Viet Au International Primary School would like to share with parents effective ways to learn and memorize vocabulary so that children can apply it at home:
Arousing passion
If you don’t have a passion, you will definitely get bored and give up halfway. Learning English is a difficult job that requires effort and perseverance, so it needs passion more than ever.
When learning becomes interesting, the lesson will quickly be memorized, taking less time and effort.
Plan to learn English vocabulary
How many new words do you plan to learn in a year, a month, a week or a day? Plan with as much detail as possible.
Parents, let’s plan with your child to know an additional 3,600 words a year, divided equally among 12 months, so every month 300 words, every day must learn 10 new words.
Before studying becomes a habit, don’t try to learn too many words a day. 30 minutes a day is enough for your child to form this good habit
Set up a method to learn English vocabulary
Let’s say we take the Monday timeline starting with 10 new words. Tuesday continue to study 10 other words and spend the first few minutes reviewing the 10 words of Monday. Wednesday go on to learn 10 more words and review 10 from Monday and 10 from Tuesday. Similarly, you should learn new words while looking at words from all previous days.
By the next week, 10 Monday words have become familiar, stop revisiting. Then the next day, stop reviewing the 10 words of Tuesday. Just like that, the process of studying new words takes place in parallel with the process of stopping reviewing old words.
After a week since I stopped reviewing Monday’s 10 words, I spend an extra 10 minutes at the beginning of the lesson reviewing all the words I stopped reviewing earlier.
Similarly, at the end of each month, review all the words that you have stopped reviewing during that month. One year and maybe longer too!
The downside of this way of learning is that it lasts continuously day in and day out. If the child does not have perseverance, he will give up halfway. But in return, both reviewing old and learning new will help learners remember for a long time.
Methods of learning new words
According to the natural process of human being from listening, then speaking, then reading and finally writing. To learn a new word you should also follow this process.
First we will practice listening to how native speakers pronounce it. Then practice pronunciation again. Next, see the meaning of the word and examples of usage and then practice writing sentences using that word.
When you see a new word, you don’t necessarily know its Vietnamese meaning. Each word has meaning in certain context. Record the whole sentence that uses that word. Gradually with the increasing vocabulary you will understand the meaning of the whole sentence and then deduce the meaning of the word.
Most dictionaries compiled by foreign countries have compact versions installed on computers. You can use it to listen to pronunciation.
New word source
In order to have new words to practice every day, children must read books, stories, and watch TV (foreign programs). Currently, there are many free Youtube channels that parents can let their children watch every stressful lesson so that they can “bathe” English. Surely you will learn a lot of new words that are common in everyday life.
Notebook of English vocabulary
You should have 2 notebooks to record the words you learn. A book to keep at home is full of words type, meaning, usage, examples, antonyms, variations…. The other is smaller, which can be carried around with you for viewing at leisure, only recording new words.
