Study examines how working moms in distance education navigate distractions and achieve academic success

Study examines how working moms in distance education navigate distractions and achieve academic success
Credit history: College of Maine

A major percentage of college students in the United States are mothers and fathers. According to reports, about 20{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of undergraduate college students and a lot more than a 3rd of graduate college students are raising young children less than the age of 18, with mothers accounting for much more than 50 {af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of the two populations.

To get a far better understanding of the experiences of these learners, scientists at the College of Maine University of Instruction and Human Advancement posted an write-up in the Journal of Computing in Greater Education that functions circumstance scientific tests of 6 academically significant-attaining doing work moms enrolled in distance education courses in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their conclusions advise that successful study course layout, generating use of prior expertise, scaffolding instruction and encouraging social presence can mitigate interruptions and lower the cognitive load of operating moms who are college or university learners.

All 4 of the study’s authors are working moms and a few of them are graduate students. Direct creator Anne Fensie is the mom of 3 youngsters, two with distinctive needs. She’s an adjunct professor of laptop or computer science at the University of Maine at Augusta and a doctoral scholar in increased instruction at the College of Maine.

“My initially attempt at doctoral reports when my children ended up younger was not profitable,” she says. “I struggled with psychological overall health at the time. With the enable of my loved ones, I have since structured my residence setting to safeguard my get the job done time, even though there continue to be interruptions. I did my master’s software in a hybrid structure and I’m in a position to do significantly of my doctoral studies remotely.”

Co-creator Teri St. Pierre has three small children less than 18. She’s an assistant professor of mathematics and director of Early Faculty at the College of Maine at Presque Isle, as effectively as a doctoral university student in larger education and learning at UMaine.

“I earned just one graduate diploma live and a person totally on line,” St. Pierre suggests. “I’ve been ready to construction my part of ‘student’ in the dwelling rather with a home business office and external guidance. As a night owl, I’m in a position to operate late in the evening when my husband and children are not a distraction.”

Jennifer Jain, one more co-writer, is the mother of a teenager and a younger grownup, who both equally are living at residence with her, her spouse and a puppy dog. An interdisciplinary Ph.D. university student, who also will work element-time as a investigate assistant at the UMaine Heart on Aging, Jain has also labored as a college lecturer and a recreational therapist in mental health. She delayed her doctoral studies thanks to her husband’s occupation and is now navigating relatives, do the job and school.

“Acquiring time to do schoolwork is a obstacle,” Jain says. “I are likely to juggle get the job done and faculty in the mornings, when there are less interruptions. I had less time in the afternoons, when there had been additional distractions. In the night hrs, when there are no distractions, I often fall asleep at the pc.”

Fensie, St. Pierre, Jain and the study’s fourth creator, UMaine associate professor of curriculum, assessment and instruction Asli Sezen-Barrie, say their individual encounters served them identify with the worries and distractions confronted by the individuals in their research.

They interviewed faculty members who taught the distance programs that the university student individuals were enrolled in, as very well as the doing work mother college students them selves. The students also employed Zoom to file their study sessions for at least a fifty percent-hour once a week in the course of the analyze time period. The researchers also carried out weekly phone or Zoom test-ins with the learners to debrief their research sessions and to clarify what the researchers experienced observed.

Just after examining the interviews and research observations, the scientists wrote situation research for the 6 working moms who participated in the challenge. Each and every circumstance review discusses the troubles, supports and approaches the doing the job mothers experienced as they took portion in length education courses.

For example, Rebecca, a 35–44-12 months-old lady in an undergraduate organization software, who was enrolled in a finance class through the review, labored total-time, experienced three school-aged kids, and shared household duties with her husband. With no personal space in her property to do schoolwork, Rebecca “scheduled time primarily based on the type of endeavor and the amount of interruptions she could deal with.” If she actually essential to concentrate—studying for an exam, for example—she would often function in her automobile.

