning a new language, it is better to associate words with something you already know. For example, let’s say you want to learn Spanish, and you know some English. You could associate English words with their Spanish equivalents. This forms a link between words from both languages, making it easier for you to remember them.

Learning through association leverages cognitive processes, particularly those related to memory, by drawing connections between new and existing knowledge. This method aids in easy recall and comprehension of the newly learned language as it establishes a cognitive map, making the learning process more fluid and efficient.

3. Consistency is Key

When trying to learn a new language, consistency is vital. It is better to spend thirty minutes studying every day than to spend four hours once a week. Consistency helps you learn the language faster and also helps you keep the things you have learned in your mind. The more consistent you are, the quicker you will become fluent in the language you are trying to learn. Apps, websites and online courses can help you maintain consistency in learning. For example, you could take an online Spanish course and learn something new every day, even if you only have 10 minutes some days.

Consistency in learning a language aids in reinforcing the connections formed in the brain between new words and their meanings, improving recall over time. Furthermore, regular practice helps maintain the momentum of language learning, keeping the process active and preventing the loss of previously acquired knowledge.

4. Choose The Right Method for You

When learning a language, you must figure out what approach works best for you . Some people learn best through group classes while others prefer individual classes. Some people prefer using books and apps while others prefer immersing themselves in the language. Trial and error is the best way to find what method suits you best and what you are most comfortable with.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice

The best way to learn a new language is by practicing. This means that you should practice every day. When practicing, ensure that you are using the language in a comprehensive way, starting with simple sentences and gradually moving to more complex sentences. You could also practice by speaking with native speakers or writing down words and sentences you are trying to remember.

Various methods are available for learning a new language, but research has shown that these five tips serve as the best ways to learn a language. Learning a new language can take time, but with the right methods, it can be approached in an easier and more efficient way. With determination and patience, you can learn the language of your choice, and this could prove beneficial in your personal and professional life.

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Module 5: Thinking and Analysis

Problem-solving with critical thinking, learning outcomes.

• Describe how critical thinking skills can be used in problem-solving

Most of us face problems that we must solve every day. While some problems are more complex than others, we can apply critical thinking skills to every problem by asking questions like, what information am I missing? Why and how is it important? What are the contributing factors that lead to the problem? What resources are available to solve the problem? These questions are just the start of being able to think of innovative and effective solutions. Read through the following critical thinking, problem-solving process to identify steps you are already familiar with as well as opportunities to build a more critical approach to solving problems.

Problem-Solving Process

Step 1: define the problem.

Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”

Often, when we first hear of or learn about a problem, we do not have all the information. If we immediately try to find a solution without having a thorough understanding of the problem, then we may only be solving a part of the problem.  This is called a “band-aid fix,” or when a symptom is addressed, but not the actual problem. While these band-aid fixes may provide temporary relief, if the actual problem is not addressed soon, then the problem will continue and likely get worse. Therefore, the first step when using critical thinking to solve problems is to identify the problem. The goal during this step is to gather enough research to determine how widespread the problem is, its nature, and its importance.

Step 2: Analyze the Causes

This step is used to uncover assumptions and underlying problems that are at the root of the problem. This step is important since you will need to ensure that whatever solution is chosen addresses the actual cause, or causes, of the problem.

Asking “why” questions to uncover root causes

A common way to uncover root causes is by asking why questions. When we are given an answer to a why question, we will often need to question that answer itself. Thus the process of asking “why” is an  iterative process —meaning that it is a process that we can repeatedly apply. When we stop asking why questions depends on what information we need and that can differ depending on what the goals are. For a better understanding, see the example below:

Problem: The lamp does not turn on.

• Why doesn’t the lamp turn on? The fuse is blown.
• Why is the fuse blown? There was overloaded circuit.
• Why was the circuit overloaded? The hair dryer was on.

If one is simply a homeowner or tenant, then it might be enough to simply know that if the hair dryer is on, the circuit will overload and turn off.  However, one can always ask further why questions, depending on what the goal is. For example, suppose someone wants to know if all hair dryers overload circuits or just this one. We might continue thus:

• Why did this hair dryer overload the circuit? Because hair dryers in general require a lot of electricity.

But now suppose we are an electrical engineer and are interested in designing a more environmentally friendly hair dryer. In that case, we might ask further:

• Why do hair dryers require so much energy?

As you can see from this example, what counts as a root cause depends on context and interests. The homeowner will not necessarily be interested in asking the further why questions whereas others might be.

Step 3: Generate Solutions

The goal of this step is to generate as many solutions as possible. In order to do so, brainstorm as many ideas as possible, no matter how outrageous or ineffective the idea might seem at the time. During your brainstorming session, it is important to generate solutions freely without editing or evaluating any of the ideas. The more solutions that you can generate, the more innovative and effective your ultimate solution might become upon later review.

