Home›Zapp! English Academic Vocabulary
Zapp! English Academic Vocabulary Unit 2.3
Taught by Amanda Dawn Blackley — TEFLA (International House) · BA Combined Hons French and Spanish, University of Southampton
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
Nobody likes telling the boss there is a problem. So, as Annie points out, "Well people often use issues as a synonym for problems, don’t they?" — and suddenly the project has issues, and you will get it to them tomorrow. That small piece of office diplomacy is exactly why we record these units the way we do: twelve high-frequency academic words, each one defined, gapped, repeated, and then talked about by native speakers until you can hear what they really do in use.
What you'll hear in this episode
Katie works through the twelve words, joined by Annie, Keith, Sue and Doug. Each word follows the same four steps — a definition, sentences with the word missing so you can guess, a repetition slot for pronunciation, then example sentences in context. After that comes the unscripted part, and that is where the useful detail lives.
Annie takes issues from workplace tact to news headlines, then flips to the verb: "food and blankets have been issued". Keith links specific to specify and specification, and Katie shows the everyday move: "Can you be more specific?" For consistent, Keith is blunt — "Consistent, means to be the same. Again and again and again and again" — and Katie brings in teaching children, where changing your mind is confusing. Theory gets the classic contrast: "In theory…it should work", and in practice it does not. Keith calls acquisition "a very big long word that simply means, to buy something", and both agree you would not describe your new car that way. Individual arrives via a missing item of laundry — "A sock usually" — and ends with "we’re all individuals".
In part two, Sue admits she first thought of journal as a diary and asks what a journal of medicine actually is; one of the speakers mentions a friend in dentistry who keeps a subscription to prove she is up to date. Sue also notes that "you’re actually getting somewhere if you get something published in one of those things". Then come administration ("It’s the administrative branch of government"), previous, positive — Doug warns that "You might be positive with a certain illness" — plus cultural and institute.
Quick facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Episode | 2.3 |
| Pack | Academic Vocabulary |
| Level | 2 |
| Duration | 30 minutes 33 seconds |
What you'll learn
The twelve target words are: issues, specific, consistent, theory, acquisition, individual, journal, administration, previous, positive, cultural and institute. All of them come from the Academic Word List, and all of them appear constantly in reading and writing at university level.
What the conversations add is register and word family. You hear specific pulled into specify and specification, consistent into consistently and inconsistent, acquire into acquisition — and, crucially, you hear where each form belongs. Keith is clear that acquisition is business and formal language, that people use the verb acquire far more often, and that you would very rarely call a personal object an acquisition. That is the kind of judgement dictionaries rarely give you.
You also learn that some of these words carry a social function. Issues softens problems, which is why it turns up in meetings and in news reports. Positive looks like straightforward good news until you take a medical test, where positive results may be the last thing you want. And because the discussions are real speech, you get practice with hesitation, self-correction and the constant "Mmm hmm" backchannelling that fills natural English conversation — the two review sections then check whether the meanings actually stuck.
Inside the workbook
The workbook for Unit 2.3 gives you the full text of every definition, gapped sentence and example, plus the transcripts of the conversations with Annie, Keith, Sue and Doug, so you can go back and read anything you only half caught.
After the two review sections there are four extra exercises. Exercise 1 is a gap-fill with the first letter supplied — group registration on the left, i___ registration on the right. Exercise 2 makes you choose the right form of the word: specify or specific, consistent or consistently, administrate or administration, institute or institution. Exercises 3 and 4 are collocation matching, which is where the real work happens: pairing difficult / key / ethical with issues, latest / recent / property / data with acquisition, current / Marxist / political with theory, and requirements / arrangements / request with specific. Full answers are included.
This workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack — every episode, every workbook, €39 one payment.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Are these English conversations scripted?
The discussions between Katie and her guests are unscripted, which is why you hear false starts and laughter. The teaching sections that give definitions, set the gap-fill tasks and read out the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
Can I use the audio without the workbook?
Yes. The audio works on its own — the definitions, gaps and answers are all spoken. The workbook adds the transcripts and the four written exercises.
Is this suitable for IELTS or a pre-sessional course?
The words are drawn from the Academic Word List, so they are the vocabulary you need for university study in English, pre-sessional language courses and exams like IELTS.
How much vocabulary does the series cover?
Across the series you cover the 120 most useful words from the Academic Word List. This unit handles twelve of them.
What if I already know these words?
Many learners recognise words like positive or previous but not their collocations. Try Exercises 3 and 4 first — if ethical issues and consistent behaviour come easily, skip ahead.
Get this episode
To save the audio, right-click the MP3 link and choose Save link as.
Listen on
