Vocabulary in use vocabulary reference and practice Third Edition Elementary Michael McCarthy Felicity O’Dell

6
English Vocabulary in Use Elementary

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To the teacher
This book can be used in class or as a self-study book. It is intended for learners at A1–A2 levels 
of the Council of Europe scale. It aims to take learners with a very basic level of vocabulary to 
a point where they can use approximately 2,000 words and phrases and teaches them around 
1, 250 new words and phrases. The vocabulary has been chosen for its usefulness in everyday 
situations, and we consulted a written and spoken corpus of present-day English to help us 
decide on the words and phrases to be included. The new vocabulary (on average 20–30 items 
per unit) is presented with photos or illustrations and explanations on the left-hand page, and 
there are exercises and activities on the right-hand page. There is an Answer key and an Index 
with pronunciation for all the key vocabulary.
The book focuses not just on single words, but also on useful phrases and collocations. For 
example, difficult teaching points such as the difference between 
do
and 
make
are dealt 
with through collocation (we 
do
our homework, but we 
make
mistakes), and useful phrases 
(e.g. 
come along
) are presented.
The book is organised around everyday topics, but also has units devoted to core verbs such 
as 
get
and 
bring / take
. Typical errors are indicated where appropriate, and the most typical 
meanings and uses are focused on for each key item. The units in the book can be used in any 
order you like, but it is often a good idea to do blocks of units based round the same topic 
(e.g. 
People
, 
At home
, 
Leisure
).
The right-hand pages offer a variety of different types of activities, including traditional ones such 
as gap-filling, but also more open-ended ones and personalised activities which enable learners to 
talk about their own lives. Although the activities and exercises are designed for self-study, they can 
easily be adapted for pairwork, groupwork or whole-class activities in the usual ways. For example, 
where there are dialogues, students can take the speaking parts and practise the conversations, 
and where the exercises have questions and answers, students can practise asking each other 
the questions and answering them. See who has the best ideas for recording vocabulary in their 
notebook. The Answer key sometimes gives alternative answers to the exercises, and also gives 
possible model answers for the more personalised ones.
When the learners have worked through a group of units, it is a good idea to repeat some of 
the work (for example, the exercises) and to expand on the meaning and use of key words and 
phrases by extra discussion in class, and find other examples of the key items in other texts and 
situations. This can be done at intervals of one to three months after first working on a unit. This 
is important, since it is usually the case that learners need five to seven exposures to a word or 
phrase before they can really know it, and no single book can do enough to ensure that words 
are always learnt first time.
When your students have finished and reviewed all the units in this book, they can move on to 
the next book in this series: 
English Vocabulary in Use: Pre-intermediate and Intermediate
, by 
Stuart Redman.
Find more resources for teachers at www.cambridge.org
We hope you enjoy using the book.