When it comes to advantages of rote learning, according to Oxford Learning these can be the ability to quickly recall basic facts and to help develop functional knowledge.
Therefore, no advanced level of language is going to take place without the foundation knowledge, that will allow students to pick up words from their individual memory “drawers” where it was carefully deposited when they were maybe in primary school and they had to learn just words. Later on, they learn the same words in songs and stories, therefore, in context. Another rote learning method is using drama in English classes, children learn English through plays, repeating the same bit again and again, till he/she remembers the structure.
These are all bricks in the road to functional language, the latter is something you need in different day-to-day situations, like greeting, introducing yourself, asking for or giving advice or apologizing. These also use a number of different exponents, or fixed expressions, which need to be learned by rote learning. Rote learning has been found to change the structure of the brain according to this article published on The School Run blog. By practising rote learning exercises, we are able to recall more information overall, and often, we can retain it for life.
When it comes to the disadvantages, the same article mentions that it can be repetitive and it is easy to lose focus. Therefore, it doesn’t allow for a deeper understanding of a subject.
Imogen Moore-Shelley, psychologist and co-founder of the Connections in Mind Foundation, which aims to help children to learn more effectively says that ‘To learn effectively, we need to be in a relaxed state with low stress, and the brain functions better if the learning is enjoyable and rewarding’.
Being able to quickly recall pieces of information is helpful, so we must always remember that things like the alphabet, days of the week and months of the year, passages of poetry or prose or lines for a play cannot be learned any other way. While this is true, Imogen also mentions that rote learning can be really quite boring, and some children can find it stressful, so the parts of the brain that are responsible for memory will not function as well as they could.
Which one shall we use then? Which one do you use?
