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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

 

 

 

plays an important role in the contemporary research of 
remembrance. 
 
2.1 Decay-Theory 
 
Ebbinghaus was extensively involved in the exploration of the 
memory and the brain. One of his first studies dealt with  the role 
of memory as to storage and forget the information. His 
considerable result of his investigation was  the correlation 
between the amount of learned knowledge and the amount of time 
invested. Moreover, he stated that the longer the time of the break 
is the more repetitions are needed. Ebbinghaus’ outcomes of his 
research contributed to the first theory of forgetting which was 
the decay theory. It says that “if something new is learned, a 
memory trace is formed. This trace is going to be decayed, if it is 
not used in the course of time, and by decaying of this trace 
forgetting takes place’’ (Weltens, 1987, p.25). 
 
2.2 Interference theory 
 
The Interference theory is considered as one of the most 
important theories of forgetting. “It indicates that prior, posterior 
or new learning information compete with already existing ones 
and therefore forgetting occurs. This inhibition can be divided 
into two types: the retroactive inhibition, where information 
acquired at a later point in time blocks the information that was 
acquired earlier. Proactive inhibition means that information 
acquired in the past can infer with new information’’ (Ecke, 2004, 
p.325). Thus, a blocking may appear that restrains the acquiring 
of the new objective item. 

2.3 Retrieval-failure hypothesis 

Nowadays, apart from decay and interference theory the retrieval-
failure assumption has become more and more popular and 
extensively accepted. According to Schöpper-Grabe (1998, p.237) 
it says that “the storage of information happens on different 
levels. Therefore, information or memory is not deleted, but 
rather, the access to the current level is blocked’’. Hence, the 
information is not available. Hansen refers to Loftus & Loftus 
(1976) characterize the process of forgetting which is compared 
to the situation when someone is : "[…] much like being unable 
to find something that we have misplaced somewhere" (1999, 
p.10).  
 
Cohen (1989) claims that an evidence of progressive retrieval is 
the learner’s sense of not being able to find anything. Therefore, 
the student is not able to utter anything that he or she used to bear 
in mind and as a result an incorrect form is used. De Bot 
&Waltens (1995) treat this period of time as the decisive element 
to measure how far the attrition has already proceeded. In order to 
understand the author’s investigation better it is essential to have 
a closer look at the model of education at the University where 
the research was carried out. 
 
3. The model of education at Jan Dlugosz University 
 
At the beginning it is important to point out that the Jan Dlugosz 
University is a public institution, with history that traces back to 
1971. Currently the University community is created by nearly 
8,200 students and over 700 academic staff members. The 
students can choose among over 50 specialities at five faculties. 
They can also take to study three foreign languages: English, 
German and Russian. All of them are conducted in the 
Department of Foreign Languages. 
 
In the first cycle the foreign language course lasts 120 hours and 
is carried out within four semesters. Most of the students start 
learning a foreign language either at the beginning of first 
semester of their studies or second. Therefore, some of them 
finish at the end of the second year or winter term of third year. 
The course ends with a final examination that proves the upper-
intermediate level (B2) in accordance with the Common 
European Framework of Reference for Languages. The 
Department of Foreign Languages uses a lot modern solutions 

that contribute substantially to the increase of the level of 
education.  

 

4. The research methodology in EFL context   

 

4.1. Initiation 
 
A didactic process has got two aspects. One aspect concerns the 
forms of teaching and is the subject of the methodology 
description, the second one deals with the essence of learning. 
Indeed methodology focuses on teachers' working process rather 
than the learners wherein the problematic issues are recognized 
fairly one-sided i.e. not having a reference for the reported facts 
and phenomena. Concurrently, the learner’s role in the teaching 
process is absolutely crucial for the effectiveness of this process 
and in consequence could not be omitted in the description of 
methodology, as well as too complex to content itself without an 
indication. Learners in the process of learning a foreign language 
are the object of the teaching process as well as the subject of 
learning proceedings.  
 
The student who is taking part in the teaching instruction 
undergoes compound systems and different conditions during the 
lesson. The learner as a taught subject  goes through a teacher’s 
control process and is set to receive information. On the other 
hand as a subject of  learning proceedings is organizing work on 
its own. The student is not only focused on teaching since it is an 
object of teacher’s control, monitoring and evaluation but also 
converge with learning as an organizer and a self-study 
conductor. 
 
As an English teacher who is mainly responsible for running a 
language classes I am also oblige to  keep checking and testing a 
group of students over a period of time to see if their made a 
progress in learning a foreign language. In our Foreign Languages 
Department students are entitled to enrol in one of the available 
courses. The size of the group is limited. It consists minimum of 
15 students and maximum 28. It is important to mention that the 
group is mix age, sex  and ability. Due to this fact I decided to 
investigate the learners’ skills development over a whole 
language course since I observed a decline of students’ second 
language skills especially after summer break which takes 3 
months.  
 
The experiment started in March 2014 and it finished in October 
2014. I had chosen two groups of Safety Engineering faculty. 
Both of them consisted of 15 students.  Before the experiment 
started they wrote a pre-test. It is also worth to mention that they 
were supposed to be at the same lave, namely B2 in accordance 
with the Common European Framework of Reference for 
Language. After summer term they were asked to take a post test. 
The last stage of this research was conducted after student’s 
holidays in October 2014. In order to understand a language 
attrition process it was essential to examine various hypothesis 
that attempt to explain how language memory changes over time.  
 
4.2. Hypothesis 

 

After the investigation and collecting the data, it could 
conceivably be hypothesised that the forgetting process will set 
immediately after summer break for students. This might be 
determined by the fact that two languages within the same mind 
are able to have an impact and interference in one another. 
Moreover, partial overlapping among two languages in the mind 
may appear. As it has been mentioned in the previous section 
each group is mixed sex, age and ability. Because of this, the null 
hypothesis (H0) assumes that these students with higher level of 
language competence will forget less after a break from a foreign 
language instruction.  The alternative hypothesis (H1) supposes 
that the occurrence of second language attrition will not ensue 
from learners’ language level of proficiency. According to the 
above assumptions it has been presumed that contact and the 
intensity with the target language cannot be the only variable 
causing language attrition. Different factors such as psychological 
(cognitive and biological), sociological ( attitude towards 
language and culture) and socioaffective factors ( orientation and 

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