Twinstitute - Learning a language

[DaraghM]

Twinstitute is a British television program in which pairs of identical twins test out different ideas to see which one is better. The assumption is that identical twins provide the ideal base case, with any difference in the tests due to the ideas themselves. In the episode that was on BBC2 last night test, two pairs of identical twins tried different methods for learning a language.

The first group of twins had a teacher, while the second group used self teaching methods. The language chosen was Swedish. They were restricted to 30 hours of teaching, or self instruction, and tested afterwards at A1. The tests consisted of a written test, and much more amusing, a trip to Sweden. They participants wore t-shirts that stated not to speak English too them. Is this the solution to language banditry.


The teacher on the show wrote a blog about the experience, but didn't give the results.
https://swedishmadeeasy.com/swedish-made-easy-blog

The results were not too surprising. The students who had lessons came out ahead over the self taught learners, but not by a huge margin. Both sets of groups managed to pass the A1 written test. There was a bit of bias in the experiment though, as the Swedish teacher was assessing both groups, which would obviously skew the results. Afterwards there was a separate test to see whether learning a language improves cognitive function, and could stave off dementia. These results were very impressive, and both groups saw a significant improvement, which even surprised the researchers.

[cjareck]

As a father of two pairs of twins (and a single daughter) I can assure you that even if externally the twins may be almost identical, they are completely different internally. So there is no point to make something different with each of them and then compare the results as if they were identical start points of the experiments.

[Stefan]

Skimmed the episode now and was a bit disappointed how they squeezed so many different topics into one 28 min episode. Besides language learning, it was about Alzheimer, facial yoga, "vampire facial" and weight loss.

We saw that she used Duolingo and he used Babbel. In the first scene... Then there was b footage of a TV show with subtitles and someone counting on the TV. However, there was no info whatsoever what they actually used and their results were merged so you never hear the individual results. One person might have been an anchor and with such a small sample group, it would really skew the result.

With that said, the end result wasn't too surprising considering the teacher would know the ins and outs of the test.

[DaveAgain]

The 'swedish made easy' YouTube channel have a few videos from/around the episode.

[DaveAgain]

With that said, the end result wasn't too surprising considering the teacher would know the ins and outs of the test.

The teacher is also the author of Teach Yourself complete Swedish.

https://library.teachyourself.com/all/Complete/21430

https://swedishmadeeasy.com/about

[Stefan]

The 'swedish made easy' YouTube channel have a few videos from/around the episode.

Interesting how the student Tina mentions "ok, because in French and Italian you say..."

[StringerBell]

The assumption is that identical twins provide the ideal base case, with any difference in the tests due to the ideas themselves.

This is an interesting concept, but sadly there are way too many factors that have nothing to do with genetics that could affect the outcome of this experiment. Some variables could include:

-one twin really enjoys language learning while the other doesn't.
-one twin had a terrible experience trying to learn a language in the past and deep down believes s/he can't do it while the other doesn't have this baggage.
-one twin has a low threshold for frustration in general and easily gets discouraged while the other one thrives in the face of a challenge.
-one twin feels a particularly strong motivation for learning the chosen language while the other doesn't and is just doing it for the challenge.
-one twin might be a really good test-taker and the other one gets test anxiety.

Then there's the obvious issue that was already brought up: what is the twin studying solo doing? Some people think language learning apps and games like Memrise, Duolingo, Clozemaster, etc... are enjoyable and useful while other people hate them and think they're a waste of time. Some people love starting out with a course book while others never do that because they hate it. Some people love to watch TV or read books in any language, others hate doing that even in their native language. Some people love quizzing themselves with SRS and others...you get my drift. Since there are a million different ways to be an independent learner, it's not really fair to pick one specific way and then decide that one strategy represents all strategies.

[Teango]

Besides language learning, it was about Alzheimer, facial yoga, "vampire facial" and weight loss.

I just looked up "vampire facial" and so wish I hadn't. Ouch! I think I'm just gonna grow old disgracefully...

[Brun Ugle]

Disregarding the whole twin aspect, I imagine if you took two groups of inexperienced learners, the classroom group would probably do better because the others might know what to do and how to learn effectively and would probably make many false starts. But if you had two groups of experienced learners, it’s possible that the independent group would do better. But there are still advantages to a class in that it gives you the opportunity to practice in a way you can’t do alone, and if the entire class is made up of experienced learners, it might be possible to move pretty fast since the problem most of us have with a class is that it goes at the pace of the slowest pupil.