The Secret to English Vocabulary – How to remember more

Hi. This is Rebecca. Let me start this lesson by asking you a question. Which of these two

exercises is easier for you? Let me go through them with you.

"Chaos means __________." Something. Fill in the blank. Okay? In other

words, they're asking you here: the word "chaos" means what?

Or second question:

"Chaos means a) sadness b) disorder c) illness".

Okay? Think about that for a second. So, which of these two questions was easier for you?

Okay? If you're like most students, you will probably say that this question was easier

for you, because you had a choice of something. And here, you actually had to think of the

answer. All right?

So, let me explain why that is the case. Here, in the fill in the blank question, you were

asked to remember the answer. When you're trying to remember a word, you're using your

active vocabulary. In English, like any other language, you have two kinds of skills. We

have productive skills and receptive skills. Productive skills are what we use when we

are speaking and writing, because when we speak and write, we have to remember words

in order to do that. Right? And receptive skills are what you use when you're reading

or listening, because when you do either of these activities, you just have to recognize

the word, so you have to recall what they mean, but you don't have to think of them

by yourself. You just have to recognize them.

So the vocabulary that's involved here on this side is your passive vocabulary of being

able to recognize things. The vocabulary that's demanded here for speaking and writing is

your active vocabulary, which you need when you're doing these activities and which you

needed here in the fill in the blank answer. Okay? So, this is true not only in English.

It's true in every language. You have a productive... You have productive skills and receptive skills.

You have an active vocabulary and a passive vocabulary. And, in all languages, people's

passive vocabulary is always much, much larger than their active vocabulary. That's why you

can read hundreds of books and understand thousands and thousands of words, but you

may not actually use those words yourself, even in your own language and certainly in

English. So, next, I'll explain to you how to develop this active vocabulary.

So there are many ways to improve your active vocabulary. Today I'm going to show you one

way. All right? So, what I've done is written a lot of vocabulary on the board, and what

I'd like you to do is to take a theme, a vocabulary theme. What do I mean by a vocabulary theme?

I mean an area, such as here, I've taken education, here I've taken religion, and here I've taken

business or work. All right? And then you divide it. Let's say you have a piece of paper

or you could do it, you know, on... You could do it written or you could do it in your mind,

and you divide it into categories, such as: in the field of education, you want to think

of people, you want to think of places, and you want to think of actions which are the

verbs. Right?

So you could start by just doing it in a simple way and see if you can come up with at least

three examples. All right? Three examples of people in education: "teacher", "student",

"principal"; places: "school", "college", "university"; actions: "study", "teach", "learn".

Okay? In the area of religion, if we're talking about different kinds of people, people of

different religions: "Muslims", "Christians", "Hindus"; places in the area of religion:

"mosque", "church", "temple"; actions could be: "pray", "bless", "believe". Obviously,

these are not the only examples; I'm just showing you how to do it. In the field of

business, for people you might put: "manager", "employee", "supervisor"; for places: "office",

"factory", "department"; and for actions, things like: "work", or "recruit", or "promote".

Okay?

So, even though it seems like a really simple exercise, what will happen is as you start

to try to remember from your active vocabulary... Right? Words related to certain themes, you

might find that you can't actually think of too many examples in a particular area, and

then you'll be able to know and diagnose what your weaknesses are.

That: okay, I need to learn more business vocabulary,

but when it comes to education I'm okay, or vice versa. Okay?

Now, there are many ways you can expand on this activity. So one way is to expand on

it horizontally. What do I mean by that? Well, I gave you three categories; people, places,

and actions, but you could add more categories. You could add, for example, things, what things

do you find in educational places? What problems or issues are involved in the field of education?

Now, why is this important? Why is it important to develop a vocabulary of a particular field?

Because let's say you're writing an exam, such as the IELTS or TOEFL, and you have an

essay topic given to you which is about education. Well, one of the ways you're going to get

higher marks is by using a lot of varied vocabulary about that field. So this is a way to check

where you stand and to expand on that vocabulary. So, as I said, you can choose new categories.

For example, if you chose issues when it came to business or problems related to business,

you might mention things like unemployment, or absenteeism, or stress. Okay? See how many

ideas and vocabulary words you can come up with related to those themes.

You can also work vertically. By that, I mean, instead of just taking three examples as I've

done on the board, you can take four or five, or you can just try to see: how many words

can I think of related to people in education? All right? Or people at work. Just make the

list as long as you can.

You can make it a kind of game for yourself. You can do this while you're standing in line

somewhere or when you're waiting for a bus, or something like that. You can just play

this game in your mind. All right. Another way to do it is to use more advanced cate-...

Topics, not categories, but topics. For example, here I used education, religion, and business,

but you could use history, or politics, or economics. Right? And this way, you would

have the same information regarding yourself. Where do you stand regarding vocabulary in

these many different areas? Okay?

As I mentioned, you could do this by yourself. You could also do it as a game along with

a partner. You could sit down and play a game to see who can think of more words in one

minute that have to do with education, people in education, or places in education, or actions

related to education. So you could make it a game. And, as I said, it's a really good

exercise to diagnose your own weaknesses so you will know which areas you need to develop

your active vocabulary in. And as I said, you need active vocabulary in order to speak

and write more effectively. All right?

If you'd like to do a quiz on this subject, please visit our website: www.engvid.com.

You could also subscribe to my YouTube channel for more lessons like these.

So good luck with your English. Bye for now.