The review took put through the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributors reported possessing each optimistic and adverse impacts on their life at house and faculty. 1 performing mom explained the pandemic encouraged her to go back to university whole-time. Many others said it designed it challenging to deal with time and manage focus on their schoolwork.

An overarching theme drawn from the interviews and scenario studies was the have to have for efficient study course style and design to guidance length learners, particularly all those who are moms and dads. The authors establish particular procedures that length studying faculty and college students can use to cut down the cognitive calls for and interruptions that can hamper finding out. For case in point, they explore the significance of encouraging social existence in their online courses. A single participant who was component of an on-line social operate program talked about how “the small group that I fashioned within just my cohort has been a godsend.”

Other methods consist of scaffolding instruction, or breaking down intricate finding out concepts into scaled-down, extra manageable responsibilities, and applying students’ prior expertise, as perfectly as related and genuine discovering functions.

Nevertheless the analyze centered on substantial-achieving pupils, the researchers argue that the strategies “could be advantageous for all adult learners in distance education.”

Additional details:
Anne Fensie et al, Engaged studying in the course of distraction: a scenario review of thriving doing work moms in distance instruction, Journal of Computing in Increased Education and learning (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s12528-023-09359-

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College of Maine


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How online teaching can promote empathy and student success (opinion)

A obtaining from a report that I and a co-author performed on crisis distant instruction at Stanford College throughout the first two decades of COVID-19 to begin with surprised us. Considering that the report’s publication past Oct, nevertheless, we have provided a dozen or so interviews and displays sharing that getting, and the responses have convinced us that a thing distinctive transpired not just at Stanford but also at several other colleges and universities.

The finding is this: in spite of on line education’s name for becoming impersonal, the remote training successes that emerged at Stanford in the course of the pandemic could assist lay the groundwork for a new emphasis on empathy as a driver of academic success, like how greatest to include pupil voices into programs. Constructive interactions among learners and instructors enjoy a large position in mastering, and scholar well-staying is what enables learners to demonstrate up in classrooms completely ready to learn and engage. Therefore, instructors who empathize with their learners and are able to cultivate inner thoughts of belongingness in the classroom will see that their pupils are far more productive learners.

Current stories from our friends at Bowdoin School, Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Engineering have arrived at very similar conclusions. They have all highlighted how the original troubles in deploying on-line tools led speedily to an awareness of the want for far more pupil-centered pedagogical procedures.

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Definitely, unexpected emergency distant teaching proved difficult for colleges and universities. Our report at Stanford notes that we professional an uptick in tutorial integrity violations. MIT’s examine observes how isolating digital discovering environments were, Bowdoin’s identifies scholar participation concerns like monitor exhaustion and “chaotic property environments,” and Harvard’s indicators how much faculty have required to rethink traditional approaches to teaching. As the experiences totally detail, individuals worries to learning had been accompanied by specifically serious impacts on minimal-revenue and underrepresented minority pupils, a spike in student strain and psychological overall health issues, and college student frustrations and worries in excess of concurrent earth functions like Black Lives Make a difference and the 2020 presidential election.

Nonetheless, all the studies counsel that the common notion that crisis distant instruction was a failure is, at very best, one particular-sided. They concur that there is no going again to the pre-pandemic campus-certain understanding practical experience. Without a doubt, collectively, the reports place to three strategies that faculties and universities can embrace a new chapter in larger instruction: one particular that redefines the associations that institutions and faculty associates have with their students.

Listen to what learners want, but consider it with a grain of salt. Even though learners have opinions for and versus on the net mastering and its efficacy, the evidence indicates that most want it to adhere close to because of the comfort it affords. For instance, pupils at Stanford and MIT say they liked the improved versatility throughout the period of crisis distant instruction, which include the capacity to go to on-line office environment several hours and view recorded lectures online when they experienced to skip course thanks to sickness. Some Stanford college students are even petitioning their professors for the privilege.

