There are 570 headwords on this list (proposed by Averil Coxhead at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand), which is said to contain the most frequently occurring vocabulary in academic contexts. Starting with the letter 'A', test your familiarity with ten words on the AWL.
Choose the word or expression that differs in meaning from the given word:
Have you ever looked back at your life and found yourself wondering how you got to where you are today? Ever noticed how every single decision you've ever made has, directly or indirectly, brought you here?
Amazing, isn't it, when you think about it...
We use scissors to cut paper. Cut can be used as a verb. Did you know that cut is used in a common English idiom? Read on...
Any plans for the summer? Will you be working or taking some time off? There's no time off for us hardworkers here at EC!
Anyway, here are some idioms which are related to work or holidays:
Proverb: It is not healthy for someone to work all the time and never play:
'Come to the beach with us today. Remember, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'
Doing something on holiday which is similar to your job:
What are the similarities and differences between your school system and the American one? What kind of student are you? Are you brainy (very smart) or a low achiever (a poor performer)? Do you sometimes ditch your classes (not attend your classes)? Or, are you the teacher's pet (the teacher's favorite student)?
Take this quiz to see how good you are at recognizing some common American expressions for talking about school performance.
Rearrange the words to create the correct sentences. Write the sentences in the spaces below.
Capitalize the first letter of the first word in each sentence, and end with the appropriate punctuation marks.
1. borrow/I/may/that book/you/from
2. going to/he/Saturday/is/the shopping mall/on
3. the airport/him/will/at/Linda/meet/noon/at
Baseball is considered America's favorite pastime, and as a result there are many idiomatic expressions which come from this great sport. If you are not familiar with baseball jargon, some very common idioms may be difficult to understand. Here are some of the most common expressions and idioms from the world of baseball:
The generation gap is a popular term used to describe differences between people of a younger generation and their elders, especially between a child and his or her parent's generation.
Once you have crossed the generation gap, you are old, out of touch and there is no way back!
Here's a good way of finding out if you are now on the other side of the generation gap:
Every month we ask our newsletter readers to send in their questions to Tim, our English teacher at EC Brighton, about the English language. Here are your questions:
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June's Star Question - Thanks to Thao from Vietnam:
