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The Pen-and-Paper Algorithm (PAPA)IntroductionThe Pen-and-Paper Algorithm (PAPA) is one of the most important components of the complex "engine" called DYNAMIC LANGUAGE LEARNING. It comes in two modes:
The introductory mode is a greatly simplified version of the standard mode. We normally teach PAPA with reference to learning *** vocabulary *** (in order to keep the subject matter simple and constant) even though it can be used for many other subject matters as well (grammar, factual information, etc). Therefore when I keep referring to the learning of "items" and these items are always words, I do this to keep the explanations simple and not because I think language learning consists only of learning vocabulary. I know that there is much more to it. DYLL has many components dealing with other aspects of language learning, such as communication skills. Before you learn the standard mode of PAPA, you have to spend about four weeks to learn, work with and experience the effects of the introductory mode. The introductory mode is less efficient than the standard mode but it is much easier to learn and to explain. Sequence of itemsThe difference between the two modes is the sequence in which the items are tackled. The introductory mode treats all items the same, whereas the standard mode spots, and concentrates on, the more difficult items. Before learning the standard mode, you must be absolutely familiar with how to learn each item, how to use the folding slip (from which the term "Pen-and-Paper" algorithm was derived), the importance of following all instructions to the letter, the importance of carefully timed revisions, the definition of self-cheating and its negative consequences for your speed of learning. All these are things which we will NOT explain again when describing the standard mode. A description of the PAPA IntroMode is contained in the article on learning vocabular Link xxx ??? . Read it now before continuing here. Description of the standard mode compared with the introductory modePAPA IntroModePAPA IntroMode, in a nutshell, runs as follows: You try each item in succession from Item 1 to Item 10. If ten items are correct in succession, that exercise is considered "mastered", and you move on to the next exercise. Otherwise you return to the begining of the same exercise. Keep trying Items 1 to 10 in succession until you have mastered them. PAPA in standard mode (PAPASM)PAPA in standard mode (PAPASM), in a nutshell, runs as follows: Each item has a number (from 1 to 10). Before you tackle an item write down its number on your folding slip. Then guess the correct answer. Then slide the folding slip down to reveal the model answer. If your answer was correct, move on to the next item. If your answer was incorrect (e.g. 1 letter wrong), draw a circle around the number (the circle marks a mistake, a wrong item), cross out the wrong answer and copy the model answer, and try to learn something from your mistake. Then move on to the next item. As soon as three circles are visible on your folding slip, it means that you have identified three difficult items in the exercise. This is not a sign of failure but a sign of success. Identifying a problem is always a success. Only problems which have been identified can be removed. That's why cheating in DYLL is so counter-productive. Give yourself a chance to make your mistakes. They display your weaknesses before they become dangerous. Your efforts will now be concentrated on these three items. You will continue practising these three items until at least one of them has turned out to be correct. Intensive careThis is how you work on the circled items. When 3 circles are visible, you copy the circle numbers into the next line on your folding slip. This tells you which items you are now targeting. Fold the paper back so that your previous answers are no longer visible, but the circle numbers are visible. Slide the folding slip up (or down) to the first circle number. Try it (ie guess the answer and write down your guess). Then the next item and the next. If three circles are still visible, continue by the same rules, always the same 3 items. Until at least one of these items has been learnt, i.e. fewer than 3 circles will be visible in intensive care. When fewer than 3 circles are visible, move on to the next item in the main exercise, i.e. try to find another difficult item. A "difficult item" is one where your guess is wrong. As soon as 3 circles are visible again, apply the 3-circles procedure. When you have reached the end of the exercise, go back to the beginning. Gradually all difficult items in the exercise will have been identified, and all will have been intensively treated in the 3-circles engine (intensive care unit). Continue doing this until you can answer 10 items in succession in the main exercise without making a mistake. Then this exercise has been "mastered", and you can move on to the next exercise. General remarks about PAPASMThis is PAPASM in a nutshell. This description will gradually be refined during the next few weeks. So come back to the website and look for changes. We will publish more formal specifications of the procedure in the form of a flowchart and several "cycle diagrams". By studying the various forms of explanation, you will eventually be in no doubt about how to use the procedure and its algorithmic character (unambiguous, exact and effective). We will also explain in detail the psychological reasons why this procedure is so extraordinarily effective, by dynamically adjusting the revision intervals to your performance. (For theory, see the article "Dynamic Learning Algorithms". For now, in a nutshell, consider the following: The First-Step method: Divide and ruleIf you were told to learn 5,000 words of a foreign language (the sort of vocabulary you need for reasonable competence in a language) you would be downhearted and overwhelmed. How will you ever learn that, especially as you are convinced anyway (wrongly, of course) that you have no talent for language learning. But if I tell you to learn 500 (to start with), you will think this much more managable and tackle the task with a certain amount of confidence. Forget the fact that, once you have learnt the first 500, I will give you a second batch of 500 words. Just think of the first 500 and that this is definitely managable. Scaling that task down has made it easier for you and increased your confidence. This is as if you needed to walk from Leicester to Delhi, because you cannot afford the bus fare. The task might seem impossible. But taking the first step, just one step, is not impossible. So you do it: one step. Then take another step. If you keep doing it, then eventually you arrive either in Delhi or in paradise, whichever comes sooner, and either will be a delight. So now I make it even easier for you. I divide the 500 words into exercises of 10 words each. That is 50 exercises. Forget about 49 of them. All I am asking you to do is to master one of them, 10 words. Surely you can manage that. Take the whole day if you want to. That one exercise is "the first step". You have already experienced, with the PAPA IntroMode, that it is easy enough. You notice that, the smaller I make your task, by breaking it down into its