That reported, electronic accessibility to mastering products by yourself doesn’t essentially equate to enhanced understanding results. For instance, latest literature suggests that while students say they want recorded lectures, they are inclined not to enjoy them. Instructors hardly ever give assistance on how to use them proficiently, and college students might be extra probably to disengage and multitask when seeing them, which can further hinder discovering. Recorded content can strengthen comprehension, but only when correctly scaffolded and only when pupils see it as a nutritional supplement to—not a substitution for—synchronous instruction.

In other words: just since students like sure elements of on the net teaching doesn’t suggest they are exceptional for their discovering. Learners involve strategies that problem them to the right diploma in get to boost finding out, a strategy College of California, Los Angeles, psychology professors Robert and Elizabeth Bjork contact “desirable challenges.” We know a ton about what pupils enjoy (or do not) about online mastering, but not a complete whole lot about the facets of on-line discovering that most effective assistance student finding out outcomes. Establishments that place weight on the latter, relatively than the previous, may well have far more success.

The meteoric use of ChatGPT by faculty in lecture rooms (and by students on their assessments) is just just one case in point of technological advancements in AI that could either assist or hinder scholar discovering, depending on the manner of shipping and delivery. A modern poll of Stanford pupils revealed that 17 percent used the software on their drop quarter 2022 final exams. Institutions such as the College of California, Santa Cruz the College of Pennsylvania and the University of Massachusetts are already crowdsourcing new assessment procedures for AI generative tools, acknowledging the require for technological know-how literacy and figuring out how current teaching techniques can be adjusted to account for their dependable use when selling program discovering outcomes.

Develop a lifestyle of empathy in instructing and learning. The pandemic underscored that academic local community making does not take place by natural means in online environments. It has to be intentional. In the course of emergency remote teaching, instructors could no more time think that informal social areas such as the time top up to the start and quickly next an in-individual lecture, when pupils usually strategy instructors and a single an additional with issues, are ample to make community. Pupil interactions with school transformed, much too, as prospects for networking and cultivating relationships were missing.

All those incredibly major challenges to college student properly-becoming necessary considerate answers. Missing in-individual chances for engagement, learners turned to digital classroom communities for aid. Even though all those endeavours did not usually overcome the reduction of deal with-to-facial area relationship, they provided pupils with a new and often prosperous way to communicate with their professors. The Bowdoin report notes that during the initial wave of the pandemic, 58 percent of pupils said they relied on digital business several hours, with 95 percent reporting “being content or incredibly contented with this resource.” What’s more, at Harvard, 82 percent of school are thinking about “adding instruments and methods from distant teaching to their in-man or woman lessons,” suggesting that electronic applications are right here to remain.

The four experiences on the period of time of unexpected emergency remote teaching spotlight empathic training, which will involve developing a feeling of shared connection and knowledge between learners and school, as a person technique to addressing these worries. At MIT, these instructors who were capable to establish a culture of “community, well-getting and belonging” in their virtual school rooms observed enhanced educational outcomes.

For instance, the MIT physics department piloted a peer mentoring application in slide 2020 for college students enrolled in an introductory physics training course who struggled on their very first midterm in hopes of improving “the self-efficacy and STEM identity of these college students, which is to say their very well-currently being and sense of belonging.” The system offers academic assist in addition to creating community in the physics division, “in which the pupil mentors are companions with faculty and personnel in the (academic) mission of the office.” Because of to its good results, MIT has now expanded the application to 5 courses.

In addition, at Stanford, the college presented education and means for instructors on cultivating inclusive studying environments in their courses as a result of resurrection of its (then) defunct Instructing Commons, a college-dealing with on the web teaching and mastering repository devoted to giving curated written content, including teaching guides, article content (like how-tos, pursuits and instructor interviews), as well as antiracist pedagogies to help empathic educating procedures.

