In my previous post, I gave you an idea of how many miscellaneous links I have stored in my 'For later' bookmark file.

I decided to check one or two more out and wanted to share this one with you.

As a student at primary and then secondary school in the UK, I can still remember how to spell two words because of tricks my teachers at the time taught us.

1 The spelling of the word 'isosceles' (primary school maths) - Mr Beresford made up a sentence for us to remember the spelling - 'I saw our Simon climbing Everest last Easter Sunday'. I must have been about 9 years old and I still remember this sentence now!

http://typenuts.com/2009/04/07/rhythm/

2 The spelling of the word 'rhythm'. My English teacher Miss Anderson had us spelling the word by saying each letter in time to a beat - the first three letters slowly, then the last three following in quick succession.

As a teacher, I have often tried to help students remember the meaning(s) and spelling of words or the meaning of idioms by getting them to make up stories, sentences and pictures to illustrate them.

Look at this picture. Notice the two meanings of the word 'wave' that are illustrated.

http://500px.com/photo/4944047

These meanings of 'wave' are easy to show, as is the next meaning:

http://www.mathcs.emory.edu/~cheung/Courses/455/Syllabus/2-physical/intro.html

But can you easily illustrate these meanings of 'wave'? I can see that for the first one, a teacher would probably need to choose something that is featuring strongly in the news.

For the second one, I might ask students to close their eyes and to imagine themselves in a very warm room inside a building. Someone goes outside and forgets to close the door. It's freezing cold outside. What do you notice first? (The cold air coming inside.) How might your body react? (by shivering, maybe)

The door stays open. What do you notice now? (my skin starts reacting)

If no one closes the door, what will happen? Where will you feel the cold? (probably throughout your body, even deep within).

Ask them how quickly their body would react if the building was in the north or south pole - they would feel a wave of cold.

GROUP

C2 a group of people or things that arrive or happen together or in a short period of time

Dictionary examples:

There has been a wave of kidnappings in the region.

Another wave of refugees is arriving at the border.

Learner example:
These people, who belong mostly to the middle class, and some other[s] like explorers [...] or youngsters seeking some adventure, produce the big wave of tourists to different countries.

Certificate of Proficiency in English; C2; Greek