All learners of English, especially those at post-intermediate level, face the same problem: how to maximize their lexical learning capacity, how to retain the vocabulary they learn. This post will outline a procedure that students can follow to remember the lexis they come across.
1. Explore the context
Try to notice where the word is in the sentence. This will give you a lot of information about the grammar of the word: for instance, is the new word a noun, an adjective, a verb or an adverb? Classifying the word grammatically will help you towards understanding syntax; it also helps that word order rules are quite fixed in English.
e.g. Authorities tried to position the missing aeroplane but its position could not be determined.
The first “position” comes after to, so that makes it a verb. The second “position” comes after a possessive (its) and before a modal verb (could), so that makes it a noun.
2. Guess the meaning
It may seem difficult at first, but all it takes is practice. In every sentence, writers use words which are semantically (i.e. in terms of meaning) linked to the word you don’t know.These words are called contextual clues. All you have to do is notice these other words. Let’s see an example:
The young boys felt ravenous after their long hike in the woods.
Assuming ravenous is your unknown word, the contextual clues in the sentence above are: young boys, long hike in the woods. So, to guess the meaning, all you have to do is ask yourself: “How does a young boy feel after a long hike in the woods?” Tired. Hungry. Both. So, here are your possible answers. You have limited down the possible meanings to three. That’s no mean feat. Now, look around the sentence where the unknown word is. If the text continues: “They devoured the food in no time”, then you understand the word ravenous means hungry.
3. Memorize chunks, not individual words
So, you want to learn this word. You want to make a note of it. If you take the trouble to do this, then do it right. It won’t help much if you write: ravenous=hungry.
If you write, though, the whole sentence where you first saw the word and underline the target word (the word you want to learn), then you will have made an association between young boys+felt ravenous+long hike in the woods. Your mind will find it easier to remember the new association than a word in isolation. Plus you will have done something with the new word with your own hands. Your chances of remembering the word in the long term will be higher.
4. Personalize the new vocabulary
OK, so you’ve learned “ravenous”. Well done! This word was a stranger a minute ago. Now it’s yours. Or is it? If you want this word to stay with you for ever, then USE it in a context that is meaningful to YOU.
“I remember the day I started this wonder diet. I had to eat a broccoli salad and an apple and drink lots of water.Boy, was I ravenous at the end of the day!”.
5. Revisit your notes regularly
Do you learn phone numbers by heart? Chances are you don’t these days since smart phones do this for you. A couple of decades back, though, I noticed that the more often I dialed a number, the sooner it took me to learn the number by heart. I still remember phone numbers that I don’t dial anymore. What does this show? Your memory needs training. Repetition (review or revision, pick whatever term you like) is the training equipment you have at your disposal. If you get into the habit of reviewing your vocabulary regularly, then you will jog your memory and – to paraphrase “a healthy mind in a healthy body” – “a rich vocabulary in a trained mind”.
Author’s BioMichael Stavropoulos is an EFL Teacher. He holds a BA in Medieval and Modern Greek from the University of Athens, Greece, but has spent more than two decades teaching General and Academic English to teenagers and young adults. He has also translated books from English into Greek and edited publications of the University of Athens. He lives in Piraeus with his wife and son.
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