A Year In the Life of an ESL (English Second Language) Student: Idioms and Vocabulary You Can't Live Without

This book is an excellent tool to learn how to speak English like an American.The chapters and the exercises are second to none. I enjoy studying this book, because it uses a different method to teach English as a second language.I made a great purchase.

Benny Fernandez

English is a difficult language to master. Idioms, figurative expressions, slang,
and vocabulary can turn the most basic conversation or reading passage into a complex and bewildering dialogue for ESL students. In my eight years of teaching, I have watched dozens of students struggle to learn conversational English so that they would fit in and assimilate to their new surroundings.

Challenges arise when students whose English skills are emerging engage in conversation with native English speakers. Idioms and vocabulary usage can often present problems when the ESL student does not understand the intended message of the native speaker. Many ESL students are reluctant to ask for clarification because they do not want to appear to be uneducated or disrupt the flow of conversation. The end result, however, is that the ESL student leaves the conversation confused and frustrated.

While there are several respected books geared toward younger ESL students, there are very few resources available that are specifically designed for advanced ESL students. A Year in the Life of an ESL Student takes a more mature and engaging approach in order to best meet the needs of the advanced ESL student.

The educational content is presented in a story format that students will find appealing. Andre, the main character, is a Swiss student who is studying in a private school in North America. Each chapter follows one of Andre's adventures during his year of study. The author has carefully created sixteen chapters that reflect the interests of advanced ESL students, such as shopping at a mall, working out at a fitness club, catching a movie, or snowboarding, and follow a logical structure designed to provide the ESL student with ample opportunity to learn and practice what they have learned.

A Year in the Life of an ESL Student is a wonderful resource for a high school student or an adult who would like to learn conversational English. The chapters are high interest and easy to follow, whether the student is working with a teacher or is working by themselves. I would highly recommend this book to both ESL teachers and students.

I have worked with ESL students in and out of the classroom for over ten years and have struggled to help them break into the seemingly locked lexicon of English idioms. It is with absolutely no hesitation that I recommend this book for any ESL student hoping to expand their understanding of English beyond grammar and classroom vocabulary. It does a fantastic job of repetition without redundancy, and the contextual dialogs and definitions are relevant and realistic.

The words and phrases presented and defined in the book will inevitably be heard in conversations at school, at work, in social situations, and on television programs. Even with context clues and patient friends and mentors, learning idioms through conversation alone can be a somewhat daunting task; trying to decipher them in real time in "real life" situations in the marketplace may seem downright insurmountable. The book addresses idiomatic words and phrases that students are likely to hear in context in an easy-to-follow dialog, and then provides succinct definitions as well as another contextual sentence in the lexicon list. It then provides a number of application exercises for the student to practice the new vocabulary by placing them into new sentences and using the idioms to explain their own situations. A glossary provides easy access to definitions of idioms that they may have encountered in their own conversations, and an appendix of related Web sites provides a list of resources for students to pursue as needed.

Many ESL students can and do function with "classroom English," but learning the idiomatic nuances of the language provides a huge leg up in truly communicating with others, not only in social settings, but in the workplace, the marketplace, and the classroom. This book provides an avenue for the student to take a step closer to truly taking a personal ownership in the language.

Research in second language vocabulary acquisition demonstrates that learning idioms is one of the most important aspects of acquiring a second language. ESL students who do not understand idioms will not be able to understand a large portion of the English language. Consider that an ESL student can understand the grammar of the phrase "kick the bucket" without having any clue as to its actual meaning. Furthermore, ESL students who do not understand idioms will have a much harder time fitting into the culture of native English speakers. This struggle can be severely detrimental to a learner's intrinsic motivation, which is one of the most important factors influencing language learning success. A Year in the Life of an ESL Student: Idioms and Vocabulary You Can't Live Without is an outstanding resource that addresses this important issue of idioms by teaching ESL students an expansive number of them in an engaging and enjoyable manner.

As to the expansiveness of the text, it provides idioms that address a wide variety of situations from attending a TOEFL class to suntanning on the beach. The following examples give a glimpse of the range of idiomatic expressions that students will learn: "better late than never," "cover for someone (to)," "hangover," and "work one's butt off (to)." The presentation of each idiom is clear with each of them first appearing in bold letters in a stimulating dialogue. This feature of the book is beneficial since research has shown that lexical items are much better remembered when learned in authentic contexts. As the author states, "Context is the key to making the daunting task of understanding and using idiomatic English not only possible, but enjoyable too." The dialogues are followed by pages where each idiom is placed in glossary format. After that, there are a significant number of exercises for students to learn the idioms interactively.

Beyond meeting a need in the ESL community, the other aspect of this text that makes it so successful is its engaging style. Many language learning materials present grammatical and cultural information with pictures and other helpful graphics; however, when it comes to vocabulary and idioms these items are often still presented in lists. On the other hand, A Year in the Life places idioms in interesting dialogues that often contain humor and are related to the actual experiences that an ESL student may have. In addition to the dialogues, learners also have the opportunity to learn idioms by playing games. Two common exercises found throughout the book are crosswords and word searches. The realistic dialogues and the exercises make learning the idioms interesting and fun.

Considering the need for a text of this kind in the ESL community and its engaging style, I would recommend it without reservation to both ESL teachers and students. A Year in the Life will lead learners into a much more native-like competence.

Michael Lewis caused quite a stir in the world of ESL when he published his "The Lexical Approach" in 1993. Lewis's point was basically thus: ESL students are force feed too much English grammar. The idea that grammar can be mastered and then students fill in the blanks with vocabulary is naïve, according to Lewis, and makes it difficult for students to understand natural English phrases such as "Let's have a coffee," because students have only studied "Shall we drink coffee?" Having taught English to Japanese students, who are taught grammar and only grammar in high school, I found this to be a huge obstacle. Lewis's book caused a huge sensation on the ESL teaching community, and many teachers thought they didn't have to teach grammar anymore, it was fine just to teach idiom after idiom. Lewis followed up a few years later with a book on how to apply the lexical approach, saying that it is idioms, expressions and grammar are not so far removed from grammar. In other words, idioms and expressions should be taught as a part of grammar.


Since Lewis shook up the ESL world, there have been attempts to bring out commercial textbooks that implement the Lexical Approach. However, most of them are not so different than previous textbooks, with traditional grammar the focus of the lesson, and idioms kind of tacked on as an afterthought. "A Year in the Life of an ESL Student" does a good job of introducing idioms as an integral part of communication, not just as an added bonus. Colorful idioms such as "Drink like a fish" or "toss one's cookies", as well as expressions that are not idioms, but present difficulties to ESL students, such as "mope around" are presented in natural conversations, and than reinforced through various exercises, such as crossword puzzles, word find exercises, and so on. Many ESL students have the goal of being able to watch Hollywood movies with no subtitles. Just studying grammar and straight vocabulary will never allow this to happen. However, this book will equip students with hundreds of natural and useful expressions that will help them understand and by able to speak more natural English.

The book focuses on a Swiss student, Andre, as he studies for a year at a private language school in North America. All of the conversations in the book involve Andre and his friends at the language school. Students will like this because it makes the stories easy to follow and understand. Teachers will like this book because there are lots of good exercises in each of the 16 chapters, making it easy to teach good lessons with no or very little preparation. Then there is the theme of this book, studying language abroad for a year. This should be the goal of many of your students, and if it is not, studying with this text will hopefully get them interested in the possibility. For classes with more advanced students, this can be a good springboard for a discussion on the topic.