Tuesday's Tip for Language Learning #7: How Memory Works

 



From Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star

How Memory Works (simplified)

If you know how memory works, you can learn faster because you commit information to memory--and it stays there better. 

The stages of memory, briefly and simplistically, are

  • attention awareness
  • repetition/rehearsal (for short-term storage)
  • manipulation of information (in working memory, in preparation for moving it to long-term memory
  • use, recall/retrieval, and re-storage to make information impervious to loss (long-term memory).

Test this process out. You will have to do it over time.

1.     Find 5-10 words (open the dictionary and blindly pick, if you like) in either English or your foreign language that you do not know. Figure out what those words mean. Do that first on your own by using some of the techniques listed above. Then, ascertain your accuracy by asking someone or looking up the meaning in the dictionary or online. You have now accomplished the awareness step of memory.

2.     Repeat these words to yourself several times. Do it out loud, and also do it silently. Write them out. Use them in a sentence. Do a search for them online and find each one used by three different authors (easier if you are using English or are at least at the intermediate level in a foreign language). You have now completed the repetition/rehearsal step for short-term storage. You can go on to business as usual for a day.

3.     The next day, look at those three words and see if you remember them. Write down their definitions. Use them in a sentence. Find them online again—in at least three different places. You have now partially completed the manipulation of information step to begin moving the information into long-term memory.

4.     Repeat step #3 once a week for three weeks. Then put the words on a list, without any other information: just a list of words. Put the list in a drawer, and put a note on your calendar to look at the list in three more weeks.

5.     Three weeks have now passed. Look at your list. How many of these words do you remember? The ones you remember are now in your long-term memory. Whether they will stay there even longer term or near-permanently will depend upon future activities, some of which you may have no control over, such as naturally encountering those words in new environments or having to use them for one thing or another.

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