It can be very frustrating to give what we think was a really good class only to find that the very next day they appear to have forgotten it all! But don't worry, it's not you. Everyone has the same problem. Learning is like that; sometimes things seem to go in quickly, at other times it takes far longer for a new piece of information to 'connect' with something already known and find a place in a busy brain.

Memorable presentations

One way in which we can help students to remember what we teach them is to try to find ways of presenting new material in a way which is memorable for the students.

This may mean teaching new vocabulary through a story, presenting a new grammar structure through a strange situation or a jokey character. So, for example, you could use a scatterbrained kid who leaves his/her possessions in strange places - keys in the teapot, schoolbooks under the piano etc for prepositions of place. A teenage idol-type character who is now rich, famous, lives in a castle, etc., but who used to be poor, a student, live in a small flat etc. is a good vehicle for teaching 'used to'. Students will later tend to remember the situation and by association the language you were teaching them.

Plenty of practice

Students won't usually remember anything very much unless they practice it a lot.

As teachers, we need to make sure that we provide our students with a lot of opportunities for practice, different kinds of practice. You could use oral prompts, closed and open dialogues, gap-fills, jumbled sentences, picture compositions all to practise different aspects of 'used to' for example. Prepositions of place might call for picture prompts, gap-fills, guided listening and picture dictations for example.