As the pandemic increased the mental pressure on a generation of college learners who ended up previously reporting record degrees of melancholy, stress and anxiousness, the practical experience with unexpected emergency remote education and learning drove house how larger instruction establishments ought to give much more aid for their students. Pupil mental wellness is an crisis, and instructors, no matter if they want to be or not, are very first responders. College associates can perform a critical job as empathic listeners by presenting standard verify-ins, referring college students to institutional mental health solutions when acceptable and staying aware of the emotional toll online mastering may well be having on students.

At Stanford, for instance, flexible mental well being services—such as virtual treatment and coaching appointments and effectively-staying coaches who leverage empathic counseling to assist scholar mental health—provide scientific and holistic scaffolding outside of the classroom.

The MIT report notes that instructors can boost empathy in digital lecture rooms in a number of uncomplicated approaches. For occasion, instructors can think about implementing “start of class welcoming tactics,” which includes 5-minute university student examine-ins that request college students to describe by themselves with “a slide or a just one-minute video, permitting them to be innovative in choosing and detailing photos with metaphorical or own significance.” The report highlights that this “creates a room and time where pupils can share their struggles and joys [and] contributes to their effectively-getting and belonging.” Students who really feel protected in the classroom are far more likely to have interaction in resourceful issue-resolving and discussion.

Invite learners to be co-designers of mastering. During crisis distant instruction, college students ended up empowered to choose manage of their very own understanding in a way that they weren’t earlier. At Bowdoin and Stanford, the pandemic facilitated the increase of educating guidance structures that engaged pupils in new roles as academic technologists and class co-designers. That transpired 1st out of requirement, due to a lack of instructors and selected studying designers to changeover classes from in-individual to on the net and later due to the fact of students’ expertise in building on the web communities. School could not be everywhere you go at after and/or they needed real-time help in coming up with breakout rooms, checking a Zoom chat or redesigning an evaluation. As a end result, students—some for the extremely initially time—were available a search guiding the tutorial curtain and provided an opportunity to provide responses on syllabus and program style.

The Stanford Introductory Seminars application also formulated a new purpose for pupils in spring 2020 recognised as system enhancement assistants (CDAs), responsible for supporting college with class style and design and implementation in compact, dialogue-based mostly elective writing programs for first and second-year pupils. In contrast to teaching assistants, CDA roles are explicitly not permitted to get on obligations that would ordinarily be delegated to a TA, together with “grading, evaluating student function or having the place of an absent teacher.” As a substitute of serving as subject subject experts, CDAs are trained to offer back-stop logistical, technological and pedagogical assist for on the net courses, aiding to endorse equitable virtual classroom environments and serving in an advocate role for pupils.

Online finding out illustrates the power of instructing as a team activity, showcasing the collective ability of instructors and teaching assistants, course designers, tutorial technologists, and college students in crafting a significant mastering surroundings for their friends. The “sage” does not require to depart the stage relatively, they ought to be welcoming an ensemble forged.

And college students say that their classes are better for it. For instance, pupil digital ambassadors who have interaction with college users on training course style at Stanford report experience more connected to the class content material, their instructors and their friends. They are also more enthusiastic about academe and instructional technological innovation as possible occupation paths.

Pandemic distant teaching, even though imperfect, was, frankly, a miraculous experiment. Educators became a lot more informed of the needs of their pupils and, typically working on the fly, did their most effective to address them. That work is continuing, with a new thrust to determine what will greatest help students’ studying shifting forward. How can we advertise empathy in all of our courses—online, hybrid and in individual? We have now embarked on intentional on the net instructing and studying style and design that requires into account the complete of the university student expertise.

Massachusetts Sports Betting Start a Success, Online Books Prep Launch

Posted on: February 3, 2023, 08:55h. 

Very last up to date on: February 3, 2023, 02:45h.

Massachusetts athletics betting began this week at the state’s 3 commercial casinos. State gaming regulators declare the to start with couple days of wagering have been glitch-free of charge.

