Virtuous English AcademySchool — A1 English Vocabulary
This A1 vocabulary list gathers 20 beginner English words about school — the classroom, lessons and what is in your bag. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using school words in English
Classroom vocabulary is worth learning early even if you are not at school, because these are the words your teacher, your textbook and every language app will use to give you instructions. Two of them behave in ways that catch nearly everyone out: homework cannot be counted, and it takes do rather than make — a collocation error so common that it appears in almost every beginner class.
What to watch out for
You do homework, you do not make it
English chooses between do and make by convention, not by logic. You do homework, exercises, housework and your best; you make a mistake, a decision, a noise and progress. There is no rule that predicts it, so these pairs are learned as whole phrases.
Homework and work are uncountable
Never a homework or three homeworks. Use some homework, a lot of homework, or if you must count, a piece of homework. The same applies to work, advice and information — a small group of everyday nouns that English refuses to count.
Class, lesson and classroom are three things
A classroom is the room. A lesson is the period of teaching — an English lesson lasts an hour. A class is either the group of students (my class has twenty students) or, loosely, the lesson itself. All three overlap in ordinary speech; the room is the one that never varies.
Words learners mix up
Two tables. The first is the three things on your desk that learners mix up, together with the British word for the thing that removes pencil marks. The second is about a word that looks countable and is not.
On the desk: pen, pencil, ruler
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| pen | Writes in ink, and the marks stay. You cannot remove them without crossing them out. | Write your name in pen. |
| pencil | Writes in grey, and the marks come off. British children remove them with a rubber. | Do the exam in pencil first. |
| ruler | The flat piece of plastic for drawing straight lines and measuring them. | Use a ruler for that line. |
The word for the thing that removes pencil is a rubber in Britain and an eraser in America — and in America rubber means something quite different, so this is one worth getting right for the country you are in. Note also in pen and in pencil, with in and no article.
Paper, book, notebook
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| paper | The material, and uncountable: some paper, a piece of paper. With a it means a newspaper or an exam paper. | Give me a piece of paper. |
| book | Countable and ordinary: one book, two books. It is the thing you read. | Open your book at page ten. |
| notebook | A book with empty pages that you write in yourself. In shops it can also mean a small laptop. | Write it in your notebook. |
A paper almost never means one sheet. If you want one sheet, say a piece of paper or a sheet of paper. The a version means the newspaper you buy in the morning, or the exam you sit — which is why I lost my paper and I lost some paper tell two different stories.
Collocations that sound natural
Four classroom words with their ready-made phrases. Most of what a teacher says to you is built out of these.
question
ask a questionanswer a questiona good questionAny questions?
You ask a question and you answer it. Do a question is not English, and make a question means invent one for a test.
exam
take an exampass an examfail an examstudy for an examan exam result
Pass means you succeeded. Take only means you sat in the room, so I took the exam says nothing at all about how it went.
word
a new wordlook up a wordspell a wordin your own words
You look up a word in a dictionary — and with a pronoun the two halves split: look it up.
board
write on the boardlook at the boardclean the boardcome to the board
Teachers say the board whatever colour it is. It sits on the wall and you write on it, never in it.
Where each word belongs
Five words that need placing before you use them. One of them is the single most common way a polite learner accidentally sounds odd in a British classroom.
- teacherNever as an addressYou describe someone as a teacher, but you never call out Teacher! in Britain. Use the name — Mr Smith, Mrs Patel — or, in many schools, simply Miss or Sir.
- classTwo countriesIn Britain it is mainly the group of students. In America it also means the lesson itself, so I have class at nine is American and completely normal there.
- bagBritishA British pupil carries a school bag or a rucksack; an American carries a backpack. All three are the same object on the same shoulders.
- deskNot a tableA desk is for working at and usually has drawers. A table is for eating at. Swapping them is understood but sounds slightly wrong.
- answerPrepositionIt takes to, not of: the answer to question three. As a verb it takes no preposition at all — you answer the phone.
Sentences to try
Four frames from an ordinary classroom day.
- I do my homework after school.
- Open your book at page ten.
- The teacher asks a question and I give the answer.
- I have got an English exam on Friday.
Questions about school vocabulary
Do I say "do homework" or "make homework"?
Do homework. English uses do for tasks and activities — do the washing-up, do an exercise, do your best — and make for things that are produced or created: make a cake, make a decision, make a mistake. The division is only roughly logical, so the reliable approach is to learn each combination as a fixed phrase rather than deriving it.
Is homework countable?
No. A homework and homeworks are both wrong. Say some homework, a lot of homework, too much homework, or — when you really need to count — two pieces of homework. Work, advice, information, furniture and luggage all behave the same way, and all of them are countable in most other European languages, which is why they cause so much trouble.
What is the difference between a class and a lesson?
A lesson is a single period of teaching, so it has a length: The lesson starts at nine and lasts an hour. A class is usually the group of people being taught — There are fifteen students in my class — though in everyday speech it is also used for the lesson itself, especially in American English. The classroom is only ever the physical room.