3126. How to Remember New Vocabulary

 

We foreign or second language learners (and teachers too!) like to learn new words – tentatively! Also our students have to learn new words, to have more resources and “weapons” to communicate with native speakers as well as in the classroom, is that so?

Okay then, in order to learn a new word we can enhance our memory by using that word. If you use the word, more likely you’ll be able to retrieve that word for its using in conversations, debate forums, etc.

Thus our students and we teachers-learners will use the new word or words into a context, a meaningful one. In that way we’ll remember those new words we’re learning. If there’s usage, there’s remembering. No usage, no remembering – maybe.

Also we learners can play with the new words: like writing sentences with them, and that’s something many students of mine tell me they do. Also some students think of the word over and over, or they revise the word mentally from time to time, kind of that. Or writing two columns: the foreign words and the native words, and hiding one of the columns and trying to remember either the foreign or the native words.

And something I sometimes do is using the new word in sentences with grammar points I’m presenting to my students. / Photo from: iss international space station over Gibraltar and Africa www racineduweb com. The picture is a beautiful illustration. You may know that Gibraltar is British land at the south point of Spain, opposite Africa. You should visit it!