Vocabulary learning by drawing words
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 1:28 pm
Recent research at the University of Waterloo shows "The Surprisingly Powerful Influence of Drawing on Memory". The research involved drawing words (nouns) rather than looking at photos of nouns or just thinking about images of nouns. The results showed about double the retention rate.
The Surprisingly Powerful Influence of Drawing on Memory
However, I wonder if the technique "translates" to second language learning. After all, an image is not specific to any particular language. Presumably you would have to embellish the drawing with the writing of the word in the target language and probably adding a drawing of a mnemonic of the target word. I don't think the technique would be limited to nouns. Certainly action verbs could be easily drawn, as well as adjectives, etc.
I think this is worth a try. I am going to start with a number of L2 words that I find difficult to remember even though they are common and I see them a lot. Now maybe I can visualise a drawing of those challenging words that I drew myself.
The Surprisingly Powerful Influence of Drawing on Memory
However, I wonder if the technique "translates" to second language learning. After all, an image is not specific to any particular language. Presumably you would have to embellish the drawing with the writing of the word in the target language and probably adding a drawing of a mnemonic of the target word. I don't think the technique would be limited to nouns. Certainly action verbs could be easily drawn, as well as adjectives, etc.
I think this is worth a try. I am going to start with a number of L2 words that I find difficult to remember even though they are common and I see them a lot. Now maybe I can visualise a drawing of those challenging words that I drew myself.