Keeping a record and practicing

Some people find it useful to keep a small piece of paper and a pen on them at all times, so that when they hear or read a word that they don’t understand, they can write it. Nowadays, if you have a mobile phone, you could also enter the words into the phone, perhaps as an unsent sms.

Then, at the end of each day, or perhaps every week, they go through all the words and do some if not all of the following things:

Look the words up in a dictionary and check they got the spelling right (especially for words they heard and had to guess the spelling for).
Using the dictionary, check the meaning of the word. Try to remember what context the word was used in and think about whether the word’s meaning makes sense in that context.
Write the word down in a vocabulary book and then practice using it in a few different sentences.

Click here to move on to the next topic: Dont use words you re not sure about