From back when I learned Esperanto, I remember talk of a study that showed that learning Esperanto for 1 month and then learning French for (say) 11 months results in better French than just spending the whole 12 months learning French. No link, might be apocryphal.
On further investigation, it turns out that there’s an entire Wikipedia article on this effect, listing 14 different experiments. Many of them seem old, small, and non-rigorous, though.
The early research that does exist (e.g. Fisher, 1921; Halloran, 1952, Williams, 1965a, 1965b) is reported in brief terms and thus does not pass today’s quality standards
From back when I learned Esperanto, I remember talk of a study that showed that learning Esperanto for 1 month and then learning French for (say) 11 months results in better French than just spending the whole 12 months learning French. No link, might be apocryphal.
On further investigation, it turns out that there’s an entire Wikipedia article on this effect, listing 14 different experiments. Many of them seem old, small, and non-rigorous, though.
I defy the data. I wouldn’t care if you did have a citation, but I doubt it’s a real study, too.
Williams, N. (1965) ‘A language teaching experiment’, Canadian Modern Language Review 22.1: 26-28
http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/documents/elct/2013/esperanto_tool.pdf
Also explains why there’s no copy online.