TEXT BOOK EVALUTION

Skill & Study focus
Textbook: Vocabulary
Level: Intermediate & upper intermediate

English Vocabulary in Use for upper-intermediate, Published by Cambridge University Press

is the third of a series of four, including elementary and
pre-intermediate and intermediate.
Authors: Michael McCArthy and Felicity O’Dell  have extensive experience and publishing record in the field of ESL including texts on, English Collocations, Phrasal verbs, idioms and Games for Vocabulary learning. O’Dell has had a particular interest in developing online learning resources.

The objectives of the book are two fold; to help students improve English vocabulary through not only learning the meaning of words, but also how words are used.  

The text book is designed to be used both in the classroom with a teacher and in independent study. It is very clearly and consistently set out. Every unit or theme has 2 pages where the left page provides the meaning of words and how to use them, and the right page has series of exercises. The first 7 units are devoted to effective strategies for vocabulary learning such as; creating word trees, bubble diagrams, tables or highlighting  for identifying word class, and other organising devices.

Units 8-17 deal with Word formation (e.g. suffixes, compound adjectives and words form other languages) and later units focus on functional aspects such as ‘Connecting and Linking words. The remainder of the units are organised by a thematic principle under very diverse subjects e.g.; Towns, Sound and light, Money or success, Failure and Difficulty.

Although the book is dominated by written text, the page layout breaks up the information in easy to digest segments, and small diagrams and pictures give some variation, but this is minimal.
I would recommend this book as a very usefull traditional teaching tool and resource.
Review Lisa Nolan 28/08/2012