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A preliminary study on the memory method of English words

Research shows that memory plays an important role in the process of acquiring knowledge, especially in language learning. However, foreign language textbooks and language teaching manuals often turn a blind eye to this. This paper expounds the methods of memorizing English words in detail, which will help you get rid of the bondage of "mechanical memory" and master English vocabulary better.

[Keywords:] improve memory skills, teaching methods, action memory principles.

Research shows that memorization plays an important role in knowledge acquisition, especially in language learning. However, mnemonics are neglected in language learning materials and language teaching manuals. This paper introduces the methods of memorizing English words in detail, which will help you get rid of mechanical memorization methods and master English vocabulary.

[Keywords:] skills to improve memory, teaching methods, principles of action.

In the process of learning English, the memory of English vocabulary is very important. Vocabulary, as the cornerstone of building an English knowledge building, should be given special attention. Therefore, whether you can memorize English words skillfully becomes the key for a person to break through English quickly. However, after mastering a certain number of words, many learners still can't get rid of the memory mode of "rote memorization", resulting in a waste of time and energy and poor results. The author expounds the principles and skills of memorizing English words from a new angle, in order to guide educators to pay more attention to and improve methods, so as to make students get rid of the indoctrination memory mode of "mechanical memory".

I. Introduction

Memory is a psychological process, a process from "memory" to "memory". The memory of English words is different from other knowledge systems. Influenced by China people's study habits, ignoring the rules and lacking willpower, it is difficult for learners to get out of the misunderstanding of "rote learning". Before improving the memory method, we must pay attention, make clear the goal, stimulate the interest in memory, and get ready for conquering English vocabulary memory.

Second, the principle of action

Action principle is based on the knowledge of memory psychology and the characteristics of English word memory.

A is the abbreviation of Association, which means that when we remember English words, we should not remember them in isolation, but should give full play to our thinking potential and remember related words together. "Association" radiates in a wide range, which can be from the local to the whole, or other things, or a kind of things thought of by a certain feature, or an extended association in pronunciation, word form and word meaning. For example, the memory word mare (mare, donkey) can be associated with homophonic mayor in pronunciation and donkey (donkey), mule and other words in meaning. We can think of a series of words: caution, boldness, hard work, hare, flash, dazzling, reduction, rarity, sharing and standby. The principle of association is the key to enlarge vocabulary and achieve the memory effect of "killing many birds with one stone".

C is the abbreviation of Contrast, which means that by contrast, attention is paid to nuances, thus deepening the impression and making it easy to remember.

For example:

Ambitious ambitious-ambiguous;

A pleasant pheasant, a pheasant

Today, today-flatterer

Fable Fable Fairy Tale-Weakness

Study and study-be strong, be strong

Anecdote-antidote-antidote

The principle of contrast can be regarded as a convenient link to remember words from differences.

T is the abbreviation of text environment. A word is out of the context of actual use, and it is difficult to remember whether it can be used or not. Put vocabulary in context, improve cognitive ability through repeated reading, and finally achieve the purpose of memory. Context memory is a vocabulary memory strategy highly praised by language teaching experts and psychologists at home and abroad.

I stands for abbreviation of induction. Inductive method is introduced into English vocabulary memory by the method of discovering general rules through individual exploration, that is, discovering rules through single words, and then further exploring, summarizing and unifying memory. For example, some words have changed their meanings after adding the suffix "-er", and some words no longer have the meaning of "people or things".

Shower (shower, shower)

Counting counter (counter)

Drawer (drawer)

Bow (bow)-gazebo (shade, gazebo)

Sew (sewing) -sever (sewer)

Pullover (sleeveless dress)

Flowers (flowers)

There are still many words with the above characteristics, which need to be further explored and summarized. For another example, not all words indicating identity should be suffixed with "-er" or "-or", and some words themselves indicate a certain identity, status and so on. ;

Referee-referee, referee chef-chef

Words with such regularity also need to be summarized, and then the memory is summarized.

