methodology David Albery Director of Stuoies and Teacher Trainer at International House, Se BCE er Research suggests | 1 remember when I was we don't constantly | st school learning construct and | French, the teacher + the | WOU present us with a e-construct list of vocabulary on a utterances We | Friday afternoon which make | we were expected to commit to memory by Monday morning. When Monday arrived, we were given a test which consisted of the teacher saying an item in English and us writing it down in French, ‘The result was that I was able to point at a pen and say ‘styl but, of course, never did so because there was no need to. After a few days, I'd pretty much forgotten. the list just in time to temporari memorise the next one. Not an ineffective method (I can sil say ‘siylo) but not very usefl when it came to actually using the vocabulary. The thing is, people don't wander around saying ‘pen’, they say ‘can I borrow your pen? gota pen I can use?’ and so on, Perhaps, if'd been taught phrases or chunks of language in which the item occurred or, rather, ifthe phrase itself had been ‘seen as the item, I'd have had an immediate use not only for the phrase but for the word ‘pen’. Maybe then the Monday test would have had a purpose beyond regurgitating alist. Maybe Fd have seen that the things I'd committed to memory were actually usable and perhaps I'd have retained them beyond ‘Thursday. Research suggests we don’t constantly construct and re-construct the utterances we make, We don't begin with ‘pen’ and then construct the sentence bit by bit around it but, rather, we have ‘ean T borrow your °*?" or even ‘can I borrow your pen?” stored away ready for immediate use when the appropriate situation arises. These ‘chunks’ of language might be whole phrases and expressions (do you fancy going out?’), common collocations (‘high rise apartment block’), part-phrases, (1m looking for a ve") and so on, but they are all usable with very little oF no modification by the speaker or writer. So, this means two things: firstly, we shouldn't exclusively teach single-word items of vocabulary hut should introduce students to these muli-word items; secondly, we need to find ways of getting students {0 memorise these items and then recall them for use in the appropria Choosing the items is actually fairly straightforward; many up-to-date course books, including Cutting age do this for you. If you're choosing the items yourself, you just need to ask yourself some or all of the following questions: 1. Is the single word I want to introduce commonly found in any phrases, expressions or collocations? 2, Are these phrases, expressions or collocations useful for the students? 3. Are the contexts or situations in which these items are used meaningful or interesting for the students? To introduce the items to students and make them memorable, you will need to link them in some way to either a common, meaningful context or to one another, For example, you could introduce ‘can 1 borrow your pen?” by using the situation in which students actually find themselves (the classroom) and add ‘what does ** mean? ‘what's *** in English?’ ete. to the list. Or you could choose to introduce a set of items around a common word or phrase (in the way the Wordspots in Cutting Edge do). Having introduced the items, get students to do something with them; find the opposites, find the syonymns, match them toa definition, use them in a sentence, practice the pronunciation and so on. Its important that students do not simply copy them down and then put their books away. It is important that students process the items. Once processing activities are over, conclude the lesson with an immediate memory test by getting students to quiz each other. Finally, in future lessons, present students with similar contexts or situations and see how many of the phrases, expressions and collocations taught in previous lessons re-emerge. For example, ask students to respond to a character in a situation (a Waiter? someone asking for help a the station? a classmate?) in order to test and perhaps develop their ability to recall the language as unanalysed chunks,