English Education Vocabulary: Grades, Grants and Lectures

One of our speakers remembers a psychology lecture that was always scheduled for five o'clock on a Friday evening, given in "a very monotone voice, like this, slowly". The verdict: "I don't think I learned anything from a whole trimester" of it. A philosophy lecturer at the same university had the opposite effect — people turned up because, "whether or not you learned anything, you always had a good time". That's the kind of answer this episode is built on: real memories of school and university, told at natural speed.

What you'll hear in this episode

We start with the words themselves. Katie describes each one and gives you a moment to guess before the answer and the pronunciation, so you meet absent, a lecture, a lecturer, take notes, terms and semesters, pupils, grades and bullying before you hear anyone use them.

Then Katie puts the same questions to two speakers, Donnie and Kim. Donnie talks about note-taking and admits that fast handwriting can defeat you — and that "if your pen stops working during the lesson, you could be in trouble". One speaker describes a large secondary school in a rural area where pupils travelled forty, fifty, sixty miles and slept in a hostel during the week, going home only at weekends. Another answer explains a university year split into three trimesters rather than two semesters, with the exams in the last one.

The second half adds a grant, to graduate, to revise, to punish, discipline, the head, a qualification and results. Kim isn't convinced by the hat-throwing image of graduation: "maybe that's just from films". There's a thoughtful answer on whether governments can still fund every student, and a reflection that a history or English degree "is not going to, guarantee you a job". On bullying, one answer is blunt: "Children can be cruel" — and the adults at the time weren't equipped to deal with it.

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 2.8 – Education & Learning
Episode number	2.8
Pack	Vocabulary and Pronunciation 2
Level	2
Duration	27 minutes 53 seconds
Workbook	Included in the paid all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

This unit trains word stress as carefully as it trains meaning. You'll hear that the second syllable of absent is weak, that revise is stressed on the second syllable and discipline on the first, and — the detail most learners miss — that graduate changes its sound depending on whether it's the verb or the noun. "If you graduate, you are a graduate," as the audio puts it, and the two are not pronounced the same.

There's also a gap-listening task. You hear each question with one word cut out, guess what's missing, then hear the full version to check. It's a small trick that forces you to predict vocabulary from context instead of waiting to be told.

And because both speakers are answering unrehearsed, you get the hesitation markers, restarts and self-corrections that real speech is full of — "we had people wh...pupils who came from very far away". Learning to hear through that is a skill in itself.

You'll also pick up the British/American split: term leans towards school and semester towards university, and revise in the UK is review in the USA.

Vocabulary from this unit

absent — not present, not there at a place where you should be
a lecture — like a lesson, but at university, where someone talks for a period of time about a particular subject
take notes — write down, often in short incomplete sentences, information you think is important during a talk or lecture
a grant — money you are given by the government to study or start a business, that you usually don't need to pay back
to revise (UK) / to review (USA) — to look at again and try to remember, often before an exam or studying a language
the head — also called headmaster/headmistress, head teacher or principal, the person who is at the top of the whole school and controls it
discipline — a way of making sure people follow the rules and behave as you want them to; punishment is a kind of discipline

In the workbook

The eBook for unit 8 gives you the full text of both Meaning and Pronunciation sections and complete transcripts of Donnie's and Kim's answers, so you can read back anything you only half-caught. There's a glossary of all 17 words and phrases with phonemic transcriptions and plain-English definitions.

Then three practice exercises. Practice 1 puts six underlined words in the wrong sentences and asks you to sort them out — "I was never took notes from school, I was there every day" needs absent, and "Having some lecture makes it easier to get a job" needs qualifications. Practice 2 is five anagrams (sidcilinep, meestser and friends). Practice 3 is pure pronunciation: match absent, lecturer, discipline and revise to the word on the right with the same stress pattern. Answers to everything are at the back.

The workbook for this episode comes with the all-in-one pack, which covers every Zapp! English episode for €39.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — Donnie and Kim answer Katie's questions on the spot. The teaching sections that introduce words, set up tasks and give answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Do I need the workbook to follow the episode?

No. The audio works on its own and explains everything as it goes. The workbook is for reading the transcript, checking spellings and doing the three exercises.

What level is this episode?

It's Level 2, from the Vocabulary and Pronunciation 2 pack.

Is the vocabulary British or American?

Mainly British, but the episode flags the differences: revise versus review, and the note that semester was an American word that is now common in British English too.

How long is it?

27 minutes 53 seconds, including all the repeat-after-the-beep pronunciation practice.

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