It can be seen that the principle of induction is the golden key to exploring laws and memorizing vocabulary.

O is short for observation. Observation is the premise of finding something, which requires us to remember English words from the form of words and use the means of splitting and merging to decrypt the internal relations and remember them. For example:

Dustpan = dust+pot.

Peacock = pea+rooster.

Adolescence =a (1) +dole (relief)+scene (scenery)

Harassment = hag +grass will be "g"; Omit.

Another observation is to pay more attention to English-related things, such as English on commodity packaging, English on billboards, English on clothes and accessories, etc. If you are diligent in accumulation and review, you will naturally remember it easily. The principle of observation is a magic weapon to simplify the complex and innovate the memory.

N is the abbreviation of note making. Taking notes is a means of accumulating knowledge. Memorizing English words requires taking notes, sorting out the main points and expressing your own experience.

For example:

Summary of homophones: peak, peak and peak [pi:k]

Rain, reins, rule read through [rein]

Summarize similar words: petals (petals), Haiyan (Haiyan), oil (gasoline), patrol (patrol);

Stimulate, simulate, accumulate and imitate.

Taking notes is a summary of memory skills and examples, which will certainly help to explore the essence of memory methods in a deeper level.

The good use of action principle will make you take fewer detours in the process of memorizing English vocabulary, have fun and draw inferences from others, thus quickly breaking through the word fortress.

Third, examples of memory methods

There are many ways to remember English words. The most important thing is to follow the principles and find a method that suits you.

1, root affix mnemonic method

As the name implies, by memorizing root affixes, we can infer the meaning of new words containing such root affixes and strengthen our memory.

There are two kinds of roots. One is the root, from which many words with the same root can be derived, and it is also an independent word. For example, as an independent word, easy is the root of easy, easy and easy.

The other is a root that cannot be used independently, but it has a basic meaning, which is roughly the same in different words. For example, the words mirror and mirage, in which the root of "mir" is equivalent to "wonderful" wonderful”“surprise ",meaning" strange and surprising ".

So: the mirror [mir is surprised,-or represents the object; Amazing thing, at first people were surprised that the mirror could reflect their own figure. ]

Phantom [Mill surprised,-age noun suffix; Amazing scenery. ]

Through the medium of "root", each word has a certain relationship and is easy to remember.

Affixes include prefixes and suffixes, and the "affix" memory method is mainly used to remember "derivative words", that is, "new words produced by adding an affix before or after the root."

For example, the word postscript is prefixed with "post-", which means "after" and "script" means "written material". Isn't it "supplementary text (attachment)" after the written materials?

Another example is the word "brochure". "-let" is a suffix, meaning "small". Obviously, "brochure" means "brochure".

It is a pleasure to memorize words and analyze the source of words by root affixes. As for the common roots and affixes, I don't need to go into details here, and the teacher will supplement them in the teaching process.

2, sound, shape, meaning memory method

The memory method of sound, shape and meaning mainly starts with the pronunciation, shape and meaning of words, and follows the principles of association, comparison and induction.

① Phonetic words and morphological words

Phonetic words refer to words with similar pronunciations, such as usual and solitary, while morphological words refer to words with similar forms, such as pop-up and rejection.

② homographs with different meanings

Homographs refer to words with the same spelling but different meanings, such as bat (racket) and bat (bat) with the same form but different meanings. Another example: lead[li:d] and lead[led] have the same form, different meanings and different pronunciations.

Homophones refer to words with the same pronunciation but different meanings. For example, bear and bear have the same spelling, the same pronunciation but different meanings, and meat and meet have different spellings, the same pronunciation but different meanings.

③ Synonyms and antonyms

Synonyms refer to words with the same or similar meanings, such as glad and pleased.

Antonyms refer to words with opposite or relative meanings, such as raw and cooked.

4 palindromes, mixed words and deformed words.

Palindrome is a word that can be read both forward and backward. There are two kinds of palindromes. One is that the words read backwards are the same as the original words, such as level, meet, civic, madam and so on. The other is that reverse words are different from the original words to generate new words, such as but -tub, bin -nib and time.

