I remember opening my university notebook during my fourth year and finding a list of words I’d written down, studied for an exam, used in discussions about a particular topic, and then forgotten completely.
I was sure I knew this word. I’d written it down. I’d looked it up. I’d used it in an answer. I’d discussed it in class. And yet, when I came across it again months later in reading, it felt like seeing a stranger’s name. I knew I’d seen it before. I just couldn’t summon it.
This happened not once, but constantly. Over four or five years at university, I learned thousands of words. Maybe tens of thousands. I used them while we were studying specific topics, passed the exams, and then they disappeared. Once the exam was over, once the discussion ended, the words went with it.
I noticed this gap even then, in the classroom. I was studying methodology at a pedagogical university, so I understood the theory: multiple exposures and active use in exercises and tasks—that’s what activates a word and makes it yours. I knew that introducing a word once, or even using it in one context, wasn’t enough.
But knowing the theory and living with the reality were different things. The reality was: I learned thousands of words for specific purposes, and when those purposes ended, most of them did too.
What California showed me
After I graduated in 1999, I started teaching at university. Then in 2003, I travelled to California and spent a year there.
That’s when the gap stopped being theoretical and became impossible to ignore.
I had notebooks full of vocabulary from university. I’d studied grammar for years. I could read English with ease. But when I listened to people speak, I heard phrases I’d never encountered in any textbook. New expressions. Different rhythm. Words in combinations I’d never learned.
University English had been mostly text-based. The English people actually spoke was completely different.
What struck me most was realizing how much of what we’d studied felt disconnected from real conversation. Not wrong, exactly. Just… not what people actually said. We’d spent hours on structures and vocabulary that never showed up in real life. Meanwhile, the language people actually used (the way they softened requests, the way they expressed uncertainty, the way they told stories) felt foreign.
I realized I’d learned English like I was collecting for a test, not building a tool I could actually use.
The moment it became completely clear
But the real insight didn’t come in California. It came through teaching.
I was in front of a student, introducing a word or a phrase. I’d explain it. We’d use it in an exercise. And then, lesson after lesson, I’d watch the same pattern repeat that had happened to me: the word would disappear. They’d encounter it again and not recognize it. They’d use it in one context and be unable to use it in another.
Just introducing a word isn’t enough. One exercise isn’t enough. Even using it in a lesson discussion isn’t enough.
I realized something had to happen between learning and using (something that most language students never get). They see it in different places. They get corrected. They do exercises. But they don’t get repeated, active use across different contexts—the thing that actually makes a word part of how they speak.
At university, my teachers corrected our mistakes. They marked what was wrong, explained the rule, and moved on. But no one helped me notice which mistakes I kept repeating across different topics, which patterns stayed invisible because I only made them in certain contexts, which words I was reaching for in real conversation but couldn’t find because I’d only practiced them in textbook exercises.
That’s the gap I’d lived through without seeing it clearly.
What I do now because of this
This is why my teaching looks the way it does.
When a student practices a phrase or a grammar structure for a few classes in different contexts, and then one day they use it without thinking—I notice. I stop and point it out. Not because I want to praise them for being good, but because I want them to see what actually happened. I want them to experience the difference between “I used this in an exercise” and “I can use this in real conversation now.”
I help them notice their own patterns instead of just correcting them. I ask them to watch which mistakes they keep repeating across different conversations, which words they reach for but can’t find, which moments they freeze and quit instead of trying to paraphrase or work around the difficulty.
Because here’s what I know now: You can spend years learning English. You can pass exams. You can do all the exercises. But if activation only happens in that specific context (in that classroom, for that exam, during that discussion), it will disappear the moment the context ends.
The students who stay with me, who come back month after month, are the ones who start using English in real life instead of just in lessons. They use words in conversations that matter, with people who aren’t teachers, in situations they weren’t studying for. And that’s when it sticks.
That’s not about being fluent or sounding perfect. It’s about moving from temporary activation to real use.
When you look back at everything you’ve learned, what actually stayed with you? And what disappeared the moment the exam or discussion ended?
The tricky part is noticing this pattern in your own learning. You need someone pointing it out—not correcting you, but helping you see where activation is happening and where it’s just temporary. That’s what I write about in my newsletter. Real observations from teaching, patterns I see repeating, and why context matters so much more than most people think.
If you want to keep noticing how English actually sticks (and stop wasting time on learning that disappears), subscribe to my newsletter. It’s where I share what I’ve learned from watching thousands of words come and go—and what actually makes them stay.
Sound More Like Yourself in English
