Memory Strategies

There are a number of strategies that can help the brain function more efficiently. These include directed attention, repetition, association, clustering, key words, and mnemonic devices, to list just a few. Directed attention, sometimes called selective attention, lets you focus only on the information that you need. This is a blessing because if you are reading an article or watching a film in your foreign language, especially when proficiency is not very advanced, there are probably many words and expressions that are simply meaningless to you. Getting “stuck” on each new word is not an efficient use of your time. Nor is using the dictionary to look up everything you do not understand or know. Using the strategy of directed attention requires that you decide ahead of time what you want to learn from what you are hearing or reading and to look for that information specifically. It also lets you pass by whatever you do not understand and focus on what you do understand. Piecing together the elements that you do understand can often help you get the gist of an entire passage. Before you go to meet a foreign conversation partner for coffee, think about the things you might talk about – and practice them in advance. You may end up with somewhat different topics, but some things will be similar or even the same, and the conversation will be much easier for you. You will also be improving your memory for these expressions. Make a game of walking to a rhythm and repeating the word or expression – especially if movement helps you learn. Come up with a rhyme for it that you then repeat ad nauseam. Association may be the strongest strategy you have for getting information into memory. It works faster and lasts longer than other strategies. Moreover, other strategies, such as clustering, key words, and mnemonics, have aspects of association. So, whenever you want to remember something new, find as many associations for it as you can. Listed below are a few kinds of associations that you might make. You can probably think of dozens more.

-     Does it look (spelling) like anything you already know?

-     Can you put a picture with it in order to remember meaning?

-     Does it sound like anything you already know?

-     Do you already know any parts of the word or expression?

-     Can you make up a rhyme or ditty that would go with it and use part of that ditty for recall?

-     Are there any connections with other languages you know, including your native language?

-     Can you associate it with a person, place, or thing that might assist recall?

Clustering lets you remember whole groups of information by treating the group as one piece of information. For example, the numbers 18396745062 would probably be pretty hard to remember. There are ten separate numbers in a specific order. Research shows us that to remember this number, then, is beyond the capability of the average person, in that most of us have memories that can handle seven digits, plus or minus two. Recall is immediate and effortless. Let’s now take a verbal example, for which there are many approaches. To remember the word ball, you might cluster it together with words that sound alike: call, fall, mall.: “I will call the mall in the fall about a ball.” Similarly, let’s say you want to remember the following ten words: antidote, antecedent, antipathy, anteroom, antenatal, deformation, demobilization, deflection, and antiphon. You could cluster these into three groups: ante-, anti-, and de-. You could even reinforce the meanings of these words, by seeing which ones can use synonymous suffixes, as in antenatal and prenatal, antecedent and precedent. You could also remove the prefixes, in your attempts at manipulation and clustering, to see which words exist without their prefix and which do not. Which ones can use the opposite prefix to change meaning? An example would be postnatal. Key words is a popular device for remembering long speeches these are words or short phrases that are used to remind the speaker of whole passages of text. The same kinds of things can be used to memorize speeches in a foreign language. Let us say, for example, that you need to talk about your biography frequently. You can memorize the phrases, sentences, and even full paragraphs of information, then recall how to string them together through the use of guiding key words, like “born,” “school,” “work,” “travel.” Mnemonic devices are the use of rhyming words or alliterative words (those that start with the same letter) to remember things. If, for example, you want to remember to buy five things at the store: cookies, ham, ice, potatoes, and sugar, you could select the word chips. Each letter in chips stands for one of the items that needs to be purchased. You can use a similar strategy in learning words. Let us say that you need to remember the words knockout, boxing, score, out. Using the first letters of each of these words, you could use the nonsense word boks to remember these four words. Some learners find mnemonics complicated to use. Chemistry really does play an important role in the efficient functioning of activated memory. Putting the situation in simple terms, memory is moved about the brain thanks to glucose. The production and use of glucose (blood sugar) is facilitated by the chemical epinephrine, which is released by potassium, among other things. What does this mean in concrete, useful terms? If you eat a banana, your now-potassium-rich memory might improve. Any food that is rich in potassium (for example, potatoes) is a better choice for breakfast before a test than those foods that give you a quick energy boost (often, the energy disappears before the test is over). If the food you eat is high in sugar, it will temporarily increase your glucose level in an intensive way, insulin will be released to deal with it, and then the blood sugar level will drop – leaving you in a “crash,” just when you need to be at your most alert. It is much better to eat foods that contain the chemicals that facilitate the efficient use of blood sugar, rather than to raise the blood sugar level itself, especially on a roller-coaster basis. In the same way, it is better to eat a complex carbohydrate, such as a bagel, than something that will release sugar immediately into the blood stream, such as chocolate.

Summing up – one thing that many learners forget is that chemicals – and one’s body – react to the internal environment. Processes slow down when tired. Cramming for an exam might make you feel that you are gaining important last-minute information but all too often that information will not be accessible to you on the day of the test because you are too tired for your brain to process the information efficiently. It is much better to get some good sleep the night before a test, even if you do not feel ready for the test, so that your brain can make efficient use of what you do know. Of course, it goes without saying, that the best way to prepare for a test is to start on the first day of class and learn a little every day! Then, right before the exam, all you have to do is to review.

Bibliography:

Brown, H.D. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Gass,

S.M. I L. Selinker. (2008): Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge. VanPatten,

Leaver, B.L; Ehrman, M; Shekhtman, B. (2005): Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition. CUP

B. i J. Williams. (red.) 2007: Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

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