跟着十三幺开始的第一篇口语文章练习，不如就从学习习惯说起吧！
其实从小到大我们的学习生活中经常被各种人教授各种学习习惯，但是你知道么，有些你用了很久的学习习惯其实是错的。
Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies).
每年九月，数以万计的家长们都会用一种心理技巧，把他们心还留在暑假露营里的孩子拉回到新学期的学习当中去，把他们的注意力从视频上转移到书本上。建议很简单，也很常见:整理出一个安静的学习空间。坚持做家庭作业。设定目标。设定界限。不要用奖励激励他们学习（除非在必要情况下）。
And check out the classroom. Does Junior’s learning style match the new teacher’s approach? Or the school’s philosophy? Maybe the child isn’t “a good fit”for the school.
看看教室里。低年级学生的学习方式是否与新老师的教学方法相匹配?能否与学校的理念相匹配?也许这个孩子并不适应这个学校。
Such theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how.
这种理论只有一部分在发展的原因是因为粗略的教育研究没有提供明确的指导。学生的特点与教学风格必然是相互影响的;个性和家规也是这样的。而问题是，没有人能预测它们到底是怎样起到影响作用的。
Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.
然而，至少对于那些有学习动力的学生来说，还是存在有效的学习方法的。近年来，认知学科学家已经证明，一些简单的技巧确实可以提高学习中最重要的东西，那就是:学生从学习中到底学到了多少。
The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division(多项式的长除法) to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.
研究的发现可以帮助所有人,从四年级做多项式的长除法的孩子到学习一门新的语言的退休老人。但是这些方法与很多良好学习习惯的常识是相悖的，而且还并未流行起来。
For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.
例如，研究结果显示，不要拘泥于一个学习地点，只要简单地改变一个人学习的地方就可以提高记忆力。同样，学生可以一次学习不同但是相关的技能或者是概念，而不是只关注一件事。
“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,”said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”
加州大学洛杉矶分校的心理学家罗伯特·比约克表示，“我们知道这些原则已经有一段时间了，但有趣的是，学校并没有采用这些原则，或者说是人们没有通过反复试验和试错来学习它们。相反，我们一直在采用一些未经检验的、错误的原则。
Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain”students, others “right-brain.”In a recent reviewof the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologistsfound almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,”the researchers concluded.
比如，孩子们有特定的学习风格，有些是“视觉型学习者”，有些是听觉型学习者;有些是“左脑”型学生，有些是“右脑”型学生。最近，一组心理学家在《公共利益心理科学》杂志上发表了一篇对相关研究的综述，他们发现几乎没有人支持这种观点。研究人员总结道:“教育中广泛流传的大量学习方法和缺乏可靠的证据来证明它们的实用性之间的矛盾，在我们看来，是令人震惊的，也是令人不安的。”
Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere,”said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginiaand author of the book “Why Don’t Students Like School?”
研究人员说，教学风格也是如此。一些优秀的教师在黑板前蹦蹦跳跳，就像夏日剧场里的喜剧人物福斯塔夫;然而还有一些老师甚至到了害羞的地步。弗吉尼亚大学心理学家、《为什么学生不喜欢学校》一书的作者丹尼尔·t·威林厄姆(Daniel T. Willingham)说，“我们还没有找到营造建设性学习氛围的老师之间的共同点。
But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms —one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard —did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.
但是个人学习是另一回事，心理学家发现，一些被奉为圣旨的学习习惯方面的建议是完全错误的。例如，许多学习技能课程坚持要求学生找一个特定的地方，一个自习室或图书馆的一个安静的角落，来完成他们的工作。研究发现恰恰相反。在1978年的一个经典实验中,心理学家研究发现,大学生在两个不同的房间（一个是没有窗户的凌乱的房间,另外一个是现代风格的可以看见院子的）背诵四十个单词,远比在一个房间里学习两遍单词效果要好。后来的研究也证实了这一发现。
The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious.It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard.Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.