Compound words are also called patchwork words, which consist of two words, such as smoke+fog = smoke.

Communication+satellite = communication satellite.

Medical care+nursing = medical insurance, work+welfare = work welfare, etc.

Morphemes refer to new words or phrases that change the alphabetical order of verbs or phrases, such as: eat -tea, part -trap, dirty room-success, woman Hitler- mother-in-law, etc.

⑤ Onomatopoeic words and transliterated words

Onomatopoeic words are words that simulate the sounds made by objects, people and animals, for example, bomb (bomb; Bombing) [quasi-bomb explosion], crackle (crackle) [quasi-crackle], grunt (grumble, complain) [quasi-grunt, grunt], grunt (whisper, stumble) [quasi-whisper], roar (growl, growl) makes the beast roar], owl [

Transliteration words are words transformed from transliteration, and most of them are words created in the process of vocabulary development and translation. There are three situations: English transliteration into Chinese, Chinese translation into English, and pronunciation coupling.

Example: English translated into Chinese: humor (humor), coffee (coffee), tank (tank), sofa (sofa).

Chinese translated into English: Fei (Fei), KWTOW (kowtow, kowtow), litchi (litchi), typhoon (typhoon).

Pronunciation coupling between Chinese and English: scan, tow, loot, bandage.

There are many types of words generated according to the relationship between pronunciation, morphology and meaning, so I won't list them here. Teachers are required to guide students to observe and compare in the teaching process, cultivate interest, start with pronunciation, word form and meaning, and summarize the memorized vocabulary in blocks.

3. Interesting mnemonics

Humor memorization method is based on the relationship between pronunciation, word form and word meaning, and uses humorous and absurd misinterpretation to memorize vocabulary.

For example: morose =mo (dialect, no) +rose (rose). Imagine how Valentine's Day without roses can not be "sad and depressed".

Ponderous (heavy), listen to the pronunciation, called "fat death", think about it, "fat death", can it not be "heavy"?

Another example is to remember a group of words such as engineer, peer, pioneer, profiteer, helm, sneer, volunteer, etc. We can understand humorously:

Pioneers despise snoeer (peers) and profiteers (profiteers) and volunteer to be engineers (steer). Another example is remembering the word Nepal. A more romantic and humorous way is to remember the first letter of each word in the following sentence: Never part like lovers.

4. Sensory memory method

Sensory memory method is a method to mobilize the ears, mouth, eyes and hands to listen, speak, read and write in a unified way to achieve the purpose of memory. The advantage of this method is to communicate the connections between various parts of the cerebral cortex and reduce forgetting. We can remember wholeheartedly, and we can also pay attention to the English around us, such as English on electrical equipment, English on product manuals, various warning slogans and so on. We can also listen to foreign songs and enjoy foreign movies and TV programs ... we can remember them again and again.

For example, many brands have the word (battery) on the battery packaging, many shampoo bottles have shampoo, ATMs have ATMs, and some medicine packages have OTC and so on.

In the teaching process, teachers should properly infiltrate relevant knowledge and educate students to observe and accumulate more.

5, classified memory method

Classified memory is a method of classifying and summarizing words according to the conditions such as theme and scope, and then comprehensively memorizing them. We can classify medical care, shopping and foreign trade, or summarize them with time, determination and attitude, and then remember them according to the principle of memory.

For example, according to the classification of literary forms, many words can be summarized: biography, essays, reportage, memoirs, travel notes, essays, novels and so on.

There are many ways to remember English words, besides those listed above, there are proverbs, rhymes, cards and so on. We should follow the principle of memory and take memorizing words as a pleasure. Teachers should guide students to think more and contact more in the teaching process, and make necessary supplements to some knowledge involved. In fact, memorizing English words is a very interesting and attractive science. Accumulate more, review more, explore more, grasp the law, and you will definitely get out of the quagmire of "rote memorization".