I often write about research studies from various field and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature:

How To Speak Like A Native: The surprising truth about learning a foreign language: accent isn’t the most important thing is by Annie Murphy Paul at TIME Magazine. She reports on a study that finds:

Pronunciation can be learned—but it should be learned with the goal of communicating easily with others, not with achieving a textbook-perfect accent. Adult students of language should be guided by the “intelligibility principle,” not the old “nativeness principle.” As Derwing and Munro note, “even heavily accented speech can be highly comprehensible.”

This is not new to any ESL/EFL teacher, but a little research to back us up can’t hurt.

I’ve previously posted about this study that showed Being Bilingual Boosts Brainpower, but Breaking News English has actually made it into a lesson accessible to English Language Learners. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning The Advantages To Being Bilingual.

The significance of self-control is by Angela Duckworth and has lots of good annotations. I’m adding it to The Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control.

Co-operative learning: what makes group-work work? is by Robert Slavin, and provides a good overview of cooperative learning research. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Cooperative Learning Ideas.

CEOs and the Candle Problem is a new article describing an old experiment about motivation and the ineffectiveness of incentives. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students.

Understand Uncertainty in Program Effects
is a report by Sarah Sparks over at Education Week. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret Education Research.

I’ve shared research on chewing gum in The Best Posts On How To Prepare For Standardized Tests (And Why They’re Bad). Here are two other related posts I’m adding there:

Does chewing gum help you concentrate? Maybe briefly. is by Dan Willingham.

Can chewing gum before a test improve score? is by Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post.

Talking to Yourself: Not So Crazy After All is by Annie Murphy Paul at TIME. It sort of fits in with My Best Posts On Helping Students “Visualize Success.”

Here are a couple of studies that aren’t particularly new, but they are new to me. I’m adding them both to The Best Posts About The Power Of Light Touches In The Classroom:

Why is a touch on the arm so persuasive?

The power of a light touch on the arm