Massachusetts Sports Betting Start a Success, Online Books Prep Launch
Three-time Super Bowl champion Julian Edelman areas the initial bet at the WynnBet Sportsbook at Encore Boston Harbor in Everett, Mass., on Jan. 31, 2023. Massachusetts sports activities betting started without having challenge at the state’s 3 commercial casinos. (Picture: Encore Boston Harbor)

Massachusetts legalized sports betting previous August. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) resolved to let the state’s brick-and-mortar casinos to open their sportsbooks before on the internet functions start.

The WynnBet Sportsbook at Encore Boston Harbor, BetMGM Sportsbook at MGM Springfield, and Barstool Sportsbook at Plainridge Park debuted their sports betting services this past Tuesday, January 31. MGC Executive Director Karen Wells informed the commission that the 1st 48 hours of authorized, controlled sports gambling went easily.

“The launch of the sporting activities wagering at the retail web-sites, at the a few casinos, was successful,” mentioned Wells. “I have not listened to of any troubles or any challenges that have appear to light-weight, either technological or normally.”

“So much, so excellent,” Wells concluded.

Large Initially Bet

Sportsbook openings have turn into a significant offer in newly legalized sports activities betting states. It’s customary for celebs and politicians to place the initially legal wagers, which was definitely the scenario this 7 days in Massachusetts.

At Encore, previous New England Patriots star Julian Edelman, who gained three Super Bowls whilst taking part in in Foxboro with Tom Brady, walked by way of the casino flooring with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist stuffed with $11K in money. When he arrived at the WynnBet Sportsbook, he put it all on the Boston Celtics winning this year’s NBA Finals.

When lots of initially bets are little wagers, most politicians chorus from demonstrating too considerably enthusiasm about expanded gaming, Edelman went huge. With the Celtics’ title odds at +360 at the time of the bet, Edelman would net $39,600 if Boston wins the championship.

WynnBet in January declared Edelman was joining its expertise roster as a brand name ambassador.

In Springfield, Mayor Domenic Sarno and Boston Bruins hockey legend Ray Bourque did the honors of putting the to start with bets. No particulars of their bets were being delivered.

And in Plainville, one more former Patriots star — linebacker Rob Ninkovich, who gained two Super Bowls with New England — produced the initial wager at Barstool. Ninkovich took the Boston Bruins to earn the NFL Stanley Cup at +500 odds. How a great deal he wagered was not unveiled.

Marching Towards On-line Launch

With the retail sportsbooks up and managing easily, the MGC’s focus is on the forthcoming start of on the internet functions.

Alongside with WynnBet, BetMGM, and Barstool, the MGC has uncovered 6 interactive sportsbooks suited for operating on line wagering. They are DraftKings, FanDuel, Bally’s Interactive, PointsBet, Betway, and Betr.

In states the place in-particular person and online sports activities betting is permitted, a lot more than 80{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of the over-all manage — or dollars wagered — is facilitated on the net. The MGC is concentrating on an “early March” launch for on the net sportsbooks.

When that usually means on the internet sportsbooks will not be open in time for the February 12 Super Bowl amongst the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, Massachusetts sports activities bettors need to have on-line sportsbook access in time for March Insanity. The annual men’s university basketball match guidelines off on March 14.

UCF Researchers Receive $2.6 Million Grant to Equip English-learner Educators, Students for Success

Among an inflow of faculty-age Spanish-talking learners relocating to Florida and the state’s ongoing teacher lack, the need for proof-dependent instructional tactics benefiting English learners is higher than at any time.

It’s a resource hole that four UCF researchers hope to help fill through a new challenge termed the English-Learner Infused Education and Encounter Program for Early and Most important Learning Educators (ELITE).

The do the job is funded by a five-yr, $2.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Workplace of English Language Acquisition.

In accordance to the Bureau of Economic and Business enterprise Exploration, 60{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of Spanish-speaking students who recently moved to Florida from Puerto Rico have settled in the bigger Central Florida area. Of those people, 40{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} are staying served by community district colleges.

Meanwhile, stats from the Florida Education Association display that the state is working with 5,294 instructor vacancies and 4,631 noninstructional vacancies.

