Learning new things is good, but it is surprising how quickly we forget things. I am the same. During my 1000 Challenge for Charity I had to learn 1000 new Spanish words and phrases and it is surprising how quickly I am forgetting words that I thought I had memorized completely.
 |
| Remember, those notes will not help you unless you actually look at them! (Picture from Flickr) |
So my advice is very simple; look again at notes you wrote a few months ago, look again at worksheets from your previous classes, look again at previous chapters of your coursebook that you have already done, even look again at online lessons or exercises you think are too easy for you – you might be surprised by one or two small things you forgot about.
Learning new things is good, but re-learning those things you forgot is very important as well. Looking again at your notes and old work does not take a lot of time but I guarantee it will make your language much stronger.
It's all about moving new knowledge from short memory to long-term memory with spaced repetition
ReplyDeleteThat's very true, Peter. I've been reading through your site and I love it - some great recommendations that I hope I'll find time to comment on this weekend! I particularly like your post about the Forgetting Curve - very relevant to my recent vocabulary challenge for charity. I'll be writing a summary and conclusion about that activity soon and I'm grateful for your recommendation about Anki. I look forward to trying it out and hopefully mentioning it, and your blog, in a future post.
ReplyDelete