For many students the prospect of exams can seem daunting. With tests and assessments fast approaching,The Memory Column, written by Mr Paterson, a psychology teacher at independent school LVS Ascot., offers top brain-training tips to help improve the power of recall.

This week he helps out language students Traditionally, students tackle revision by rote repetition. They go over information again and again until it finally sinks in.

This can work, but there are many other effective ways to approach learning and help students reach higher standards. In foreign languages, for example, you can utilise the linkword method, popularised by Dr Michael Gruneberg, to give students an edge over standard techniques.

Often, language students are provided with lists of words and translations that they are required to remember to increase their vocabulary for exams, and they do this by repetition.

However the linkword method works by thinking of something that the foreign word sounds like in English and creating a visual association between this image and the translation. For example, the French word for horse is cheval which, in English, sounds like shovel. So, you would create a visual link between shovel and horse. You may imagine a horse digging with a shovel, or perhaps a horse buying a new shovel.

As long as you ‘see’ this in your mind’s eye it will make recall easier because whenever you think of horse you will remember this bizarre image involving a horse and a shovel which will lead you back to the translation – cheval!

At first it sounds like creating all of these images is extra effort, but the more you do it the more you realise that spending time creating these visual associations speeds up memory rather than overloading it and the more bizarre the imagery, the more memorable it will be. Try this with a list of vocabulary and make sure that you use your own imagination to create your links – this is much better than using someone else’s examples.

One thing to remember with this and all memory techniques is that they are not a magic solution to everything. Nowhere is this more evident than in language learning. Simply knowing a list of words is not knowing the language but it will certainly give you confidence and, as part of a balanced study programme, it will help you learn faster than you thought was possible.

It is also important that revision at home is effective to make the most of your time – if parents share knowledge of techniques such as the linkword method and last week’s mind-mapping, they can help their children study more effectively at home too.