The Job ELITE team is comprised of scientists from UCF’s College or university of Local community Innovation and Education and College of Arts and Humanities. The team will just take a multifaceted tactic to supply educators throughout a few school districts — Orange, Pinellas and St. Lucie — with skilled mastering and individualized coaching to tackle vital tutorial procedures that market university readiness, literacy and accomplishment in English learners from volunteer prekindergarten (VPK) to third grade.

It will also equip the educators with the resources to advance family and local community involvement in a culturally and linguistically responsive method.

“The impetus for the job was the need to have to guidance instructors as they are functioning with English learners academically, but we also require to assistance them as they are operating with English learners’ mom and dad, families and the community,” says Marjorie Ceballos ’00 ’06MPA ’16EdD, principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Educational Management and Larger Training. “Our emphasis is to assist supply teachers with equipment and study-dependent procedures that they can use in the classroom to progress English learners’ literacy and academic accomplishment.”

Florin Mihai, co-principal investigator and professor in the Office of Contemporary Languages and Literatures, claims there is an academic achievement hole amongst English learners and non-English learners given that the former confront the problem of concurrently learning language and tutorial material.

“If we equip English-learner lecturers in VPK by means of third quality with investigation-primarily based equipment that will accelerate English learners’ language acquisition, greatly enhance their language proficiency and produce their literacy, their tutorial discovering will drastically boost because they will concentrate on academic written content acquisition unhindered by restricted English-language proficiency,” Mihai says. “We want to concentrate on language and literacy advancement in the earliest decades attainable to make sure a effective faculty knowledge for our English learners all the way to their significant university graduation.”

The undertaking has a a few-pronged technique to attain its aims. The to start with is to prepare 220 really competent lecturers, paraprofessionals and academic leaders who perform with English learners in the Central Florida space through a 72-hour ELITE Qualified Studying software.

The first cohort of roughly 30 scholars will commence the method in Summer season 2023, with four extra cohorts — each comprising in between 40 to 50 students — to stick to by way of 2027.

The second consists of raising mother or father, family members and neighborhood engagement by means of building and utilizing Bilingual Village and Mum or dad Ambassadors packages at 10 faculties in the partner districts.

The Bilingual Village partners with community corporations that utilize bilingual employees, giving English learners and their households an opportunity to observe both equally their home and next languages in a supportive atmosphere. In the meantime, mother or father ambassadors actively assistance their English learners in school and enable market faculty or district plans, services, activities and actions to other English learners’ households and group customers.

“When families and communities are concerned in education and learning, college students benefit immensely,” Mihai states. “We want to make certain that the mastering proceeds at property and in the neighborhood.”

The third tactic focuses on sustainability and maintaining the pipeline of transitioning challenge products and assets to the companion school districts.

This will be attained by training 40 of the task alumni who will proceed the software inside of their school districts by means of a 36-hour Teach-the-Trainer application. Carrying out so will equip just about every school district with the expertise and methods desired to preserve the experienced mastering program further than the lifespan of the grant.

“All of these different components are significant contributors to growing English learners’ accomplishment,” Ceballos suggests. “The Qualified Understanding, the Bilingual Village and the Father or mother Ambassadors (programs) all are inputs to help assist English learners in our colleges and communities. Every single 1 assists bolster those people bridges amongst the faculty, families and the neighborhood.”

Educators in companion districts interested in participating in the application should make contact with Ceballos at [email protected].

Analysis Crew Credentials

Ceballos joined UCF in 2018 as an assistant professor of educational leadership in the Department of Academic Leadership and Higher Education and learning. She acquired her bachelor’s in social science training, master’s in public administration and doctorate in academic management from UCF. She has obtained in excess of $2 million in education grants.

Mihai is co-principal investigator and professor of training English as a foreign language in the Division of Modern-day Languages and Literatures, which he joined in 2006. He earned his doctorate in multilingual multicultural instruction from Florida Point out University.

