Pedogogical question: help with memorization techniques. (fwd)

[Isabelle C. Byrnes]

This is not a scholarly question, so I apologize if SEELANGS is not the
appropriate forum for posting.  I will gladly repost to another
discussion list if someone can tell me of one that is more suitable.

A first-year Russian student visiting the area for a week has called me
for intensive Russian tutoring (coaching?).  Her Russian course is taught
along grammar-translation lines.  Her grade will depend entirely on
quizzes and hourlies that test active knowledge of Russian through
conjugation and translation.  Closed book quizzes and hourlies.  A lot,
therefore, depends on memorization.  She has trouble memorizing.  (There
is no work done with tapes, no recitations, no dialogs.  Russian is not
used in class conversationally.)

One night I assigned (along with written work) 10 words for memorization,
going over the pronunciation and pointing out etymologies that she was
likely to know.  She studied 2 hours (working with flash cards on the
vocab) and yet couldn't recall the words the next day when I quizzed
her.  (This student is not slow-witted.)

So we practiced studying vocabulary.  I went over the pronunciation of
the words with her again, and emphasized how saying them out loud
carefully would help her spell them correctly.  I had her get up and walk
around the room, just reading out loud from her flash cards, both English
and Russian.  I told her, "Pretend you're the teacher and your class
can't go to the language lab tonight.  They need you to say the words for
them, loudly, slowly, and clearly."  Then I had her practice quizzing
herself, still pacing around the room.  Then I had her quiz herself
seated at the table, writing out the words she had trouble with on
different sheets of scratch paper (so she wasn't writing the same word in
a column down the page).

Can you think of any other ways to work on memorizing vocabulary?
Mnemonic devices?  Play-acting?  I want very much to send her back to her
college with the techniques she needs to memorize vocabulary in a course
where this seems to be entirely her responsibility.

Thank you for any and all help you send my way!

Isabelle Byrnes
University of Michigan