Students memorizing sentences.

At the start of each private class we do at our school, we have the students practice their vocabulary by making sentences with selected words they should have learned when preparing for the class on computer.  The students almost always memorize sentences.  To stop them from doing this, I try to have a conversation using a word with them.  I am always surprised how often the students can't make any other sentences with the word other than the one sentence they memorized.

Learn to make sentences, I tell them, not learn sentences.

One student last night tried to impress me by telling me a story using a word.  But he tried to memorize the story and so he muffed the grammar, and he ultimately showed he had no idea how to use the word or what the word meant.

 

Will there be fall-out today from the office moving and dress codes flaps?