Joyce Nutta is co-principal investigator and professor of English for speakers of other languages schooling in the School of Trainer Education. She earned her doctorate in next language acquisition from the University of South Florida. Nutta joined UCF in 2007 and has gained more than $7 million in analysis and instruction grants.

Vassiliki Zygouris-Coe is co-principal investigator and professor of looking at training in the Faculty of Trainer Education and learning. She received her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the College of Florida and has been a college member considering that 1999. She has received in excess of $9 million in exterior funding.

Hoping to learn another language in the new year? Polyglots may hold the key to success | Language

In February, days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the journalist Philip Crowther went viral for a series of dispatches from Kyiv. In a video he posted to Twitter, viewed more than 25m times, Crowther reported fluently in English, Luxembourgish, Spanish, Portuguese, French and German.

To anyone who has grown up in a largely monolingual country, Crowther’s polyglot abilities may seem impressive, even impossible. Despite there being several hundred languages spoken in Australia, 2021 census data showed that 77.3{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of Australians only spoke English at home.

But in Luxembourg, where Crowther was educated, speaking at least four languages is common: those who are native to the country speak Luxembourgish at home, are educated in German and French from primary school onwards, and learn English in secondary school.

Speaking multiple languages is common in European countries, and at least half the world’s population is estimated to be bilingual.

“In order to be multilingual as a native speaker, you just have to be lucky,” says Prof Ghil’ad Zuckermann, the chair of linguistics and endangered languages at the University of Adelaide. Zuckermann is himself fluent in 13 languages and can read “maybe 50”.

For those who want to pick up a new language in 2023 or are disheartened by slow progress despite longstanding Duolingo streaks, are there tips from multilingual experts that can make learning easier – or is there something innate that gives polyglots an effortless advantage?

Child’s play

When it comes to language learning, linguistics research tells us that generally the earlier it happens the better. Children learn to speak languages with less detectable foreign accents, says Mark Antoniou, an associate professor at Western Sydney University.

Linguists distinguish multiple language acquisition as being either simultaneous (as is often the case in children) or sequential (as can occur if someone migrates later in life). “As you move away from simultaneous to … someone who acquires their second language in adolescence or early adulthood, or even in middle age, we tend to see the accentedness of their speech, the gaps in their knowledge and so forth, become larger,” Antoniou says.

Perceptual attunement, the ability to discriminate between sounds of one’s native language, begins in the first year of life. Research in infants has found that Japanese six-month-olds can distinguish between r and l sounds – as in rock and lock – but the ability to differentiate them is lost by around 11 months. “In Japanese, the r and l sounds don’t tell words apart, so it’s not important for you to know that distinction,” Antoniou says.

A study of Dutch adults who had been born in Korea but adopted to the Netherlands as infants, some at as young as three to five months old, showed that – although they had effectively forgotten the Korean they had heard decades earlier – they could distinguish unfamiliar Korean consonants significantly faster than others. “Early exposure to spoken language, even in the first half-year of life, leaves traces that can facilitate later relearning”, the researchers found.

There is also evidence to suggest that, depending on the languages, people who are bilingual are more adept at learning a third language compared with monolingual individuals.

If you don’t have the good fortune of being brought up bi- or multilingual, it’s never too late to learn, even if it means you might not sound like a native speaker. There are brain benefits, for one: studies have repeatedly found that people who are bilingual tend to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four to five years later than those who speak only one language. A review Antoniou conducted found “research strongly suggests that bilingual experience delays the onset of neurodegenerative disease”.

Learn shamelessly

The most important factor for learning languages, Zuckermann says, is motivation: wanting to be able to speak Lithuanian to a partner’s parents, for example, or a philosopher wanting to read Nietzsche or Frege in the original German.

Another tip is to learn shamelessly. “You should not be afraid of making mistakes, otherwise you will not progress,” he says.

