What is Five Words a Day?

It’s a self-study book and ebook for good intermediate learners of English who are ready to move beyond dull drills and recycled textbook lists. Instead of memorising words out of context, you’ll discover them in patterns — both grammatical and lexical — and track their usage in real-world English.

Each weekday introduces five related words. They share:

• the same part of speech,
• a similar meaning, and
• a common grammar pattern.

This pattern is distilled into a Word Template.
Example:
 Someone applies for a job, a scholarship, or a licence.
Gloss: to formally ask for something, usually in writing.

The focus is not on remembering isolated words, but on seeing how they work in natural English and relate to other words. 

​What makes FWAD different?

• ​Cotext is everything. FWAD trains you to explore both colligation (grammar patterns around a word) and collocation (typical word partners).
• Glosses are given, not examples — so you provide the examples, using real data from tools like YouGlish, which also help you attend to pronunciation.
• Discovery learning: There are no answer keys. You’re not being tested — you’re being trained to notice, record, and reflect on patterns in English.
• You create your own multimodal vocabulary notebook, personalising your learning and deepening your retention.
• In the process of exploring your five words each day, you encounter, record, and revisit dozens more — words that are semantically, grammatically, or pragmatically connected.
• And yes — you’ll meet these words again later. Recycling is built in.

What’s with the elephant?

The cover features an elephant — a metaphor for memory.
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This book helps you build a long-term, working memory of English words and patterns, so you can recognise, recall, and use them when it counts.

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The more vocabulary you have, the more you can use English with fluency, accuracy, sophistication and idiomaticity, a.k.a. FASI.

​Who is it for?

The learners who gain the most from Five Words a Day are:

• curious
• observant
• pattern hunters
• ambitious
• and happy to enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

It’s designed for students who are ready to take control of their own vocabulary learning  and who understand that learning how to learn is just as important as the learning itself.

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Table of contents
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Week 1. Getting started 
Day 1:  How to use this book 
Day 2:  A vocabulary notebook 
Day 3:  Knowing a word 
Day 4:  Word templates 
Day 5:  How to work with word templates 

Week 2. Study advice
Day 1:  Context and cotext
Day 2:  Example sentences
Day 3:  SkELL
Day 4:  CorpusMate
Day 5: YouGlish
Pronunciation

Week 3. Verbs with infinitives
Day 1:  Effort
Day 2:  Obligation
Day 3:  Choice 
Day 4:  Readiness
Day 5: Appearance

As this extract from the Table of Contents shows, the first two weeks focus on how to study effectively—not just what to study:

• Week 1 introduces study procedures: how to keep a vocabulary notebook, what it means to know a word, and how to use word templates.
• Week 2 continues the training: learners explore context and cotext, practise observing patterns in example sentences, and start working with tools like SkELL, CorpusMate and YouGlish.
• In both weeks, students study 5 words each day that are drawn from the short texts. Thus they begin developing the habits they’ll use throughout the course.
• Week 3 introduces the first grammar pattern: verbs followed by infinitives, with each day built around a distinct meaning group. This structure, pairing patterns with meaning, is used consistently (though not exclusively) across all 40 weeks.