In doing so, they opened ways for understanding—and for more research to be developed—via tasks that allowed for a decoupling method of information encoding. In other words, they made clear that there is a difference between familiarity (what you seem to know) and recollection (what you actually remember), and that has to do with how information is processed: via concept (as in semantic or associative tasks) or via perception (as in structural or phonological tasks).

Recent studies have shown that deep processing (the meaning pathway) is indeed superior to shallow processing (the form pathway) in terms of retention, because information that is elaborated through a series of rehearsals tends to be retained for longer. This is especially relevant here as experiments were performed using words. Further, when information gets encoded via semantic pathways (deep level), it tends to stick more tightly in our memories across time.

Think about how many times students in a language class have to rehearse the same word in different contexts; they will struggle to make sense of that new word many times over. It is this series of rehearsals in trying to elaborate ways to use that new piece of information (the new word) in meaningful ways that makes it stick.

Now when it comes to our natural propensity, that is, forgetting, deep or shallow levels of processing have the same result in terms of forgetting. Both pathways lead to some forgetting. That goes to show that forgetting seems to be as human as remembering; so, giving students many meaningful practice opportunities with the target language is key to helping them retain that information. Final words: don’t fight a losing battle 😊