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What this is
Two real classes, and a tool
These are lessons I've delivered to B1 intermediate adult groups. Not designed-for-website mock-ups. The first is a reflection-and-planning lesson on how students learn. The second teaches a seven-step system for recording vocabulary so it actually stays in memory. Both run to 90 minutes. Both sit on research that does not normally reach the classroom. Underneath the second lesson sits a small web app that embodies the same seven hooks, free to use, and on this page too.
If you teach English yourself, or you're curious about how a 90-minute lesson fits together, the slides and notes below are here to read. If you're a learner thinking about your own English, the one-to-one work I do with professional adults at B2 and C1 sits on the programme page. The level is different and the format is different, but the methodology underneath, retrieval, noticing, dual coding, output, vocabulary depth, is the same craft.
Lesson one
How YOU learn.
A reflection-and-planning lesson. Students rank how they learn a language, talk through their own histories with English, hear three research-backed principles, and use the first conditional to write five plans for the month ahead. Each student leaves with their own plan and a promise they have spoken aloud.
The lesson works because it does not tell students how to learn. It lets them notice, in their own words, what already does and does not work for them.
Lesson two
Vocabulary memory.
A methodology lesson. Students try to retrieve eight words from last week, feel the gap, and learn a seven-hook system for recording any new word so it actually sticks. By the end, each student has run five of their own words through the full system, then practised testing themselves before they check.
The seven hooks are not arbitrary. Each one closes a specific failure of list-based vocabulary recording, drawing on retrieval practice, spaced learning, dual coding, and vocabulary depth. The poster is the takeaway. Students keep it for life.
Free tool
Vocabulary memory tool.
A small, beautifully made companion app to the Vocabulary Memory lesson. It holds the seven hooks for any word you add, reminds you to test before you check, and spaces your reviews so the words actually stay. Built to sit in the corner of your phone or laptop and earn its place over weeks.
Try it with six words from this lesson. Each one shows a different memory technique, with the chunks, the family, the pronunciation, the picture, the connection, all in place. Tap a word to open it. Add your own words as you go.
The tool is yours, free, no sign-up. There is also a teacher word pack feature: after every coaching session, I add the day's vocabulary into the tool for each of my one-to-one students. They open it between sessions and the work is already half done. If that interests you, the programme page is the way in.
Take what you need
The materials are yours
The lessons, the teacher notes, the poster, and the tool are free. Use them, adapt them, share them with a learner or a teacher you know. Citation appreciated.
If you'd like to talk, about teaching, about your own English, or about whether the one-to-one coaching is right for you, there's a fifteen-minute conversation waiting.