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The Bridge Method

English taught with your own language as support, every new word marked, and reviewed on the right day. Each principle rests on published research; the numbers in the app are our choices, to be calibrated with data.

  1. 01

    A bridge from your language

    Each phrase carries the common mistake speakers of your language make: a false friend, word order, a missing article. Focusing on form, comparing languages and translating, helps retention.

    Laufer & Girsai 2008; Jahangard 2022; Cook 2001; Odlin 1989; Swan & Smith 2001

  2. 02

    Chunks, not loose words

    Speech is built from ready-made sequences like "nice to meet you". What you review is the chunk inside the sentence it came from.

    Lewis 1993; Wray 2002; Boers & Lindstromberg 2009

  3. 03

    Every new word comes marked

    Stories use words already taught and bring new ones marked and translated. Before the next episode, the app estimates how much you remember of the words it reuses and suggests a review when that is low.

    Hu & Nation 2000; Laufer & Ravenhorst-Kalovski 2010; van Zeeland & Schmitt 2013

  4. 04

    Remembering is retrieving

    You write in English from your own language and see word by word where your sentence differs from the right one.

    Roediger & Karpicke 2006; Swain 1985, 1995; Schmidt 1990

  5. 05

    Repeat at the right time

    Each phrase returns when your odds of recalling it drop to about 90%, scheduled by FSRS, the spaced repetition algorithm Anki has offered since 2023. Miss it and it comes back in the same session.

    Cepeda et al. 2006, 2008; Ye, Su & Cao 2022; Su et al. 2023

  6. 06

    Four strands in balance

    Listening, study, speaking and fluency share the time. If one falls behind in the week, the day's plan brings it back.

    Nation 2007; Nation & Newton 2009

  7. 07

    Fluency and pronunciation that matter

    Shadowing and the 4/3/2 technique build speed. Pronunciation focuses on what affects being understood, and recorded audio never leaves your device.

    Maurice 1983; Nation 1989; Hamada 2016; Munro & Derwing 1995, 2006; Jenkins 2000; Field 2005

How the pieces fit together

Each piece on its own already exists: graded readers have controlled vocabulary for decades, review apps estimate memory, and good teachers teach each language's typical mistakes. Lirk puts the three together: the memory of each phrase feeds the estimate of how much of the next episode you will recognise, and each phrase carries the common mistake of your language.

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References

  • Boers, F., & Lindstromberg, S. (2009). Optimizing a Lexical Approach to Instructed Second Language Acquisition. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Browne, C., Culligan, B., & Phillips, J. (2013, updated 2023). The New General Service List, version 1.2. CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380.
  • Cepeda, N. J., Vul, E., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2008). Spacing effects in learning: A temporal ridgeline of optimal retention. Psychological Science, 19(11), 1095-1102.
  • Cook, V. (2001). Using the first language in the classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(3), 402-423.
  • Field, J. (2005). Intelligibility and the listener: The role of lexical stress. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 399-423.
  • Hamada, Y. (2016). Shadowing: Who benefits and how? Language Teaching Research, 20(1), 35-52.
  • Hu, M., & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403-430.
  • Jahangard, A. (2022). Conceptual replication of Laufer & Girsai (2008), with 105 Farsi-speaking learners. MEXTESOL Journal.
  • Jenkins, J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford University Press.
  • Kadota, S. (2019). Shadowing as a Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Routledge.
  • Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968.
  • Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Pergamon.
  • Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009.
  • Laufer, B., & Girsai, N. (2008). Form-focused instruction in second language vocabulary learning: A case for contrastive analysis and translation. Applied Linguistics, 29(4), 694-716.
  • Laufer, B., & Ravenhorst-Kalovski, G. C. (2010). Lexical threshold revisited. Reading in a Foreign Language, 22(1), 15-30.
  • Lewis, M. (1993). The Lexical Approach. Language Teaching Publications.
  • MacLeod, C. M., Gopie, N., Hourihan, K. L., Neary, K. R., & Ozubko, J. D. (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 671-685.
  • Maurice, K. (1983). The fluency workshop. TESOL Newsletter, 17(4), 29.
  • Meara, P., & Buxton, B. (1987). An alternative to multiple choice vocabulary tests. Language Testing, 4(2), 142-154.
  • Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1995). Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning, 45(1), 73-97.
  • Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (2006). The functional load principle in ESL pronunciation instruction. System, 34(4), 520-531.
  • Nation, I. S. P. (1989). Improving speaking fluency. System, 17(3), 377-384.
  • Nation, I. S. P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 2-13.
  • Nation, I. S. P., & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. Routledge.
  • Odlin, T. (1989). Language Transfer. Cambridge University Press.
  • Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255.
  • Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 129-158.
  • Su, J., Ye, J., Nie, L., Cao, Y., & Chen, Y. (2023). Optimizing spaced repetition schedule by capturing the dynamics of memory. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 35(10).
  • Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In S. Gass & C. Madden (Eds.), Input in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 235-253). Newbury House.
  • Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (Eds.), Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics (pp. 125-144). Oxford University Press.
  • Swan, M., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (2001). Learner English: A Teacher's Guide to Interference and Other Problems (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • van Zeeland, H., & Schmitt, N. (2013). Lexical coverage in L1 and L2 listening comprehension: The same or different from reading comprehension? Applied Linguistics, 34(4), 457-479.
  • Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.
  • Ye, J., Su, J., & Cao, Y. (2022). A stochastic shortest path algorithm for optimizing spaced repetition scheduling. Proceedings of the 28th ACM SIGKDD Conference, 4381-4390.
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