How to improve your memory

What is memory?
Memory is the mental activity of recalling information that you have learned or experienced. Memory can be shortterm or long-term.
In short term memory, your mind stores information for a few seconds or a few minutes: the time it takes you to dial
a phone number you just looked up or to compare the prices of several items in a store.
Such memory is fragile, and its meant to be; your brain would soon read disk full if you retained every phone
number you called, every dish you ordered in a restaurant, and the subject of every ad you watched on TV. Your
brain is also meant to hold an average of seven items, which is why you can usually remember a new phone number
for a few minutes but need your credit card in front of you when youre buying something online. The development of
this kind of memory is important in the listening tasks and spoken tasks of a language examination.
Long-term memory involves the information you make an effort (conscious or unconscious) to retain, because its:
- Personally meaningful to you (for example, information about family and friends).
- You need it (such as job procedures or material youre studying for a test).
- Or it made an emotional impression on you (a movie that had you riveted, the first time you ever caught a fish).
There are three stages that the brain goes through in forming and retaining memories.
Acquisition

New information enters your
brain along pathways between
neurons. The key to encoding
information into your memory is
concentration; unless you focus
on information intently, it goes
in one ear and out the other.
This is why teachers are
always nagging students to pay
attention!

Consolidation

If youve concentrated well
enough to encode new
information in your brain, the
hippocampus sends a signal to
store the information as longterm memory. This happens
more easily if its related to
something you already know,
or if it stimulates an emotional
response.

The secret of a good memory is attention,

and attention to a subject depends upon
our interest in it. We rarely forget that
which has made a deep impression on
our minds. ~ Tryon Edwards

Memory is a child walking along a seashore.

You never can tell what small pebble it will
pick up and store away among its treasured
things. ~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

Retrieval
When you need to recall
information, your brain has to
activate the same pattern of
nerve cells it used to store it.
The more frequently you need
the information, the easier it is
to retrieve it along healthy
nerve cell connections.

All improvement in memory consists

of one's habitual method of recording
facts" ~ Dr. William James, Father of
American Psychology

The existence of forgetting has never

been proved: We only know that
some things don't come to mind when
we want them. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

10 tips for improving your memory with some ideas you can use in the English Language class
Improving memory tip 1: Exercise
Just as an athlete relies on sleep and a nutrition-packed diet to perform his or her best, your ability to remember
increases when you nurture your brain with a good diet and other healthy habits.
When you exercise the body, you exercise the brain. It might sound simple but a brisk walk can be the best exercise
for your brain.
Treating your body well can enhance your ability to process and recall information. Physical exercise increases
oxygen to your brain and reduces the risk for disorders that lead to memory loss, such as diabetes and
cardiovascular disease. Exercise may also enhance the effects of helpful brain chemicals and protect brain cells.

Improving memory tip 2: Sleep well

When youre sleep deprived, your brain cant operate at full capacity. Creativity, problem-solving abilities, and critical
thinking skills are compromised. Whether youre studying, working, or trying to juggle lifes many demands, sleep
deprivation is a recipe for disaster.
But sleep is critical to learning and memory in an even more fundamental way. Research shows that sleep is
necessary for memory consolidation, with the key memory-enhancing activity occurring during the deepest stages of
sleep.

Improving memory tip 3: Make time for friends and fun

When you think of ways to improve memory, do you think of serious activities such as wrestling with the New York
Times crossword puzzle or mastering chess strategy or do more lighthearted pastimeshanging out with friends or
enjoying a funny moviecome to mind? If youre like most of us, its probably the former. But countless studies
show that a life thats full of friends and fun comes with cognitive benefits.
Youve heard that laughter is the best medicine, and that holds true for the brain as well as the body. Unlike
emotional responses, which are limited to specific areas of the brain, laughter involves multiple regions across the
whole brain.
Furthermore, listening to jokes and working out punch lines activates areas of the brain vital to learning and
creativity.
You can introduce a joke telling session (15 minutes) every week when students have to tell jokes to each
other in English. You can test their memory and see if they remember any jokes from the previous
sessions.

Improving memory tip 4: Keep stress in check

Stress is one of the brains worst enemies. Over time, if left unchecked, chronic stress destroys brain cells and
damages the hippocampus, the region of the brain involved in the formation of new memories and the retrieval of old
ones.
The scientific evidence for the mental health benefits of meditation continues to pile up. Studies show that meditation
helps improve many different types of conditions, including depression, anxiety, chronic pain, diabetes, and high
blood pressure. Meditation also can improve focus, concentration, creativity, and learning and reasoning skills.

