They say “A test a day will get you an A” and studies have proven[1] the impressive impact regular low-stakes quizzing can have on students’ exam results, with scores improving by up to a massive 25% – but why is testing your French regularly with an online French test just so good for learning?
There are in fact three vital things that an online French test can do to benefit your learning:
1. “Use it or lose it”: repetition reinforces memory
Rote learning can be boring but there’s no denying how effective simply repeating something is for recall. French testing is a more fun way to get the same benefits. Some things you can just learn by reading about them, but other things, like riding a bike or speaking French, require practice. You can read a book on riding a bike but until you get on a bike and fall off a few times you don’t know how to do it. It’s exactly the same with language skills: you must practice them – as often as possible – to get good at them. Taking a regular French test is a brilliant way to actively practise and remarkably good at reinforcing what you’ve learned.
2. Root out mistakes before they become habits
The phrase “practice makes perfect” is more accurately stated as “practice makes permanent“. It’s true of any skill that if you don’t pay attention you’ll end up practising errors and turning mistakes into habits (see Don’t practise your mistakes in French). It’s doubly true of a second language because you tend to think in English and then speak French, assuming you can translate literally. This sometimes works okay but more often than not, while you might be understood, you’ll be speaking terrible French. These are known as transference errors. A French grammar test will help isolate these, letting you know exactly where you’re going wrong.
3. Discover weaknesses and gaps so you can guide your studies
Sometimes you know what you don’t know. You can find that stuff out by looking. But there’s a much bigger domain called “what you don’t know that you don’t know.” If you don’t know, how can you find out? Again, a French test can help identify these gaps in your learning and guide your study.
The bottom line is, testing your French regularly is one of the most effective ways you can improve it.
Find out how good your French is right now: take a French test!
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1 McDaniel, Mark A et al. “Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and placement.” Journal of Educational Psychology 103.2 (2011): 399.
Author info
[Follow on Twitter: @gruffdavies] Despite the very Welsh name, Gruff is actually half French. Nowadays, he's a tech entrepreneur (and some-time novelist) but he used to be a physicist at Imperial College before getting hooked on inventing things. He has a special interest in language learning, speaks five languages to varying degrees of fluency and he often blogs about language learning, science, and technology. As well as co-founding Kwiziq, he is the author the Amazon best-selling SF thriller, The Looking Glass Club and the inventor of the Exertris gaming exercise-bike and Pidgin, a free online tool that makes drawing flow charts and relationship diagrams as quick and easy as describing them in pidgin English.