Hi, my name is James Hall and I am a university EFL instructor in
Japan. Tomorrow, I am going to introduce vocabulary notebooks into a
class I teach for nursing students. One of the main reasons for me
introducing vocabulary notebooks is to encourcage students to develop
word study strategies. I have chosen a vocabulary notebook over word
cards because the latter is easy to lose and it will be easier for me
to track students' work with a notebook. However, the literature seems
to indicate that word cards are more effective than vocabulary lists
because fixed lists encourage learners to remember the order in which
the words appear rather than the actual meanings of the words. I was
wondering what the creators of the word-surfing approach to vocabulary
learning think of this.

The vocabulary notebook I introduce into the class will be a hybrid
between the format recommended in Schmitt, N. & D. Schmitt. (1995).
Vocabulary notebooks: theoretical underpinnings and practical
suggestions. ELT Journal. 49/2 and the wordsurfing technique. This is
my proposed format:

On one side of a page, students will write
1) the meaning of the word they want to know in their L1.
2) a key image or key word to help them recall the word.

On the back of the page, students will write
1)the L2 word
(Under the L2 word, I will also encourage them to write and
derivations of the word, its pronunciation in phonetic symbols if they
struggle with the pronunciation, and the word's part of speech.)
2)connecting words
(I think the expression "connecting words" is easier for my students
to grasp than "collocation". )
3)a sample sentence

Periodically, I plan on reporting on this endeavor in my blog:
( http://discussenglish.blogspot.com/ )