Improving memory tip 5: Bulk up on brain-boosting foods

Just as the body needs fuel, so does the brain. You probably know already that a diet based on fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, and healthy fats will provide lots of health benefits, but such a diet can also improve memory. But for
brain health, its not just what you eatits also what you dont eat. The following nutritional tips will help boost your
brainpower.
Get your omega-3s. More and more evidence indicates that omega-3 fatty acids are particularly beneficial
for brain health. Fish is a particularly rich source of omega-3, especially cold water fatty fish such as
salmon, tuna, halibut, trout, mackerel, sardines, and herring. In addition to boosting brainpower, eating fish
may also lower your risk of developing Alzheimers disease. If youre not a fan of fish, consider turning to fish
oil supplements. Other non-fish sources of omega-3s include walnuts, ground flaxseed, flaxseed oil,
pumpkin seeds, and soybeans.
Limit saturated fat. Research shows that diets high in saturated fat increase your risk of dementia and
impair concentration and memory. The primary sources of saturated far are animal products: red meat,
whole milk, butter, cheese, sour cream, and ice cream.

Eat more fruit and vegetables. Produce is packed with antioxidants, substances that protect your brain
cells from damage. Colorful fruits and vegetables are particularly good antioxidant superfood sources. Try
leafy green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, and arugula, and fruit such
as apricots, mangoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
Drink wine (or grape juice) in moderation. Keeping your alcohol consumption in check is key, since
alcohol kills brain cells. But in moderation (around 1 glass a day for women; 2 for men), alcohol may actually
improve memory and cognition. Red wine appears to be the best option, as it isrich in resveratrol, a
flavonoid that boosts blood flow in the brain and reduces the risk of Alzheimers disease. Other resveratrolpacked options include grape juice, cranberry juice, fresh grapes and berries, and peanuts.

It is an ideal opportunity to practice the food&drink vocabulary. Ask student to cut out photos of different
food and drink from magazines/newspapers and bring them to class. Start by asking the students to place
their photos on two different posters: good for your memory and bad for your memory. Then divide
the class into two groups and they can discuss whether the photos are in the right place or not and they
would of course have to name everything they see on their poster.

Improving memory tip 6: Give your brain a workout

By the time youve reached adulthood, your brain has developed millions of neural pathways that help you process
information quickly, solve familiar problems, and execute familiar tasks with a minimum of mental effort. But if you
always stick to these well-worn paths, you arent giving your brain the stimulation it needs to keep growing and
developing. You have to shake things up from time to time!
Memory, like muscular strength, requires you to use it or lose it. The more you work out your brain, the better youll
be able to process and remember information. The best brain exercising activities break your routine and challenge
you to use and develop new brain pathways. The activity can be virtually anything, so long as it meets the following
three criteria:
1. Its new. No matter how intellectually demanding the activity, if its something youre already good at, its not
a good brain exercise. The activity needs to be something thats unfamiliar and out of your comfort zone.
2. Its challenging. Anything that takes some mental effort and expands your knowledge will work. Examples
include learning a new language, instrument, or sport, or tackling a challenging crossword or Sudoku
puzzle.
3. Its fun. The more interested and engaged you are in the activity, the more likely youll be to continue doing
it and the greater the benefits youll experience. The activity should be challenging, yes, but not so difficult or
unpleasant that you dread doing it.
Training your brain with free online brain games is a fun way to improve your memory and concentration.
You can find over 100 free puzzles, logic games, and other brain training games at http://www.memoryimprovement-tips.com/brain-games.html . To keep your brain in top shape, play these games regularly. It
is recommended that you play one or two 15-minute sessions a day.
The following activity can be played in the English classroom to improve students memory and to practice
vocabulary and story telling at the same time.
Story Telling
One way to remember the information you need to commit to long-term memory is to make up a story that
"connects" the items or facts you need to remember, thus making them easier to recall. The idea here is
that it's easier to remember more information when one fact or item connects to another.
While making up the story, create a strong mental image of what's happening. This helps to "connect" the
data to an image and better cement it in your long-term memory.
It's fun to practice using this technique in a group. Practice by laying out 20 or more objects on the table
and trying to remember them. Each member of the group takes his or her turn to add to the story by
including another object.
If the first three objects are an apple, a key and a mobile phone, here's how the story might start:
Person 1: In the orchard, ripe apples were falling from the trees.
Person 2:But the gate to the orchard was locked and John had brought the wrong key.
Person 3: So he called Sue from his mobile phone to see if she could help.
...
Once all the objects have been included in the story, remove them all from the room. See who can
remember the most items. Now tell the story again as a group, taking it in turns. The group will probably
be able to remember the whole story and so recall all the items.