You might find that setting a timer for fifteen to thirty minutes will help you to creatively push past the point when you think you are done. Another method might be to set a target for how many ideas you will generate. You might also consider using categories to trigger ideas. If you are brainstorming with a group, consider brainstorming individually for a while and then also brainstorming together as ideas can build from one idea to the next.

Step 4: Select a Solution

Once the brainstorming session is complete, then it is time to evaluate the solutions and select the more effective one.  Here you will consider how each solution will address the causes determined in step 2. It is also helpful to develop the criteria you will use when evaluating each solution, for instance, cost, time, difficulty level, resources needed, etc. Once your criteria for evaluation is established, then consider ranking each criterion by importance since some solutions might meet all criteria, but not to equally effective degrees.

In addition to evaluating by criteria, ensure that you consider possibilities and consequences of all serious contenders to address any drawbacks to a solution. Lastly, ensure that the solutions are actually feasible.

Step 6: Put Solution into Action

While many problem-solving models stop at simply selecting a solution, in order to actually solve a problem, the solution must be put into action. Here, you take responsibility to create, communicate, and execute the plan with detailed organizational logistics by addressing who will be responsible for what, when, and how.

Step 7: Evaluate progress

The final step when employing critical thinking to problem-solving is to evaluate the progress of the solution. Since critical thinking demands open-mindedness, analysis, and a willingness to change one’s mind, it is important to monitor how well the solution has actually solved the problem in order to determine if any course correction is needed.

While we solve problems every day, following the process to apply more critical thinking approaches in each step by considering what information might be missing; analyzing the problem and causes; remaining open-minded while brainstorming solutions; and providing criteria for, evaluating, and monitoring solutions can help you to become a better problem-solver and strengthen your critical thinking skills.

iterative process: one that can be repeatedly applied

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Every Problem, Every Step, All in Focus: Learning to Solve Vision-Language Problems With Integrated Attention

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Bibliometrics & citations, view options, recommendations, focus your attention: a bidirectional focal attention network for image-text matching.

Learning semantic correspondence between image and text is significant as it bridges the semantic gap between vision and language. The key challenge is to accurately find and correlate shared semantics in image and text. Most existing methods achieve ...

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Sign Language Recognition (SLR) has witnessed a boost in recent years, particularly with the surge of deep learning techniques. However, most existing methods do not exploit the concept of attention mechanisms, despite their success in several computer ...

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Conveyance technology in supporting the teaching and learning of mathematics through student reasoning and problem solving

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T1 - Conveyance technology in supporting the teaching and learning of mathematics through student reasoning and problem solving

AU - Livy, Sharyn

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N2 - Technology can play a pivotal role in mathematics education. Qualitative methods were used to report on how a Year 1–2 teacher incorporated Conveyance technology (iPads), to support the teaching and learning of mathematics through student reasoning and problem-solving. The study was conducted in Australia. A single case was chosen, reporting a lesson where students engaged with a 12-cube task. The findings contribute to the broader discourse on the role of technology in early mathematics education, suggesting that conveyance technology supported by effective teaching practices and open-ended problems, fosters students’ reasoning and problem-solving skills.

AB - Technology can play a pivotal role in mathematics education. Qualitative methods were used to report on how a Year 1–2 teacher incorporated Conveyance technology (iPads), to support the teaching and learning of mathematics through student reasoning and problem-solving. The study was conducted in Australia. A single case was chosen, reporting a lesson where students engaged with a 12-cube task. The findings contribute to the broader discourse on the role of technology in early mathematics education, suggesting that conveyance technology supported by effective teaching practices and open-ended problems, fosters students’ reasoning and problem-solving skills.

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Quantum Physics

Title: solving the quantum many-body hamiltonian learning problem with neural differential equations.

Abstract: Understanding and characterising quantum many-body dynamics remains a significant challenge due to both the exponential complexity required to represent quantum many-body Hamiltonians, and the need to accurately track states in time under the action of such Hamiltonians. This inherent complexity limits our ability to characterise quantum many-body systems, highlighting the need for innovative approaches to unlock their full potential. To address this challenge, we propose a novel method to solve the Hamiltonian Learning (HL) problem-inferring quantum dynamics from many-body state trajectories-using Neural Differential Equations combined with an Ansatz Hamiltonian. Our method is reliably convergent, experimentally friendly, and interpretable, making it a stable solution for HL on a set of Hamiltonians previously unlearnable in the literature. In addition to this, we propose a new quantitative benchmark based on power laws, which can objectively compare the reliability and generalisation capabilities of any two HL algorithms. Finally, we benchmark our method against state-of-the-art HL algorithms with a 1D spin-1/2 chain proof of concept.

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