研究者说，无论是有意识还是无意识，大脑在学习内容和学习时的背景环境之间建立了各种微妙的联系，就好象是宿舍学习室里的荧光灯光给凡尔赛条约的条款添加了色彩，或是后院柳树翠绿帷幔般的绿荫让马歇尔计划的原则变得生动活泼。强迫大脑给同样的学习材料和各种不同的环境背景建立联系，实际上这可能会给这些信息建立更多的神经支架。
“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,”said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.
“我们认为这里发生的机理是，当外在内容越多样化，信息就会变得更充实，遗忘得也会更慢，”Bjork博士说道，他是“二室实验”的资深研究者。
Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting —alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language —seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.
与一次只学习一种技能相比，在不同的时间里学习不同的内容——比如在词汇、阅读和说一门新语言的过程中交替学习——似乎会给大脑留下更深的印象。音乐家们多年前就知道这一点，他们的练习通常包括音阶、乐曲和节奏的混合。许多运动员也经常将他们的训练与力量、速度和技巧训练相结合。
The advantages of this approach to studying can be striking, in some topic areas. In a study recently posted onlineby the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida taught a group of fourth graders four equations, each to calculate a different dimension of a prism. Half of the children learned by studying repeated examples of one equation, say, calculating the number of prism faces when given the number of sides at the base, then moving on to the next type of calculation, studying repeated examples of that. The other half studied mixed problem sets, which included examples of all four types of calculations grouped together. Both groups solved sample problems along the way, as they studied. A day later, the researchers gave all of the students a test on the material, presenting new problems of the same type. The children who had studied mixed sets did twice as well as the others, outscoring them 77 percent to 38 percent. The researchers have found the same in experiments involving adults and younger children.
在某些主题领域，这种学习方法的优势是相当显著的。南佛罗里达大学(University of South Florida)的道格·罗勒(Doug Rohrer)和凯利·泰勒(Kelli Taylor)最近在《应用认知心理学》(Applied Cognitive Psychology)杂志的网站上发布了一项研究，他们向一群四年级学生教授了四个方程式，每个方程式用来计算棱镜的不同维度。其中一半的学生同一组例题只学习一个方程式，比如，当给出底面的边数时，计算棱镜面数，然后进行下一种类型的计算，学习重复的例子。另一半研究混合的问题集，包括所有四种类型的计算组合在一起的例子。在研究过程中，两组学生都解决了样本问题。一天后，研究人员对所有的学生进行了一次测试，测试内容是相同类型的新问题。研究混合组的孩子成绩是其他孩子的两倍，得分77分比38分。研究人员在成人和儿童的实验中也发现了同样的结果。
“When students see a list of problems, all of the same kind, they know the strategy to use before they even read the problem,”said Dr. Rohrer. “That’s like riding a bike with training wheels.”With mixed practice, he added, “each problem is different from the last one, which means kids must learn how to choose the appropriate procedure —just like they had to do on the test.”
罗勒博士说:“当学生们看到一系列相同的问题时，他们甚至在阅读问题之前就知道该使用什么策略。”“这就像骑一辆有辅助轮的自行车”。他补充说，通过混合练习，“每个问题都与上一个不同，这意味着孩子们必须学会如何选择适当的程序——就像他们在考试中必须做的那样。”
These findings extend well beyond math, even to aesthetic intuitive learning. In an experiment published last monthin the journal Psychology and Aging, researchers found that college students and adults of retirement age were better able to distinguish the painting styles of 12 unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections (assortments, including works from all 12) than after viewing a dozen works from one artist, all together, then moving on to the next painter.
这些发现远远超出了数学范畴，甚至延伸到了审美直觉学习。在《心理学与衰老》杂志上个月出版的一份实验研究报告里,研究人员让大学生和退休年纪的老人观赏12个不知名艺术家的作品，一部分人看到是混合画集（同时包括所有12个艺术家的作品），另外一部分人则是一个个的观看12个艺术家分别的专集。结果观看混合画集的人能更好的区分这12个艺术家的绘画风格。
The finding undermines the common assumption that intensive immersion is the best way to really master a particular genre, or type of creative work, said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College and the lead author of the study. “What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,”often subconsciously.
