Trigonometry without SOHCAHTOA

In mathematics teaching, mnemonics are often looked on with suspicion. Teachers who use ‘FOIL’ for expanding a pair of brackets or ‘KFC’ for division of fractions are seen as resorting to ‘tricks’, which are merely examinationpassing hacks (Cardone, 2015). However, we don’t see mnemonics as necessarily always a sign of ‘procedural’ teaching. They give cues which may sometimes be useful, especially for arbitrary knowledge. In this article, we consider how this might apply to using ‘SOHCAHTOA’ for trigonometry. Should we shun the mnemonic or not?