VOA - Ask a teacher: How to Learn More Word - Lesson 16

Hello everyone. Today, I will read as a teacher how to learn more words. In English, we have a saying that goes use it or lose it. It means that if you do not continue to use a skill, you might lose the ability to do so. We can say this about language learning including learning new words. If you do not use the new words often, you might forget them. A reader, Banin, has a question today. Here it is. Hi. How can I improve my vocabulary? Hello, Banin. Great question. The answer will help many English learners. Here are four things you can do. Read a lot. Look for the news stories, websites, magazines, and books on subjects that you enjoy. While reading, try to guess the meaning of new words from their context. Then, you can check the meaning in the paper. Visionary are aligned. If there are television shows or films that you love in English, watch them with English subtitles to learn new words and hear how we say them. But don't just read. Write. A great way to practice that you read it to write about it. For example, if you read a web story about the best fitness app of 2018, write about it. Other things you can write about what you did today. If you spent time with our friends or family members, went to an event, had a delicious meal, or did something else, write about it. Here's another great technique we use. When you learn a new word, learn it in other forms. For example, the word sleepy is an adjective, but it has noun, verb, and adverb forms. You can make a word from a chart in a notebook or a wireless device and write a sentence example for each form. Another powerful memory tool is word association. Using your imagination to create mental images linked to new words. For example, when I say tasty, what food image do you see in your mind? Keep that food image in your mind and always mentally connect it to the word tasty. Then, the next time you try to remember the word tasty, the mental image will appear. And that's as a teacher. I'm Alice Brighton. Do you have a question for us as a teacher? Write to us in the comment area and be sure to tell us what country are you from. Words in the story. Vocabulary. The words that make up a language. Concepts. Words that are used with a current word or phrase and that help to explain its meaning. Subtitles. Words that appear on the screen during a movie, video, or television show and that are translations of what the actors are saying. Practice. To do something again and again in order to become better at it. App. A computer program that performs the special functions. Chart. Improvement in the form of a table or diagram. Thank you for hearing me read as a teacher how to learn more words. Goodbye and see you again in the next lesson.