If you ask soma people, "How did you learn English so well?" You may get a surprising answer, "In my sleep!"
These are people who have taken part in one of the recent experiments to test "Learn-While-Sleep" methods, which are now being tried in several countries, and with several subjects, of which English is only one.
Specialists say that this "sleep study" method speeds language learning greatly. They say the average person can learn two or three times as much during sleep as in the same period (时期) during the day, and does not affect his rest in any way, A word of warning, however, that sleep teaching will only strengthen in your mind what you have studied already while you are awake.
In an experiment. lessons were broadcast (广播) over the radio. Each lesson lasted twelve hours from 8: 00 p. m. to 8: 00 a. m. The first three hours of English grammar and vocabulary were given with the students awake. At 11: 00 p. m. a lullaby was broadcast to send the student to sleep and for the next three hours the radio whispered the lesson again into his sleeping ears. At 2: 00 a. m. a sharp noise was sent over the radio to wake the sleeping student up for a few minutes to review the lesson. The cradlesong (a kind of soft song making you fail asleep easily) sent him back to rest again while the radio went on At 5: 00 a. m. his sleep ended and he had to go through the lesson again for three hours before breakfast.