Mnemonics for Vocabulary Learning
Simon Mumford, Turkey
Simon Mumford teaches at the University of Economics, Izmir, Turkey. His interests include creative thinking and designing classroom activities. He edits the Practical Teaching Ideas column in IATEFL Voices. E-mail: simumford@yahoo.com
Menu
Introduction
Words within words
Spelling and word structure
Associating words
Words to practise reduced forms
Three tall stories
Conclusion
Reference
We know that words are stored in the memory according to meaning, so sofa is likely to be associated with words like armchair, table, carpet, television. However, it is possible that words with similar appearance or sound may also be connected in the mind, eg soft sofa. Here there is a meaning link, too because a sofa is soft. This link could be exploited for learning.
The key word memory technique links new words in L2 with words in L1 to aid retention. However, it is also possible to link L2 words to other L2 words, as in the example above. In fact it may even be possible to create mnemonics for large numbers of words, based on the structure and sounds of words themselves. Thus, seeing or hearing a word could trigger an image which would provide a link to its meaning. Parallels and associations between written forms, sounds and meanings of words can all be exploited to help students learn. This article looks at different methods: where the structure of the word looks like or contains another, perhaps related, word, where the spelling itself is a clue, where the word can be associated with another word to create a link, and finally as a guide to the pronunciation of reduced forms, helping students produce more natural forms by making connections with words they already know.
It has been suggested that trombone has a subconscious link with bone- when we see the word trombone, it might recall the image of a bone in our minds. Following this principle, we could draw students’ attention to words within words.
Manage: A man of a certain age. Sexist, perhaps, but a strong subconscious image.
Destroy: The link here is the image of the ruined city of Troy after the Trojan war.
Diagnose: Sniff out the problem ie use your nose to locate the trouble!
Restore: Having a rest, to regain health, for example.
Enterprise: Enter the market to win a prize (this is how it is pronounced), ie to earn money.
An applicant should say I can not I can’t.
In no sense guilty: This is a play on words, because the first three words sound like Innocence, which is the opposite of guilt. So someone who is in no sense guilty is innocent.
Sometimes the spelling and letter position give a clue to the meaning:
Parallel has two ls next to each other.
Repetition has ti repeated.
Level is a palindrome, and therefore well-balanced.
D comes in the middle of middle and at the end of end.
Simple and complex share the same 4 letters. But which is easier to spell?
Stand. This word has the start of start and the end of end. Stand between the start and the end to see the race.
Letter is read from left to right. Letter begins with l and ends in r, which are abbreviations of left and right. This example helps students to remember which is side is left and which is right.
The word point has a dot on the i, the central point in the word.
To listen, with a silent t, is an anagram of O, silent t!
Tongue and language are not exactly the same, but they have meaning that overlaps, and they have three letters in common, too.
Another technique is to pair words that look or sound similar, or have some other connection, and strengthen the connection with a meaningful link:
Compensation: you get money back, condensation: you get water back.
Contact and Contract: You need to meet before signing an agreement. Contact comes just before contract alphabetically.
We can link sight and sighs with a rhyme:
Sight from the eyes,
But from the mouth, sighs.
Maintain and mountain. Maintain collocates with high eg maintain high standards /levels/quality. Hence the connection with mountain.
Note and notice, which has an extra ic (I see!) are similar in meaning.
Edith and Edit: edit is a reduced (edited) version of the name Edith.
Rob and steal can be confusing, so here is a way to remember:
You can rob Rob, and you can steal steel,
But you can’t steal Rob and you can’t rob steel.
i.e. you can rob a person (Rob) and steal something (steel), but not the other way round.
Choose and chose: write chOOse on the board, with two large Os. Say to a student, choose one O. Then rub out the one not chosen: chO se. Point to the remaining O and say you chose that one. Get the students to do the same in pairs.
Some other ways of helping students produce more natural, native-speaker-like spoken forms is by comparing them to other words. We can replace a word or phrase with a familiar word, for example:
Teacher: You didn’t do your homework!
Students: Didn’t I?
Ask them to sound indignant when they reply. Now get them to use a reduced form, as a native-speaker in normal casual speech would: Di(d)n’(t) I? Point out that this sounds like deny, which in fact is what the students are doing!
Other examples:
Jewel like tea= Do you all like tea? (D’y’all like tea?)
Armenia serious= I mean, are you serious?
Jaw dogs bite? = D’your dogs bite?
Italy charm! = It’ll eat your arm! (It’ll eatcha arm!)
Kenya come tomorrow= Can you come tomorrow?
Johnny tea? = Do you want any tea? (D’ya (w)an(t) (a)ny tea?)
Uganda get up? (Are) you goin(g) to get up?
Digest miss something? =(Di)d I just miss something?
July fish? = D’you li(ke) fish?
Germany guests?= Did/do you have many guests? D’ya ((h)a(ve) many guests?)
Jeanie help?= Do you need help? (D’ya nee(d) help?)
These examples can help students to see how elison, ellipsis and reduced forms work, and give students confidence to use them by relating them to familiar sound and forms.
We could also make connections between words and images based on spelling or sound in short stories:
A hundred years ago, nobody except the very rich could buy a car because they were so expensive. Then Henry Ford started mass-producing cars, the prices came down, so more people started to buy them. In fact so many people could buy one, a new expression came into being: I can buy a car! A Ford! I can buy a Ford, a car! I can, a Ford, a car! I can afford a car!
A boy had a pear. (Write pear on the board). Then he lost it. (Rub out the wordpear). The boy was sad, and looked for it everywhere. Then he saw what he thought was his pear, but it was not the same, the shape was different. (Write reap on the board). ‘That’s not my pear’, he said, ‘it’s different. Has any one seen my pear?’ Then suddenly, his pear came back and stood next to the other, strange-shaped pear. (Write pear after reap, thus reappear) ‘My pear has come back!’ he said happily. (Reappear means to be seen again, to return).
There was a lion in the jungle.‘I’m the most impoRRRtant animal!’ He roared, with a loud roar on the R! (Write impoRtant on the board.) All the animals were afraid of him. Then one day he lost his voice, so he couldn’t ‘roarrr’ any more, he lost all his power to frighten the other animals, who laughed at him, so he became Impotent. (Rub out R, and change a to e.)
Memonics, including wordplay, not only give memory hooks, but also insights into humour in the L2. There are thousands words for learners to learn, but there are many ways of helping students remember. Mnenomics seem to have been rather overlooked in recent years, however, Carter (1998:195) notes that the more words are connected with different images, and the more associations words have for the students, the better the chance that they will be remembered.
While mnemonics are no substitute for learning words in context, there is no reason why they should not be more widely employed to reinforce other techniques, and could be used on cards, posters, in vocabulary note books and drills. The human mind has a seemingly endless capacity to make connections where none appear to exist, and see the familiar in the unfamiliar. We could use this ability to teach vocabulary.
Carter, R. (1998) Vocabulary. Routledge.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Secondary Teaching course at Pilgrims website.
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