“When you say you know a word or phrase, you could mean one of two things. First, you could mean that if someone says the word to you (or if you read the word), you know what it means. This is passive knowledge. The second way of knowing is that you can recall and use that vocabulary appropriately. This is active knowledge.” (Grigg, 2012)

Many of my learners can become quite frustrated when they know a word but they can’t recall it quick enough to use in conversation. I try to reassure them that this is quite normal and their passive knowledge will be greater than their active knowledge but understandably they are always really keen to know what they can do to narrow this gap.

Hard Working

The majority of my learners work very hard at home on their French skills; completing homework tasks, using language apps, reviewing vocabulary and watching French TV shows. This is all fantastic but I try to carefully explain that this type of activity will contribute more to increasing and consolidating their passive vocabulary rather than developing active knowledge. Developing active vocabulary requires more active input!

How to encourage active recall - with some examples

One of my favourite ways to encourage active recall at home is the activity, ‘Word Association’. The most effective way that this could work for your learners is to give them one word or a short phrase that they can use as a trigger to try to recall as much vocabulary as possible related to the word or phrase.

For example, if the trigger word is ‘la famille’, a learner may recall ‘la mère’ and then ‘le père’, which may lead to ‘le frère’ as it sounds very similar, which may lead to ‘la soeur’. Once the process begins it can really open up and lead the learner to remember much more than they could have imagined. It could lead to recalling possessive adjectives – ma mère, son père, personality traits, physical descriptions – it can be quite vast. You can help the learners build some parameters to keep the activity more containable if necessary.

In addition, you can set the task of trying to recall 8-10 words and then using some of the words, ask them to create 3 sentences – this in itself will encourage them to recall even more.

It doesn’t have to take long

If you take 5-10 minutes at the start of the following class to review this with your learners, other learners can really benefit from what their partners have remembered and the range of vocabulary and structures recalled is always very impressive.

You can use this for all levels

This process can be used at any level. In fact, I find that it is particularly effective for Intermediate and Advanced learners who want to develop and grow their range of active vocabulary but who can often get by very successfully with a much smaller range. This type of activity really encourages them to try to use words and expressions that they may otherwise not use.

Active recall strategies like this are also a great way of keeping all vocabulary fresh. You could challenge your learners by choosing a topic from a previous block of classes to really encourage them to dig deep. It’s not easy but being ‘active’ pays off!

The opening quote is taken from an article Hugh Grigg, 

Active vs passive vocabulary - do you know the difference?

https://eastasiastudent.net/study/active-passive-vocabulary/a