Pharmacy Terms In Use: Studying and Practising Academic Vocabulary

Pharmacy Terms In Use: Studying and Practising Academic
Vocabulary is designed for pharmacy students and professionals who are studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at an upper elementary/intermediate level. It provides a solid foundation in pharmacy language to enable them to understand and communicate in pharmaceutical / medical situations. It is meant to supply the need for teaching pharmacy vocabulary to non-native speakers of English.

The vocabulary items in this book are highly frequent and most commonly used in the pharmaceutical / medical field. They are arranged into eleven units according to their relevance to the subject matter and each unit is divided into manageable sections. These are presented to the student in a regular, controlled fashion. Target words and their derivations are contextualized to illustrate their meanings and are systematically introduced so that vocabulary development can lead to better learning. Word formation boxes are also provided to emphasize that having a sound knowledge of the meanings and/or significance of prefixes and suffixes is invaluable in helping students to guess the meanings of many unknown words they will inevitably encounter in their pharmacy textbooks. Explanations, varied exercises and illustrations are provided to aid, motivate and test students’ learning. Short reading passages illustrating the use of some vocabulary items from each section are also provided along with appropriate reading and vocabulary exercises.

To The Student

This book has been written especially for you. It is written in fairly simple English, using only language which we think you will know.

Read, study and learn – this is what we expect you as you use this book. Read through each entry very carefully, studying the definitions, explanations and examples which illustrate the meaning of the word. Then, read and study them again until you have learnt what the word means and how to use it in context. At the end of each section, a number of exercises are provided which allow you to check how well you remember the words you have studied.

Remember too to study the word formation boxes. Learning the meanings of prefixes like post-, anti- , hyper- and suffixes like -itis, -ectomy, -graphy will make it possible for you to guess at the meanings of many unknown words. Recognizing word endings like -ation, -al, -ify will help you to decide if a word is a noun, an adjective or a verb, etc.

To The Teacher

The vocabulary items in this book are presented in a systematic and principled approach in order to achieve better learning. The items are divided into eleven units that cover most commonly used words in pharmacy.

The principal aim of this book is to ensure that students build up a solid lexical base. This base will solve many of the difficulties learners have in their receptive and productive language. For learning to occur, the learner must give attention to the new material and make an effort to learn it. To facilitate this, every attempt has been made to write definitions and examples in language that students will understand; and various exercises are provided for each unit. At the end of unit, there is also an exercise which reviews some of the vocabulary students have already exposed to in the unit. Words once introduced are recycled as frequently as possible through later exercises. Weekly quizzes should be given to test the items covered. Such achievement tests not only inform the teacher about the progress of his students but also help the process of learning by
providing motivation to study and by giving another meaningful repetition
of the word.