components (Cartesian principle: link), the more feasible it becomes, and your confidence increases ever more. In the introductory mode, a ten-item exercise is the smallest task you are confronted with. You keep working on 10 words in succession until you have mastered them. Now imagine that you are still rebelling against that, and tell me you can't do it. Learning 10 words is asking too much, is more than you are capable of achieving. All right, now PAPASM comes into play. I tell you: You don't have to learn 10 words, just learn three of them, surely you are capable of learning three words. OK, let's find three words which you don't know yet. To do that, we start the exercise, and try item by item until three circles are visible. Now we have found the three items we want to learn (focus on). So don't fret. I am not asking a lot of you. Don't worry about having to learn ten words. You don't have to learn ten words. I am a fair man. All I am asking you is to learn three words. I am not even asking you to "learn" them. I am not asking you to "remember" them. I am only asking you to ***guess*** them. I can't say no fairer than that, can I? But I can: there is no end to my generosity. I ain't asking you to guess *** three *** words, I am only asking you to guess *** one *** word. Is that a deal? Is that easy enough for you? Will that still be a strain on your patience? Only one word! If you guess right, wonderful. If you guess wrong, I show you the model answer. Then we do something to kill some time (i.e. guess two other words) and, about 20 seconds later, I'll ask you to guess the first word again. And so on, no learning required, just a guessing game, with the same word coming back every 20 seconds until you have guessed it correctly. Once that has happened there will no longer be 3 items in the intensive care unit (but only 2), and you go back into the main exercise to find another candidate for intensive care. Like a talent scout, for crying out loud! Once you have found one, the 3-item guessing game can start again. That's how easy it is! Easy enough even for you? IntroMode versus Standard ModeNow let's look at the 10-item exercise in that respect. You are alternating your activities between the 10-item exercise and the intensive care unit (with a capacity of only 3 items; 3 beds). What the Intro-Mode and the Standard Mode have in common is that in either mode, all you have to do is to guess and to copy. You are not required to "learn", whatever that may mean. Learning is the automatic result of guessing and copying. There is absolutely no stress in that, and anybody can do it. It is just a game with very precise rules. The difference between the Intro-Mode and the Standard Mode is that in the Intro-Mode there is no intensive care unit (ICU). Therefore, in IntroMode, if you make a mistake in, say, Item 3, it will take about 2 minutes before that item is presented again for another guess. The chances of you remembering what you copied last time round are not as great as they would be if that item was presented for guessing 20 seconds after you had copied the model answer. By opening the intensive care unit we reduce the interval between each of your guessing attempts at the same item. You guess it wrong, you copy the model answer (and try to learn something from your mistake), 20 seconds later you try to guess again, you get it wrong again, etc etc, sooner rather than later you will start guessing correctly. Learning has begun. Items can hop in and out of intensive care. That is normal. You are not responsible for that, and you don't care. Just follow the rules. Play the game. The results for you are guaranteed. They come when you least expect them -- as a byproduct of your mechanical activities. Human memory has its own laws, and we exploit them to make our learning as efficient as possible. But there are absolute limits to what is possible, and there is no reason to fret about these limits. For some people, some items require more revisions, or revisions at closer intervals. All we are doing in DYLL is to approximate these intervals, as best we can, to make YOUR learning as efficient as possible. Other people have other requirements and timings. We are concerned only with yours. That's why these algorithms have also been called "adaptive algorithms". Progress in the exercise as a wholeLooking at the exercise as a whole, the following progression is typical. Let's assume that you started by copying the words from your textbook into the DYLL Workbook, in the standard DYLL format (each item numbered, numbers in a separate column, question above the answer, blank lines between question and answer, each exercise consisting of 10 items). While copying these words, some of the easier ones will inadvertently have slipped into your memory and come back to you when you start the guessing game. If you use the IntroMode, the following might happen:
The chances are that normally it will work much faster (i.e. fewer rounds required), but this is the sort of progression you have to expect and cope with. One of the greatest obstacles to successful language learning is that adult students (and the older they become the worse it gets) have unrealistic expectations of themselves, get upset, angry with themselves, and AS A RESULT, perform increasingly badly. One of the major tasks in teaching the techniques of DYLL is to combat the negative attitudes of students. That's why I have to spend so much time arguing against these harmful attitudes which I have come across hundreds of times when teaching this system. Standard Mode compared to IntroModeWhen using the Standard Mode, the difficult items are first identified, and then brought more closely together. Say, in Intensive Care, your repeated guessing attempts are 20 seconds apart. So you make your way very very slowly through the first round of the exercise, with frequent sessions in intensive care. Obviously, whatever you learn in intensive care may be forgotten again 1 minute later. That is normal and no reason to be upset since the algorithm takes counter-measures. Eventually every item will be remembered for 4 months. DYLL has algorithms which ensure this. The effect on the exercise as a whole might be as follows:
This also might be achieved faster in real life, but I don't want to promise too much. Let your real results outstrip my promises. What comes after PAPA?Then the Retention Algorithm (which controls revision times and dates) comes into play to stretch the retention span from 15 minutes to 4 months. Any items which slip through the net of the Retention Algorithm will be mercilessly passed to the Enforcer Algorithm (extraordinary rendition), which makes sure that even the most difficult, most recalcitrant, most obstinate, most perverse, most rebellious item is brought to heel, is tamed like Shakespeare's Shrew and peacefully joins your repertory of obedient servants. Then the various communication algorithms come into play and teach you how to utilise your linguistic tool box in real life. This is a first attempt at describing the Standard Mode of PAPA. The psychology behind it is explained in "Dynamic Teaching Algorithms". Various different ways of presenting the same procedure will be posted here soon. Real-life examples:
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