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Understanding and Remembering

During the Getting It stage one of the main goals is to get students to learn the language through understanding and remembering. It is important that students understand what is being taught and are able to remember it. What can the teacher do to influence understanding and remembering? How is remembering different from memorization? In this section we will discuss these questions and more in order to better understand how students process and store information about the language they are learning.

Why is it important to understand and remember when learning a language?

Teachers of all subjects might agree that understanding is an important part of learning any concept. The problem, however, is that many teachers mistake signs of apparent understanding for true understanding. For example, students using the right words and definitions, manipulating formulas correctly, or answering questions with borrowed opinions give the impression that they understand. The problem arises then, in judging to what degree students truly grasp a concept. As it turns out, the best way for this to be reliably inferred is when students can apply the concept in an authentic context or transfer what they have learned to a new situation. By incorporating activities that encourage transfer in a language program, teachers are helping to promote true understanding of a language.

In addition to promoting understanding, teachers need to plan activities and exercises that help students to remember what they have learned. Again, this seems like an obvious part of learning a language but many people confuse remembering with memorization. Students need to do more than just commit information to memory; it is important that they are able to recall and retrieve that information and use it spontaneously and creatively.

What is the difference between remembering and memorization?

Remembering is not just the process of committing information to memory but also the process of understanding, retention and recall. That is, the process of remembering requires the learner to understand a concept, retain it over a period of time and then recall the concept when it its needed. Memorization, on the other hand, is a rote learning technique that does not involve understanding and does not have as lasting of an effect.

What can I do to encourage understanding and remembering for my students?

Johnson-Laird (1998) proposes a five-step process for remembering which includes:
1) the registration of information and decision to remember
2) the mental representation of the information
3) the maintenance of the memory
4) retrieval of the memory
5) and the retention of the memory during thought processes

This process demonstrates that teachers can help with the retention of material by encouraging students to take notice of important information and by providing comprehensible input. This will allow students to fill out their mental representations and create more complete pictures of the concept. In brief, it is important to create connections in order to make material memorable.

In the Giving It stage of B-SLIM we can see that the way in which material is presented can greatly help students understand and remember input. Lets look at some examples of how teachers can help students to better understand and remember:

Model language	Demonstrate pronunciation and a positive attitude in order to help students remember. Remember that students need to hear things 3-5 times to remember!
Create context	Use gestures, visuals and stories to create a context in which to introduce new material. Students will be able to make connections in their mind to previous knowledge and experiences.
Use noticing strategies	If students are able to notice concepts or patterns themselves it is more likely to be stored in short-term or long-term memory.
Use review, recycle, refresher activities	Review previously learned material and use refresher activities often in order to promote memory maintenance and retrieval.
Use appropriate chunking, pacing and sequencing	Introduce information keeping cognitive theory in mind. Students can not take in too much information at one time and need to be given information in a logical and meaningful order.
Get students to ask and answer questions	Having students ask and answer questions keeps them involved in the class as well as in their learning process; the more students participate, the more meaningful the information becomes and the more they can remember.

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Johnson-Laird, P. (1988). The Computer and the Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.