Saya menemukan judul buku ini di bagian akhir buku “1100 Words You Need to Know“, penjelasan lengkapnya adalah sebagai berikut :
“With Your Expanded vocabulary, you are now ready to deal with a more advanced word book. The next publication in this series is WORD WITH A FLAIR by Murray Bromberg and Julius Liebb. WORD WITH A FLAIR is organized around unified themes, and present difficult but useful words that regularly appear in print. As with all Barron’s texts, the material is offered in a lively, practical format” to enable you to master 600 important words. Remember, words are the tools of educated and cultured people. If you found 1100 WORDS too difficult or you wish to recommended an easier vocabulary book to a friend, you might try 504 ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL WORDS – the firts in this series of vocabulary builders.
Saya pikir, sinting juga neh English Vocubulary ala Murray Bromberg. Nguasai 1100 Words aja udah setengah mati. Ini ternyata ada yang lebih “advanced” 🙂
Indikator vocab kita udah cukup atau belum pun memang sangat relatif. Soalnya saya lihat teman-teman saya yang bahasa Inggrisnya fasih juga ternyata mengakui klo buku Murray Bromberg ini memang kosa katanya susah. Buat saya pribadi sih, indicator vocab itu sudah cukup bagus klo bisa memahami film dan novel tanpa harus repot buka kamus kayak native speaker 🙂
Namun kabar baiknya, ternyata ada buku lain dari Murray Bromberg yang relative lebih ringan dari 1100 Words You Need to Know itu. Tapi di mana belinya ya?
Di tahun 2000-an awal saya belum punya internet, satu-satunya sumber pencarian buku adalah ngubek-ngubek pasar bursa buku Palasari, Gramedia, Toga Mas, dan took-took buku lainnya. Susah juga nyarinya, mungkin buku tersebut kurang popular di kalangan para pelajar Bahasa Inggris. Baru sekitar 6 bulanan yang lalu, saya cari di Google, siapa tahu ada yang share PDF-nya. Dan ternyata ada! Horee…. 😀
Jejak pembelajaran saya dari buku ini pun, Insya Allah akan saya share juga di blog ini. Semoga berkah dan bermanfaat buat para Akang-Teteh pembaca blog ini…
Gaya pembelajaran buku ini kurang lebih hampir sama dengan 1100 Words You Need to Know. Pada intinya, buku ini terdiri dari 42 modul, di mana masing-masing modulnya terdiri dari 12 kosa kata baru. Bedanya dengan si 1100 Words, awal pembelajaran dimulai dengan memperkenalkan kosa kata baru, disertai dengan contoh kalimat sederhana untuk ilustrasi penggunaan dalam kalimat. Setelah itu, semua kata-kata baru tersebut diberikan dalam bentuk cerita. Dilanjutkan dengan soal-soal latihan untuk memantapkan pemahaman.
Inilah kata pengantar yang tertulis di buku ini
INTRODUCTION
This is a self-help book. If you use it intelligently, you will help yourself to strengthen and expand your word knowledge. The words you will learn, moreover, are essential in that they are known and used regularly by educated people. You will find that such word as squander, rehabilitate, blunder, obesity, and five hundred more will turn up in your newspapers, in the magazines you read, in books, on television, in the movies, and in the conversation of the people you meet daily.
504 Absolutely Essential Words is divided into 42 lessons, each containing 12 new words. Those words are first presented to you in three sample sentences; next, the new words appear in a brief passage; the last part of each lesson is a set of exercises that give you practice using the new words. One of the most important features of 504 … Words is that each of the new words is repeated over and over again throughout this book so that you will have a greater chance to become familiar with it. ·
Included are seven Word Review sections, each containing challenging exercises that will help you to test your mastery of the new words.
Newly added are interesting exercises in letter writing and parts of speech that will familiarize you with our basic 504 essential words. Finally, this 6th edition features frequently misspelled words, a Bonus Review, a Bonus Lesson with 125 More Difficult (But Essential) Words, and a new section called Panorama of Words.
504 Absolutely Essential Words can be used in a number of ways, depending upon the needs and the status of the reader. A student in a high school English class, for example, could work with the book over a period of one school year, learning a dozen words each week for 42 weeks. Pupils who are studying vocabulary in an individualized program can move through the text at their own speed, mastering the new words as rapidly as they are able. Adults, out of school, can dip into the book on a selective basis, paying attention to the new words and skipping over those with which they are already familiar.
The High School English Class Some teachers prefer to set aside one day a week for intensive vocabulary study. At such time the sentences containing the new words are often read aloud so that the students hear them used in context. The definitions may be copied into a vocabulary notebook to reinforce the learning. Next, the accompanying paragraph(s) containing the 12 new words should be read aloud, followed by the exercise in which the blanks are to be filled in. Some discussion of the “Spotlight On” word is appropriate, preceding a homework assignment in which the students compose original sentences for each of the new words.
Independent Study An interesting way to approach 504 Absolutely Essential Words on one’s own is to take an informal pretest on each week’s words, comparing the definitions with the ones provided in the text. After studying the three sample sentences, the reader should compose several original ones, using the model paragraph( s) for resource material.
The “Spotlight On” word introduces students to the fascinating history of the English language. They are advised to look up other words in each lesson in order to find out about their origin and to expand their vocabulary in the process.
Finally, students who are working on their own should complete the exercises at the end of each section, filling in the blanks and striving for a perfect score.
Repetition
The words with asterisks (*) are those that have been taught in previous lessons. They are planted everywhere in the book since the repetition of newly learned material is a recognized road to mastery. If you come across such a word but cannot remember its meaning, turn back to the lesson in which that word first appeared. (See the index on pages 200-202 for such information.)
