So I read a lot of texts in English but how do I equip myself to use it? Here is a checklist of actions to take with new words or lexical items: phrasal verbs, fixed expressions, collocations, prepositional phrases.
1. Can I spell it?
2. Can I say it i.e. does it roll off my tongue with ease? Do I have the vowel sounds in this word correct?
3. Do I know any other members of the same word family, so I can connect the new word to my existing mental word bank?
4. Do I have a sense of how and when and where its used? You can use SKELL or online dictionaries or GPT to find example sentences.
5. For single new words, do I know the most common collocations?
6. Have I written a few sentences of my own where I might actually use this word in my real life? That is, have I made it personal? Have I fit it into my life somehow, and my memory of past experiences?
7. ADVANCED: Have I re-written these example sentences in my own words to get a better sense of lexical boundaries?
8. POST LEARNING: Can I it explain to someone? The Speed Game is useful to practice defining words.
9. STUDY SKILL: Do I have this word learned in conjunction with an article, video or conversation? That is, am I encoding it into a story or memory to make it easier to recall?