Adding words to your mental "iceberg"

The Language Iceberg: Why "Forgetting" is Part of Learning

Experts in language development often compare our mental lexicon—the internal dictionary of words we know—to an iceberg.

The Two Layers of Vocabulary

• The Tip of the Iceberg (Above Water): These are the words we have fully mastered – the surface-level fluency we use for daily social interactions (ordering coffee, chatting with friends). 

• The Base (Submerged): This is the "invisible" part—the deep, conceptual, and academic language needed for classroom learning and complex problem-solving. This "passive" vocabulary exists in layers:

  • Near the surface: Words we recognize immediately when we hear them, though we rarely say them ourselves.

  • In the mid-depths: Words we understand only when used in a specific context.

  • In the deep: Words we vaguely recognize but would need significant prompting to comprehend.

Our grasp of vocabulary in our mother tongue can be described in these terms.  For example, there are countless words we understand while reading a classic novel that we would never use in a casual chat.  The words above the waterline are likely the words we learned first as children, and they didn’t start out at the tip of the iceberg.  A base was established first, and those words rose to the surface over time.

The Myth of "Once and For All"

But many adult learners of a second language face frustration because we expect ourselves to master a word as soon as we hear it or read it for the first time. We try to force every new word "above the waterline" through sheer willpower and rote memorization, and chide ourselves, “But I just learned that word yesterday! Why can’t I remember it?”

That expectation and approach to learning a second language is exhausting and inefficient. When we try to force-memorize a small list of words, we often find we can't recall them just two days later. We are essentially trying to build the tip of the iceberg without a solid base to support it.

The Growing Participatory Approach (GPA)

Instead of forcing a few words to the surface all at once, the Growing Participatory Approach focuses on building a strong foundation. The aim is to add a larger volume of words to the "bottom" of the iceberg through strong encounters.

A "strong encounter" happens when you listen attentively to a new word in a meaningful context—perhaps through an activity with your tutor or a recorded story. You might not be able to produce the word yet, but it has found a place in your lexicon. For those of you tracking your word count, you aren’t counting words that have been mastered.  Rather, you are keeping a running count of the words you’ve strongly encountered (i.e. put in the bottom of your iceberg).  Every time you hear that word again in a story or a real-world conversation, it catches a bit of air and floats closer to the surface.

The Role of the Tutor and Spaced Repetition

Especially in the early phases of learning (such as the activities in the Foundations course), the tutor’s role is to facilitate these strong encounters. Every time they test your comprehension and you indicate the photo/object/action they say, a “strong encounter” is happening, and you are tucking that new word into the bottom of your language iceberg.

Of course, if we only accumulate new words in the bottom of our language iceberg, and never review them, we won’t start using them in our speech.  To help those words rise to the surface, we use Spaced Repetition. This is the "secret sauce" of long-term memory:

• Frequency over Duration: Reviewing a word list for 5–10 minutes several times (once later that day, then a few days later, then a week later) is significantly more effective than "cramming" for a full hour.

• Strengthening Neural Pathways: Each spaced review acts like a buoyant nudge, encouraging the word further up toward the waterline until it becomes effortless to use.

You and your tutor create video and audio files of the new word lists precisely to help you accomplish this spaced repetition.  Every time you listen to the audio file and indicate your understanding—whether through a physical gesture or a mental note—you add 'buoyancy' to those words, helping them float up from your passive memory to your active use.

A Shift in Perspective

The next time you struggle to recall a word, don’t berate yourself. Rejoice! The very fact that you think you should know the word is proof of a strong encounter. It means the word is already part of your iceberg; it’s just currently submerged. The act of trying to recall it is the very thing that strengthens the connection and helps it float toward the surface.

Be patient with the process. Keep building the base of your language iceberg with new word lists, and keep reviewing those lists regularly to float the words up to the waterline.