Archive for year: 2012

About this guide

This guide will explain what repetition is and how you can use it to improve the quality of your lessons. Repetition is fully understood by school teachers and they use it effectively to ensure students remember new topics. Most guitar tutors on the other hand are unaware how they could be using repetition to achieve the same results. This guide will show you how to do it.

About repetition

Repetition is a method that can be used to help students learn facts, lists and procedures amongst other things. By repeating the new information to students and having them recite the information they are far more likely to retain and recall the information later on. In other words, it helps students memorize new information.

By using repetition effectively, you are increasing the quality of your lessons. Ironically if you use repetition properly you will need to spend less time in the future repeating material that the student would have forgotten.

Why should I use repetition?

To memorize a fact, the more often the information is retrieved and used, the more deeply it will be imbedded in the person’s long term memory. In other words, repetition helps a student memorize information.

This isn’t just a subtle effect; repetition can help achieve a very strong link to a person’s long term memory. One study found that 9 weeks after new material was given to students, when the students weren’t taught with repetition they could only remember 14% of the material while the students who were taught with repetition could remember 70% of the material. That is a huge difference. In other words, by not using repetition you’re students are likely forgetting most of what you say after about 9 weeks.