Wendy’s workshop included a lot of suggestions and
no-nonsense advice to enable students to find “what works for them”.
The first piece of advice was to make it obvious that memory
work is hard work. There is no shortcut despite the messages sometimes spread
in the media. Memorisation in a foreign language is difficult as you need to
memorise the pronunciation of the word, its meaning in English and spelling in
the foreign language.
Wendy spends 3-4 lessons on memorisation at the beginning of
year 7, a few weeks into September.
Memorisation skills need to be taught explicitly and it
helps if students are aware of their preferred learning style. Start with a VAK
questionnaire and a talk to parents with suggested strategies to support their
child given their preferred learning style: Visual, Auditory or Kinaesthetic.
In addition to our preferred learning style, Wendy pointed
out that we all needed to develop a reasonably good visual memory because of
the way we are tested.
Word association/ link word system
Crazy and funny phrases and pictures to help you to remember
words and their genders.
Spend 10 mins in the lesson to see how they can learn the words:
look cover check, work with a partner and test each other. The students are then
asked to reflect on the strategies they used and students have to come up with their own link word ideas.
Humour helps memory
Actions can help you remember the words-students can invent
actions too and make them as funny and memorable as possible.
The homework set needs to support the development of memory
techniques: either to enable students to learn the meaning of the key
vocabulary in both directions-for instance from Frnch into English and English
into French, spelling, pronunciation or phonic rules.
Student can use self-assessment and Red Amber Green to
evaluate how well they know the words from their look cover check sheet.
Students should be encouraged to go over the key words several
times over a period of time as it is a better way to ensure they go into their
long-term memory.
Translate in English
Small paragraphs are translated then the text is introduced in
the Target Languages odd and even-erasing every other words- in partners with
odds and evens being able to help each others.
There is a need for a mix of memorisation and free flow/spontaneous talk for students to be at their most successful.
Give first letter or pictures for memory prompts at KS3.
PLTS can support memorisation strategies through getting
students to consider different ways to re-create a map from memory.
For the “Human photocopiers” activity, groups of 3 or 4 work
together with each person having a number each to go to the text back and forth.
This is similar to the well-known running dictation activity but for a map. For
the running dictation, the person who looks is not allowed to write.
Rachel Hawke's memorisation reflection sheet is also a
useful tool (see Rachel’s blog or TES)
Using music is a classic way to commit new vocabulary to
memory:
Verbs can be put to music e.g ser-to be with “don't stop me
now” by Queen.
The avoir verb to the tune of “The pink panther”. Music is particularly good to memorise high
frequency verbs that are also irregular.
Earworm apps-
language-learning enhanced with music (for mobile learning)
Borrow some strategies from English: sound out syllables
separately, looking for letter patterns/ phonics, mnemonics-especially if made up by
students to remember spellings or meanings, words within words
Use mp3 to get students to record themselves.
The Vokabel.com site is an active way of learning vocabulary and prepare for vocabulary tests.
Powerpoint animations: New words zooming across the screen with students having
to memorise them. More and more words-how many can I memorise
Vocabulary tests can
be done via powerpoint and timed picture slides.
Wendy now runs co-ordinated vocabulary tests at her school.
Students can re-sist or get advice for “memorisation intervention” at lunchtime
and after school for an hour. It is much easier to just try your best to learn
the key words first!