I really like Sam's approach to teaching IELTS and his books and lectures have made me a better teacher.

Too many students just worry about matching meanings to words and then forgetting about them. In my classes I highlight words linked to common IELTS topics and ask students to record them in a special notebook, but instead of just writing the word and definition they must also choose four more things to help them remember, such as collocations, synonyms, antonyms, example sentences or pictures.

I find that writing these in circles around the word helps. I've put some examples on website if you would like to take a look http://ieltsadvantage.com/vocabulary/