The sixteenth rule in the 20 Rules for Formulating
Knowledge is “Context cues
simplify wording”. Dr Wozniak explains that you should feel free to include
personalised context hints in your flashcards to simplify them. A key point to
take away is that your flashcards are for you and should be as personalised as
possible, so having your own individual notes and context prompts is a good
thing.
The issue of context when learning with flashcards goes further than that,
though. Let's take a look at some issues relating to context in your Chinese
flashcards.s
Including context in flashcards
When making and maintaining your flashcards, you shouldn't hesitate to include
personal, idiosyncratic content in them that will aid the learning process. For
language learners like you and me, there's a temptation to try and make
flashcards pure and consistent. Doing that will probably not be helpful, whereas
including context cues will be. Your cards are there to help you individually,
not to be a generalised learning system anyone can pick up.
Context cues could be quick clarifications of the category on a vocabulary card,
like “(chengyu) an insignificant amount”. That's the simplest form (and you
probably do it already), but you can take it further by using a more personal
cue. For example, if your friend Mingchao happened to use that particular
chengyu in a memorable way in the library, your card could include “Mingchao
library”. It doesn't matter that this cue won't make sense to anyone else. You
have a vivid association with it and that will help you to learn more
effectively.
If the context cue can be in Chinese then all the better, but remember that it's
there primarily to improve your learning process.
Other context builders
As mentioned elsewhere, it's also good to use other types of media and content
as context cues or prompts in your flashcards. Google Images and Baidu Images
make it easy to get pictures to go in your flashcards, and doing so is highly
beneficial. You don't need to do it for every single card as that would slow you
down, but adding images to problematic cards can eliminate the issue quite
quickly.
Because you're using the image as a personal context cue, it doesn't need to be
something that everyone else would see as representing that word or phrase. If
it makes it more vivid and memorable for you, then anything goes.
If you have access to audio snippets for what you're learning, that can be great
to have on your flashcards too, as a context builder or as a prompt.
In the same vein, any mnemonics you're using should definitely go on the
flashcard. Images can also be there as mnemonics as opposed to being a picture
of the content in question. The goal is to make the learning process so
streamlined that you can power through in a fraction of the time it would take
to memorise the content by brute force.
You've probably noticed the central theme in most of Dr Wozniak's advice
throughout this series: learning is a personal process, and you should utilise
that to your advantage.
Isn't this cheating?
It may feel like adding these cues and nudges to your flashcards is cheating
yourself in the learning process because it makes everything easier. Isn't it
always better to challenge yourself as much as possible?
There is an element of truth in that attitude. After all, there is a line
somewhere between a context cue and simply giving you the correct response.
However, the principle is that it's better to build momentum and motivation by
moving rapidly through a lot of material. It's something akin to getting decent
equipment for sport. It makes the activity easier, but your athletic career will
likely go a lot further if you enjoy your progress and can keep hitting personal
bests, even if the “true” expert can succeed with any tool. Anything that helps
you reach that stage faster is a good thing.
How context can be a hindrance
Having understood the above, also be aware of the flip-side: context can be a
hidden crutch that hinders your development.
This happens most commonly when you find that you can recall material when
looking at flashcards, but not in real usage situations. Or, you might find that
you can recall things easily in the classroom, but not outside of it. This is
context-dependent learning, and it can be frustrating.
Context-dependent learning happens because your brain is picking up on other
cues that are not actually related to the material. A UI feature in the SRS
software or the appearance of a physical flashcard becomes a contextual cue, or
a poster in the classroom gets arbitrarily associated with what you're learning.
You're motivated to learn, and your mind is helpfully finding ways to make it
easier.
As with many obstacles to learning, the first step to address this problem is to
be aware of it and identify it. From there, you can try to resolve it.
The most obvious thing to do is to learn in a variety of contexts. As usual,
immersion environments tend to achieve this naturally because you'll encounter
the same material in different situations. Similarly, integrated courses can
help because you read, write, listen to and speak the material in several
different exercises.
Outside of those, you can study in different locations and at different times of
day, as well as getting a more varied learning diet by incorporating materials
from different sources. Finally, you can make targeted flashcards that cover the
problematic material in several different ways to try and defeat the dependence
on a single context.