Happy Friday!
(By the way, have you ever heard the expression”TGIF”? Do you know what it stands for? Keep reading and I’ll give you the answer. A lot of students get it wrong…)
Every Friday I answer a reader’s question.
This time however, I’d like to answer a question that was asked during yesterday’s live training.
(Every month I do a live training for Society members. If you missed this one, you’ll have another chance to join next month.)
It’s a good question because 1. it’s such a common mistake, and 2. students (and teachers!) don’t even know it’s a mistake.
The question was, Should I learn words in groups?
Open any text book, watch any Youtube vocab lesson, pay hundreds of dollars for any British Council course, and the answer they will tell you is, “Yes.”
They will say, Here’s 30 words for a business negotiation.
Or, Here’s a list of colors.
Or, here are ten phrasal verbs with “up.”
No. No. No.
Why?
Because according to research, if you learn two words at the same time, and the two words have a similar meaning or sound, there will be a 25% chance you will get these word mixed up in your head — forever!
It’s called “interference.”
Here’s a short list of words my students often mix up:
push – pull
borrow – lend
east – west
here – there
months of the year
days of the week
Why do they mix them up?
Not because they’re difficult words.
They mix them up because long ago a teacher gave them a list of words to learn and the words were organized in groups.
So how to fix this?
Mix up your words.
If you have a list of phrasal verbs, a list of business terms, and a high-frequency list, learn one word from each group every day.
Or learn them organically…randomly… as you find them in your reading or conversation or listening.
Make sense?
Good!
Oh, and TGIF? It stands for “Thank God it’s Friday.”
