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Unforgettable I Wish You Were
Stephen Reilly, France
Stephen Reilly teaches exam classes to adults at the French Éducation nationale and to young
learners at the British Council in Paris. Along with his teenage students he recently he sat a
mock FCE reading exam and came in the top half of the class. His students, however, point
out that this was only because he had the answers in the Teacher’s Book. In this article he
reveals how riotous imaginations allow learners to memorise vocabulary. E-mail:
[email protected]
Menu
Introduction
Roots and affixes
Internationally-known words
Sound association and imagination
References
Introduction
In his autobiographical work, School Blues, Daniel Pennac wrote of his time as a school
dunce and of taking one year to learn the letter a. His father thus remarked that mastering the
alphabet would take his son another twenty-five years. I often wonder if the unemployed adult
learners in our training centre make similar calculations. Many of the younger ones have left
school barely able to read or write in French or, in some cases, their native language, and have
picked up a few English words through song or film titles. Others are unaware of ever having
met any English words, and are strangers both to the language and the process of language
learning. Memorising words is a critical problem and learners invariably forget words
'learned' even moments earlier. Efficiently linking a foreign sound to meaning, then retaining,
and reproducing this sound is possible only with memory techniques and here are some of
them that we use in class.
Roots and affixes
Good stories are memorable, and so etymology, which is none other than the story of words,
makes them more memorable. Roots allow learners to identify word families, which allow for
recognition and memorisation of other words. Examples: window (memorable as many
people's computer operating system's name) originally meant 'wind’s eye', and was a slit in a
building wall to allow wind to pass through. Thus window gives learners two more words:
wind and eye. Spell, which originally meant 'to recite', becomes memorable if one thinks of
the derived word gospel. Grocer comes from gross: quantities of goods bought large-scale,
then retailed. Grass is related to both Old English words green and grow. Behave is composed
of verbs be and have, neighbour of near, and diary of day, which also gives dial. Easter
comes from east, originally meaning 'the feast of dawn'. The root tw-, meaning 'two', gives
twin, twilight and between. The prefix off- means 'away' or 'detached from' as in offshore and
off-centre. The suffix -ward: 'in the direction of', hence backward, forward (seen in e-mails),
outward, toward. Thus learners can make words more memorable by decomposing them and
establishing base patterns.
Internationally-known words
Estimated at a quantity of some 20,000 words in Japanese and at over five percent of the
French language corpus, English is found everywhere. Beginner-level learners therefore
possess a wider and deeper word-base than they realise and unearthing this base presents them
with foundations they can build more vocabulary onto. One useful activity is to ask learners to
make headings of topics such as sport, television, music, food, transport, technology, then to
list underneath all the English words used in their own language. Examples: from multinational company names we get gap, guess, soft, sharp, shell (hence shelter, shield), toys.
From products, we get black, berry, kick (from Kickers©), play, pad, time, word. From films
and TV shows: mad, men, desperate, house, wife, hill, files, friends, lost. Happy, meal, milk,
shake, wing, drive, chew, gum all come from food. From transport comes side, car, air, bag,
trip, speed, whilst from sport: run, basket, ball, hand, fit, jog. Mail, stream, net, desk, top,
wire, down, load, log are from technology, whereas leg, pull, over, sweat, shirt from clothing.
From song, film and dance, the list is abundant: jaw, hip, hop, star, war, grease, dumb, hook,
die, hard, lost, bean, witness (from wit) and show amongst others. As well as making learners
aware of the references they possess, this task boosts their confidence and allows them to
perceive the English language as something less foreign.
Sound assocoation and imagination
One's imagination deployed in creating imagery, alliteration, assonance and rhyme are
techniques which allow learners to efficiently associate new and known words and sounds.
On encountering a new word, learners are asked which other word this sound or spelling
reminds them of. They then use their senses and imagination to create a link between the new
and known words. Examples: the word ash reminds one of my students of hash. After
smoking hash, he is left with ash. For another, the verb leak evokes liqueur. He drinks his
bottle of liqueur so quickly he thinks it leaks. Daughter is linked to dot (French for dowry):
what one's daughter brings to her wedding. Afford to Ford cars: Henry Ford drove down car
prices and allowed many people to afFord them. Catch up to ketchup: our student usually eats
chips slowly; with ketchup she can catch up. Cloud to the name Claude: cloud is associated
with a friend called Claude, whose head is always in the clouds. Leave, left to the beer Leffe:
after drinking too much of it, our student gets Leffe behind. Buy to bye: when she buys
something, she says 'bye-bye' to her money. Miss to kiss: after missing her daughter, she
kisses her. Lick to like: more memorable in the alliterative I like licking. These techniques can
also by applied to easily confused words. Example: between next and last the latter sounds
like the first two syllables of lassitude, (one comes last becomes one is tired), which, of Latin
origin, is understood by speakers of Latin languages. Thousand and hundred become
distinguishable by remembering that, similar to the numbers, the word thousand has an o that
hundred does not. Associations of such a nature are initially viewed with suspicion by
learners. However, as each one creates their own link between sound and image, words are
personalised, learners get more creative and the techniques become both efficient and
enjoyable.
No one pretends that the above techniques are a panacea for all language-learning ills. A
dictionary of etymology is required, as are an awakening to English words around us and a
willingness to exercise one's imagination. However, they do encourage learners to harness
available lexical resources, take a deeper interest in word formation and develop their
imagination. In doing so, words become fun to learn and language learning more productive.
And I personally guarantee that anyone undertaking to use them will become a proficient
language learner in less than twenty-six years.
References
Bragg, Melvyn, The Adventure of English, Hodder and Stoughton, 2003
Buzan, Tony, The Speed-reading Book, BBC Books, 1986
— Use your Memory, BBC Books, 1971
Pennac, Daniel, School Blues, Maclehose Press, 2010
Room, Adrian, Dictionary of Word Histories, Cassel, 1999
Ur, Penny and Andrew Wright, Five-Minute Activities, CUP, 1992
www.academie-francaise.fr/langue/questions.html#anglicismes
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims
website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.