Studying Vocabulary

In this blog I will explain how I study my vocabulary and what works for me and what does not. As we had to study the Porter words this semester, I will focus on how I studied those. To begin with, I do the exercises in the Porter book. Even though some of the exercises are very doable, there always are many words that I do not know or do not know well enough. These words I write on the Vocabulary sheet included in the book. When I am done with that I check all the words on my Vocabulary sheet online to get a quick overview what they all mean. Then I start studying the vocabulary list on “vocabulary.com”. I have really come to like this website during the course of this semester. I does not only include very useful definitions and example sentences but you can also listen to the pronunciation of the words, which is very useful for PC2. For pronunciation the listening and spelling question part is especially great. On this level you have to read through the definition of the word but without the word and you should guess what is meant by the definition. If you do not know what it is, you can listen to the word and then spell it. This level is very helpful for me because I can easily check if I would have pronounced the word the same way. While studying the vocabulary list I write down all the words that are especially hard for me.

When I am done studying the list because I have mastered it I read through my “difficult words” again and check if I know how to define, explain and use them now. Then I study the ones that I still do not know again. This basically is how I study my vocabulary. For the last PC, this precess worked very well. I hope it will work for this one as well.