One of the ESL teacher’s missions is working with students on active memorization. Students who are new to an English-speaking learning environment can be overwhelmed with language elements and enabling them to develop their productive skills can be difficult. ESL teachers can develop ways of improving students’ capacities for memorizing new words by incorporating some of these ideas:

1.    Make it fun

Adding actions, songs or engaging images can help to reduce inhibitions and provide a mental hook for students to hang the new learning on.

2. Use web 2.0 tools

Encouraging students to develop content by using web 2.0 tools can get them producing written or spoken language without the pressure of performing directly in front of the rest of the class. Tools like Toondoo.com, Voicethread and Voki all engage students in content generation.

3. Use it and own it

For high quality memorization, students need to actively use new words and whilst the more forthcoming members of the class may volunteer with confidence, the quieter kids will let others take centre-stage. Find innovative or even sneaky ways of getting students to use new language, such as running dictations or even re-explaining task instructions.

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