Adapting second language learning methods to brain plasticity levels

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23K18970
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Review Section	0110:Psychology and related fields
Research Institution	The University of Tokyo
Principal Investigator	Barbir Monika 東京大学, ニューロインテリジェンス国際研究機構, 特任研究員 (20977772)
Project Period (FY)	2023-08-31 – 2025-03-31
Project Status	Discontinued (Fiscal Year 2023)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,860,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥660,000) Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000) Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Keywords	Language acquisition / Online study / EEG study / Lifespan / Grammar learning / L2 acquisition / Grammar / Vocabulary / Metacognition
Outline of Research at the Start	We study how to adapt language teaching methods to learners outside of the critical period. Specifically, we will study the acquisition of grammar across ages. We will use EEG to measure neural responses and an online study to measure behavioural response.
Outline of Annual Research Achievements	In the current fiscal year, we were able to extract and analyse the sentence constructions we want to use in our experiments, from natural languages. The data and results on extracting and understanding the structures were presented at an international conference. We have also developed the online the experiment we plan to deploy and are working on implementing the behavioural+EEG experimental code. The results will help us understand how humans learn diverse languages across the lifespan. They are essential for creating better pedagogical methods for teaching second languages in classes and applications.
Current Status of Research Progress	Current Status of Research Progress 2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned. Reason We were able to create the stimuli for the experiments and get pilot versions of the studies running. We have some obstacles with loading time on the online study that might take some time to resolve. We feel we are on track to start testing soon.
Strategy for Future Research Activity	We need to finish the experiment codes and start testing participants. We have one engineer working on the online study. The computer we planned to use is too slow so we will need to buy a more performative one.