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Zapp! English Academic Vocabulary Unit 2.2
Taught by Katie Wood — Cambridge CELTA · Cambridge DELTA · Cambridge-accredited Teacher Trainer
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
Near the end of this unit, Katie and Keith work through all the ways English uses range — a car's petrol tank, a weather forecast, a golf driving range, a product that comes in different colours — until Katie can't resist: "Range has a range of uses." That is more or less the spirit of this episode. Twelve words from the Academic Word List, each one defined, gapped, repeated, and then handed over to real speakers to see what they actually do with it.
What you'll hear in this episode
Each word follows the same four steps: a definition, sentences with the word missing so you can guess it, the answer to repeat after, and then an unscripted conversation where the word is used naturally.
Katie talks through the first six with Keith and two other speakers. On approach, Keith separates the literal sense — "somebody approaching me in the distance" — from the figurative one, and adds that "my approach might be to run away from a fight, and someone else's approach might be to…make the fight even bigger". On site, Sue's first instinct is honest and useful: "I instantly think of building site." With Annie, the abstract noun factors gets pinned down by a very ordinary example — deciding whether to go out on Friday: "Do I have anything to wear? Do I want to go? Will the music be rubbish?"
Legislation brings up the verb to legislate and the American legislature. Occur produces the best line in the unit, when Keith demonstrates the fixed expression it occurred to me: "It occurred to me that I didn't say thank you to you yesterday, for that lovely meal you cooked."
Part two covers chapter, transfer, region, environment, policy and commission — including the stress shift between the verb transFER and the noun TRANSfer, bank accounts, football players, regional accents, office environments, and Keith's warning about commission: "it sounds like it means to buy, but it doesn't mean to buy".
Quick facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Episode | 2.2 |
| Pack | Academic Vocabulary |
| Level | 2 |
| Duration | 33 minutes 15 seconds |
| Words taught | 12 |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
The twelve words are approach, site, factors, legislation, occur, range, chapter, transfer, region, environment, policy and commission — all high-frequency items on the Academic Word List, and all of them slippery in a way dictionaries don't quite capture.
The conversations do the work a definition can't. You'll hear that policy almost always takes the preposition on — "What's the government's policy on…?" — and Keith's neat distinction that a policy "is not saying you must do this, but it must follow this spirit". You'll hear that occur is the formal cousin of happen, at home in police reports, and that its noun occurrence collocates with regular and unusual. You'll hear transfer change its stress depending on whether it's a noun or a verb.
You also get repetition drills built into the audio, so pronunciation and word stress are practised rather than just explained. And because the example conversations are unscripted, you're listening to hesitation, backtracking and overlap — the erms and mmm hmms of two people thinking aloud. That is much closer to a seminar or a tutorial than a scripted example sentence ever gets.
What's in the workbook
The workbook for Unit 2.2 contains the full transcript of every conversation, so you can go back over anything you missed, plus the definitions, gapped sentences and example sentences from the audio.
After the two review quizzes, there are four extra exercises. Exercise 1 puts the words in the wrong sentences and asks you to swap them back — the southern commission of the country needs fixing. Exercise 2 is gap-fill with the first letter given. Exercises 3 and 4 are matching tasks on collocation, which is where these words really live: protect the / a dangerous / office + environment; introduce / a piece of / pass + legislation; wide / limited + range; commission a painting / a sculpture. Full answer keys are included.
The workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which covers every episode across all our series for €39.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Which twelve words does this unit cover?
Approach, site, factors, legislation, occur, range, chapter, transfer, region, environment, policy and commission — six in Part 1, six in Part 2, each with a review quiz.
Is the audio scripted?
The conversations with Keith, Sue, Annie and Liz are unscripted. The teaching sections — the definitions, the gapped sentences and the answers — are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
Who is this series for?
Anyone preparing to study a university course in English, taking a pre-sessional language course, or working towards a qualification like IELTS. The series covers the 120 most useful words from the Academic Word List.
Do I need the workbook to follow along?
No — the audio works on its own, and the answers are all given aloud. The workbook adds the transcript and the four written exercises, which is where the collocation practice happens.
How long is this episode?
33 minutes 15 seconds, which is enough for twelve words at a pace that leaves room for repetition.
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