Having a great English vocabulary doesn't just mean that you can understand lots of words and phrases: it also means that you can use these words and phrases and that you can remember them when you need them.
This is the difference between an active and a passive vocabulary. Generally, most people's passive vocabulary is far bigger than their active vocabulary, and the secret is to try and "activate" passive knowledge.
1)vocabulary notebooks
When you come across a new English word, write it down and look it up in the dictionary , make sure you write any definitions of the word, as well as sentences.synonyms, antonyms. Some people find it helpful to organize notebooks into themes.Choose a new word or phrase from your notebook and try to use it as often as possible in one day. Think of situations where you would need to use it, and write down a couple of example sentences. Go back to this word or phrase after a week, to make sure you still remember it.(use-review)The next time you have a spare couple of minutes, flick through your notebook. You'll be surprised how much comes back to you! Choose a page where you have already stored a number of words and expressions, cover the page, and try to remember what you wrote. Then look at the page and see how many you remember.
2.Read something that interests you. It could be a newspaper, a novel, a magazine, or even an English graded reader (a simplified book). Working page by page, underline the words or phrases that you don't know. Look up only those that are important for understanding, or which are repeated.
2)Blitz
Focus on a theme, such as sport. Divide one page of your notebook into three columns. In the first column write down as many sports as you can think of. In the second, write down all the equipment you need for the sport. In the third, write down the scoring systems.
tennis racquet, ball, net umpire, love, linesman
football pitch, ball, goal posts referee, offside, penalty
You can use this method for many different themes: houses (rooms of house, furniture, styles); jobs (names of jobs, places where these jobs are done, characteristics of the job) and so on.
3. Word association
Write a key word in the middle of a page and draw a bubble around it. Then draw lines out from this word connected to smaller bubbles. In the smaller bubbles you can add words associated with the main word.
For example, you could write "email" in the middle of a page. Then the smaller bubbles could contain words such as "write", "compose", "receive", "delete", "reply" and so on.