Zuckermann is one of a small group of people worldwide known as hyperpolyglots – those who can fluently speak upwards of 11 languages. He has published academic papers, his website lists, in “English, Israeli (reclaimed Hebrew), Italian, Yiddish, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic”. Some hyperpolyglots have learned to speak foreign languages at seemingly native-level proficiency – which is how Zuckermann feels about his Italian, even though he learned it after puberty.

There are other useful language-learning traits that are less easily controllable – Zuckermann believes that musicality (he can remember arias from operas after having heard them once) and an outstanding memory are also necessary.

Are there biological features that make people innately better or worse than others at acquiring languages? The short answer, Antoniou says, is we don’t know. Hyperpolyglots are not well studied because of how rare their abilities are. But, he says, “there has to be some sort of brain difference in order to have such an affinity for learning languages”.

A postmortem analysis of the brain of Emil Krebs, a German polyglot who spoke more than 60 languages, found significant differences in the Broca’s area, a region of the brain key to language processing. Krebs, who died in 1930, reportedly learned Armenian in nine weeks.

All this might leave the average adult learner feeling slightly despondent. But Kevin Robb, a self-described “language enthusiast” in Bethania, Queensland, says there’s no great secret to learning one or many languages – that it all comes down to practice.

His approach has been to get his hands on the right materials, study for at least one hour every day “even if you don’t feel like it”, watch YouTube language videos and ask questions in online groups.

Robb doesn’t describe himself as a polyglot. “I’m really only fluent in English, Esperanto and Scots, and I can get through in Afrikaans,” he says.

But Robb has written Wikipedia articles about his hometown of Barraba, New South Wales, in Esperanto, Afrikaans, Zulu, French, Scots, literary Welsh, Swedish, Swahili, Malay, Spanish, European Portuguese and Volapük, a constructed language that predates Esperanto.

“I also learned Māori, Tok Pisin … and Indonesian as I was curious about our neighbouring countries,” he adds.

Prof Ghil’ad Zuckermann has been working with the Barngarla community in South Australia to revive their language
Prof Ghil’ad Zuckermann has been working with the Barngarla community in South Australia since 2011 to revive their language

Reviving the ‘sleeping beauties’

Zuckermann says the older he gets, the less motivated he is to learn a language “for the sake of the gain”. What now drives him – what he describes as his ikigai, a Japanese concept akin to the French raison d’être – is work in the field of language revival.

Originally from Israel, Zuckermann is applying lessons learned from the revival of Hebrew – a language not spoken as a mother tongue for some 1,700 years – to the reclamation of Aboriginal languages and cultures. Since 2011 he has been working with the Barngarla community in South Australia to revive their language, whose last native speaker died in 1964.

Of more than 330 First Nations languages spoken pre-colonisation, Zuckermann estimates that 97{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of them were “killed through linguicide”, or turned into what he describes as “sleeping beauties”.

Prof Rachel Nordlinger, the director of the research unit for Indigenous language at the University of Melbourne, says multilingualism among First Nations people was common prior to colonisation. “Multilingualism was valued and supported, and still is, in Indigenous culture and world views,” she says, noting that in some communities in northern Australia, a single conversation can take place in three to four languages.

Nordlinger criticises what she sees as a “mindset of monolingualism” in government and broader Australian culture, a view shared by many of the people interviewed. “Our school systems don’t really encourage the learning of other languages in any detailed way,” Nordlinger says.

When the minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, spoke to Indonesians in Indonesian in June, the address was widely covered. Much fanfare was also made about the multilingualism of Sam Lim when he was elected as a Labor MP in May.

Arguably, both politicians attracted attention because their language abilities were deemed unusual – but perhaps this is changing as Australia’s parliament becomes more diverse.

“No one denies that it’s important to be able to speak English if you’re going to have all the opportunities in Australia, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of other languages,” Nordlinger says.

“We have all these people who come to Australia with all this other language knowledge, and we could value that and … support them or Indigenous people in maintaining their other languages as well.”