The student does not only learn new words, he also learns new means by which he can remember them, at least as far as my course are concerned. Mnemonics have been around for some time and it is well worth my while to instill a sense of associating images to a collection of words, be they new phrasal words or an expression, which uses the phrasal verbs but then has a different meaning.

I used to tell students the number of ways that he can remember new words and that came through a Headway publication back in Italy. Today I will still refer to those means, including keeping calling cards of new words in his pocket, but in addition I will inform the learner of how his brain can be organized to receive and reorder the material that he has read. This is an especially useful exercise when getting the person to summarize what he has read in his own words. In the beginning because the language learner is not used to putting passages on his own words, he will just try to reiterate fragments of them. Once the memory of how a summary is done sinks in, he will then be able to be more original in his discourse.

The student should be introduced to a variety of activities including role-plays, which will reinforce the passive learning. A role play of playing shopkeeper using new descriptive words associated to clothing will likely reinforce the way the learner sees the object. He will then extenuate those words to other objects that like clothing use materials, sizes and patterns to describe them.