Improving memory tip 7: Use mnemonic devices to make memorisation easier

Mnemonics (the initial m is silent) are clues of any kind that help us remember something, usually by helping us
associate the information we want to remember with a visual image, a sentence, or a word.
Mnemonic device
Visual image

Acrostic (or
sentence)
Acronym

Rhymes and
alliteration

Chunking

Method of loci

Technique
Associate a visual image with a word or name
to help you remember them better. Positive,
pleasant images that are vivid, colourful, and
three-dimensional will be easier to remember.
Make up a sentence in which the first letter of
each word is part of or represents the initial of
what you want to remember.
An acronym is a word that is made up by
taking the first letters of all the key words or
ideas you need to remember and creating a
new word out of them.
Rhymes, alliteration (a repeating sound or
syllable), and even jokes are a memorable
way to remember more mundane facts and
figures.
Chunking breaks a long list of numbers or
other types of information into smaller, more
manageable chunks.
Imagine placing the items you want to
remember along a route you know well or in
specific locations in a familiar room or
building.

Example
To remember the name Rosa Parks and what
shes known for, picture a woman sitting on a
park bench surrounded by roses, waiting as
her bus pulls up.
The sentence Every good boy does fine to
memorize the lines of the treble clef,
representing the notes E, G, B, D, and F.
The word HOMES to remember the names
of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan,
Erie, and Superior.
The rhyme Thirty days hath September, April,
June, and November to remember the
months of the year with only 30 days in them.
Remembering a 10-digit phone number by
breaking it down into three sets of numbers:
555-867-5309 (as opposed to5558675309).
For a shopping list, imagine bananas in the
entryway to your home, a puddle of milk in the
middle of the sofa, eggs going up the stairs,
and bread on your bed.

Improving memory tip 8: Use your environment

Tying a string around your finger to remember something has become a bit of punchline, but the reasoning for it
makes sense. By putting something in your environment slightly askew, you create a visual reminder for yourself.
The key, as with other methods, is to take the time to create a strong visualization for why there's a string around
your finger before you mindlessly tie it on.
You can use other things in your environment as well. If you don't want to invest in string just yet, you could switch a
ring, bracelet or watch from one hand to the other as needed to remember things. For example, if you needed to
remember a doctor's appointment, you could visualise a large wristwatch wrapped around your doctor. If it bothers
you too much to switch hands, try just turning the watch upside down or switching a ring so the stone points
downward.
You could also place things on the floor in front of the door to serve as an obvious reminder, or you could make use
of the doorknob itself by hanging things on it. For example, if you return from home day after day without the dry
cleaning you meant to pick up, place an empty hanger on the door. Put it on the front seat of the car, and it will serve
as a daylong reminder of an errand you need to run.
When discussing this with students it is a good opportunity to practice prepositions of place and directions.
Ask students to describe their room/house and what things they would move around to remember certain
things.

Improving memory tip 9: Listen to music

Researchers have long shown that certain types of music are instrumental in recalling memories. Information
learned while listening to a particular song or collection can often be recalled simply by playing the songs mentally.
Ask students to bring a song that has a special meaning to them. Students can discuss in small groups what
memories they have attached to the song they brought. Then you can listen to some of the songs and
students from the group can tell the class why it is special.

Improving memory tip 10: Pay attention

Sometimes we can't remember things because we never got the information into the memory bank to begin with.
Like an absent-minded professor, we all have moments where we put down keys or an important book without
noticing. Or we scribble phone numbers or one-word reminders on Post-It notes, thinking that's all the information
we'll need later. However, without paying attention to why you need the information and its value to you, that Post-It
is useless.
When meeting new people, we can often be more obsessed with how we look and the impression we're making than
truly paying attention to the other person. Simply staying focused will boost your ability to remember the names of
new people.
Ask students to interview some people in the city in pairs. One of them should be asking some simple
questions and the other one should be taking notes. After they have interviewed about 3 people each they
should sit down and see how much they remember about the people they interviewed.

The above tips were collected from the internet and were enhanced by adding some tips for teachers that can be used in the English language
class.