Its really clear how I can use mnemonics to remember vocabulary, but how can we apply memory techniques to internalising grammar rules/exceptions? Do any of you have any useful rules for remembering grammar rules, such as different tense endings for Spanish, Italian or French? How about for Asian languages?
I’ve been teaching my students Spanish grammar adapting some of the Michel Thomas mnemonics devices, eg: “río takes you to the river but -ría takes you into the woods/woulds” to teach the conditional tense or developing my own, eg: “Abba/-aba used to be a famous band in the 70s” to teach the imperfect tense." These are nice and easy to teach as you can also add MT’s “hooks” to the verb endings.
Most MFL teachers learn to communicate exceptions to rules through some chunking methods (MR. VANDERSTRAMP for French past tense verbs which take être, or principles such as “Spanish go-go verbs are irregular in the future tense”)
Trouble is, with trickier tenses, eg: the Spanish Preterite, there are a lot of different endings and irregularities. Have any of you found ways around such problems? Have any of you got other suggestions for ways to condense these down to easily remembered principles?