Book review: "English in Use"
If I'm planning lessons, you're sure to see one of these on my desk. I usually go through the units to revise and learn some cool vocab that I want to model to my students. Here is a quick review of my lesson planning companions!
"Collocations", "Phrasal verbs" and "Idioms in Use" each have 60 two-page units. "Vocabulary" has 101 units. There are 20+ new lexical items in each unit, presented with explanations on the left-hand page, which make them suitable for in-class use and self-study. There are practice activities on the right-hand page.
What I don't particularly like about "...in Use"
→ Practice activities are mostly traditional gap-fills or matching exercises, with very few open-ended questions.
→ In my personal opinion, practice activities get repetitive with time, there is not much variety there.
→ The books are generally organized around everyday topics (work, health), concepts (time, space), functions (agreeing, complaining), but there are a couple of units in Idioms and Phrasal verbs, which are built around keywords: like phrasal verbs with "on", or idioms with "hand" like "could count them on the fingers of one hand" and "can't lay my hands on it". I believe it makes presenting and remembering the target language more challenging. I remember stuff better when there is a common topic which lets me interweave all the new words together in a neat way.
What I love about "...in Use"
→ A great selection of lexical items in each of the books! They really highlight useful words and phrases.
→ New words are presented in meaningful contexts.
→ Every book focuses on useful phrases and collocations, not just single words.
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Who would I recommend these books to?
→ A teacher like me who wants to quickly revise some great language and model it to their students during inputs or be ready to provide students with some emergent language that is likely to pop up.
→ A dedicated student who is looking for some extra materials to jazz up their studies, if they feel that their main coursebook is not enough.
Have you used these books yourself? What's your fav? Mine are Collocations and Vocab in Use?
What I don't particularly like about "...in Use"
→ Practice activities are mostly traditional gap-fills or matching exercises, with very few open-ended questions.
→ In my personal opinion, practice activities get repetitive with time, there is not much variety there.
→ The books are generally organized around everyday topics (work, health), concepts (time, space), functions (agreeing, complaining), but there are a couple of units in Idioms and Phrasal verbs, which are built around keywords: like phrasal verbs with "on", or idioms with "hand" like "could count them on the fingers of one hand" and "can't lay my hands on it". I believe it makes presenting and remembering the target language more challenging. I remember stuff better when there is a common topic which lets me interweave all the new words together in a neat way.
What I love about "...in Use"
→ A great selection of lexical items in each of the books! They really highlight useful words and phrases.
→ New words are presented in meaningful contexts.
→ Every book focuses on useful phrases and collocations, not just single words.
⠀
Who would I recommend these books to?
→ A teacher like me who wants to quickly revise some great language and model it to their students during inputs or be ready to provide students with some emergent language that is likely to pop up.
→ A dedicated student who is looking for some extra materials to jazz up their studies, if they feel that their main coursebook is not enough.
Have you used these books yourself? What's your fav? Mine are Collocations and Vocab in Use?