通常的假设认为密集沉浸是真正掌握一个专门领域或者某种创造性工作的最佳手段，而上述的研究从基础上动摇了这一点。威廉姆斯学院的心理学家和这项研究的带头人奈特·科内尔（Nate Kornell）说,“在这个案例中发生的事情是，当看到各种各样的绘画作品时，大脑会采用更深层次的思维模式；大脑会发现它们的相似之处和不同之处，”而这通常是下意识的。
Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn —it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out.
认知科学家并不否认，纯粹的填鸭式教学可以使学生在给定的考试中获得更好的成绩。但是，匆匆忙忙地塞满脑袋就好比仓促地打包手提箱，如同大多数快速学习的学生一样——新的东西可以装进去一会儿，然后几乎所有东西都会掉出来。
“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material”when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”
圣路易斯华盛顿大学的心理学家亨利·L·罗迪格三世说：“对于许多学生来说，当他们升入高年级时，并不是他们记不住这些内容。而是，他们好像从来没见过。”
When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.
如果小心地、一步步地打包“神经系统手提箱”的话，里面的东西就会保存更长的时间。数十项研究发现，今晚学习一小时，周末学习一小时，一周之后再重复一次：这种所谓的间隔学习法可以提高长期记忆，不需要学生耗费更多的学习时间或者是更多的精力。
No one knows for sure why. It may be that the brain, when it revisits material at a later time, has to relearn some of what it has absorbed before adding new stuff
—and that that process is itself self-reinforcing.
没有人知道确切的原因。可能是大脑再次复习资料的时候，必须要重新学习一些它已经吸收的东西，才能添加新的内容——而这个过程本身就是大脑记忆的自我强化。
“The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,”said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”
科内尔博士说：“我们的想法是，遗忘是学习之友。”“遗忘的时候，你会重新学习，而在下次看到同样的内容时，会更有效率。”
That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself —or practice tests and quizzes —as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.
这也是认知科学家认为考试本身（或者模拟考试和小考）是一个有力的学习工具的原因之一，而不是仅仅只对学生进行评估。回忆的过程并不是像把一本书从书架里抽出来；而更像是从基础上改变信息储存的方式，以便之后更容易得获取回忆内容。
Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring a property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,”he says —and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.
罗迪格博士用物理学中的海森堡不确定原理作类比，该原理指出如果一个微观粒子的物理量越确定（例如位置），那么你能够知道的该微观粒子的其它物理量（例如动量）的准确度就会低：“考试不仅是测量知识，而且会改变知识，”他说道，而且幸运的是，改变是朝着更确定的方向，而不是相反的。
In one of his own experiments, Dr. Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, also of Washington University, had college students study science passages from a reading comprehension test, in short study periods. When students studied the same material twice, in back-to-back sessions, they did very well on a test given immediately afterward, then began to forget the material.
在他自己的一个实验中，罗迪格博士和同样来自华盛顿大学的杰弗里·卡尔皮克让大学生在短时间内学习一篇科学类短文。学生连续两次学习同样的材料，然后进行阅读理解测试，在学习后立即进行的测试中学生表现非常好，而之后的测试就开始遗忘内容了。
But if they studied the passage just once and did a practice test in the second session, they did very well on one test two days later, and another given a week later.
但是如果学生只学习这篇短文一次，然后在下一次课上进行模拟测试，这样他们在两天之后和一个星期之后的测试中表现都非常好。
“Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,”Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”
罗迪格博士说：“测试的含义这么差劲；人们想到的是标准化的考试或是以考试为目的的教学。”“也许我们应该另外给它取个名字，但它确实是我们拥有的最有力的学习工具之一。”
Of course, one reason the thought of testing tightens people’s stomachs is that tests are so often hard. Paradoxically, it is just this difficulty that makes them such effective study tools, research suggests. The harder it is to remember something, the harder it is to later forget. This effect, which researchers call “desirable difficulty,”is evident in daily life. The name of the actor who played Linc in “The Mod Squad”? Francie’s brother in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”? The name of the co-discoverer, with Newton, of calculus?
当然，一想起考试就会让人们紧张，因为考试往往都很难。矛盾的是，研究者认为正是考试的难度让其成为如此有效的学习工具。记忆起来越难，以后就越难忘记。研究者把这个效果称为“理想的困难”，这一点在日常生活中也表现得很明显。试着回答下列问题：在电影《卧底侦缉队》中扮演林肯的演员叫什么名字？小说《布鲁克林之树》里面弗朗西的兄弟是谁？和牛顿共同发现微积分的人叫什么名字？
The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.
你以后就会知道，你在寻找这些答案中耗费的精力越大，这个答案停留在你脑海里的时间就越久。
None of which is to suggest that these techniques
—alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions, self-testing or all the above —will turn a grade-A slacker into a grade-A student. Motivation matters. So do impressing friends, making the hockey team and finding the nerve to text the cute student in social studies.
当然，这不是说那些技巧（交替改变学习环境，交叉混合学习内容，分隔学习时间段，自我测试，或者是以上种种）可以把一个彻底的懒虫变成一个成绩优异的学生。动机才是关键。无论是你是想要给朋友们留下好的印象，还是加入曲棍球队，又或是壮起胆子给学社会学的那位可爱女生发短信。
“In lab experiments, you’re able to control for all factors except the one you’re studying,”said Dr. Willingham. “Not true in the classroom, in real life. All of these things are interacting at the same time.”“在实验室的研究里，你可以控制除了你研究对象之外的所有因素，”威林厄姆博士说道。“在现实生活中，在课堂上就并非如此了。所有的因素都同时相互作用影响。”
But at the very least, the cognitive techniques give parents and students, young and old, something many did not have before: a study plan based on evidence, not schoolyard folk wisdom, or empty theorizing.
但是无论如何，认知技巧带给了家长和学生，年轻人和老年人以及许多人从未尝试过的东西：一个基于实证的学习计划，而非校园的“民间智慧”，或是空洞的理论。
为了方便大家读英语的时候更好的理解它的含义，十三幺对文章进行了编译啦！中英文对照进行朗读是不是更方便呢？学一门语言是一个长期的过程，而“读”在其中是最重要的一个部分。所以跟着十三幺练习英语口语的各位一定要坚持“每天起床第一句，先给自己打个气！每天睡前必一问，今天我更博学了嘛！”
Q&A:
a.幺儿，我读英语的时候不知道什么时候升降调，导致读出来的东西不是很native，特别奇怪。这个问题怎么解决啊？
答：其实说实话，我们学习英语的过程中从小到大老师教给了我们很多说英语的所谓技巧，但是我必须要说，有的老师教的真的不对啊。所以大家怎么练习口语呢？一个最好的方法就是shadow。没有什么固定的材料，但是TED的native speaker 的演讲、国外的一些public speaker的公开演讲、甚至是BBC CNN VoA都可以拿来做跟读，慢慢的你就会发现你的语音语调正常且标准了起来！(之后的每日练习中，十三幺会不定期的找一些TED等等演讲视频来跟大家一起鉴赏一下，学习一下啦～）
b.我现在很苦恼到底应该选择英音还是美音呢？
答：这个问题应该是英语学习者最常见的问题了，十三幺是纯美音的，因为从小上的是双语学校，老师都是美国人，所以自然而然的就是美音。对于大家来说，到底怎么来挑选练习英音还是美音呢？第一个也是最老生常谈的一个回答就是看兴趣。看看自己到底喜欢英语的gentleman的感觉还是美音的自然圆滑。第二点就是你可以先选择一个自己喜欢的练习和使用一段时间，因为有的人说了一段时间后就会发现自己真的不适合这个音，怎么读怎么奇怪。
最后十三幺想跟大家说，十三幺随时欢迎大家来私聊或是评论，发你练习的音频也好，问你想问的有关英语口语方面的问题也好，演讲方面的各种问题也好（十三幺尤其擅长演讲哦～欢迎来聊！），十三幺都会随时回复大家的呀。
记住哦：所有有关英语口语的问题，十三幺都极度开心和大家讨论。不管你是上班族还是学生族，不管你是初高中生还是大学生，十三幺准备好与你们一起加油，提高英语口语水平啦
十三幺的客栈，今日开张！！
编译：爷的十三幺、阿云
编辑：爷的十三幺