Book ReviewMaking Sense of IdiomsBy Jake Allsop & Louise Woods. Published by Cassell Publishers Limited, GB, 1990 [Archives:2003/695/Education]

Reviewed by
Sa'eeda Obaid Ali Obaid
Department of English
University of Hodeidah
“Great minds think alike', ” Bang your head against a wall', “That'll be the day!' are extracts from Jack Allsop & Louise Woods' Making Sense of Idioms published by Cassell Publishers Limited. The book aims at making one of the most challenging parts of language, easy to acquire by learners of English. In view of the saliency of idioms as well as the interest and variation they add to speech, the authors have selected some commonly used idioms and have contextualized them for students of lower intermediate level.
The content of the book is perceptively divided into units covering different topics and situations that students usually come across in their day-to-day communicative contexts. Some of these are:
– Loving and hating
– Getting angry and not getting angry; believing and not believing
– Being safe and taking risks
– Making comparisons which emphasise or exaggerate
– Keeping things quiet and not keeping things quiet
– Describing certainty impossibility
– Praising and criticising; right and wrong
– Making comparisons about states
– Sayings connected with people's attitudes 1
– Succeeding and not succeeding
– Achieving and not achieving
– Making comparisons about people's appearance
– Sayings connected with people's attitudes 2
– Knowing and not knowing
– Conforming and not conforming
– Making comparisons about actions
– Sayings connected with people's attitudes 3

The idioms are presented in an interesting format to make them easy to acquire. For instance Question 1, consists of some pictures. Each picture coincides with one idiom, which students have to find out and put in a sentence. The second type of questions is to replace the underlined sentence, which has the same meaning as the idiom. Question 3 is more interesting, because students are asked to find out an appropriate column in which a particular idiom fits in. The last question entails a review of all the idioms and expressions presented in the unit.
The authors have devoted three units for an accurate learning and understanding of the contextual features of some of the famous idioms. For example, 'make a mountain out of a molehill' means exaggerating and making a lot of fuss about nothing.
Three more units are earmarked to help students use appropriate phrases and sentences in conversation. Students are given exercises of real situations in the form of dialogues. The following conversation is an extract from unit 18:

Val: Let's face it. Bob, you'll never get any work as a draughtsman in this town. So, what about going on one of these government re-training scheme? Learn to be an electrician or something.
Bob: Training schemes are all very well, but the fact of the matter is, I'm a draughtsman, and a good one at that. Why should I train to be an electrician?
Val: Put it this way; why shouldn't you? After all, lots of people train for other jobs nowadays.
Bob: I'll tell you why not. For a start, I'm too old.
Val: Rubbish! People in their fifties on training schemes. If you ask me, you're just looking for excuses. Let's face it, you just don't like change.
Bob: Nothing of the sort! It's just that I don't see why I should have to change my trade.

In order to further reinforce their understanding and successful acquisition, students are given the same conversation, but without expressions, and are asked to study the difference when conversational phrases are added. The last three units containing Conversational phrases 1, Conversational phrases 2, Conversational phrases 3 follow the same pattern.
The book is also provided with an alphabetical reference section to all the entries in the twenty units along with the meaning and example for each expression. Moreover, entries that have the same meaning are put together, such as 'not bat an eyelid' and 'not turn a hair'. Adding this section is really icing on the cake, for it will peter out any doubt students may feel when using the expressions.
The book is organized in a way that would capture readers' interest and attention. As it is, in the first place, meant for students of lower intermediate level, authors have tried their best to make it easy to access. Its cover page with its colour, drawing, and caption are well laid out. Keeping in view the students' communicative needs, the authors have scrupulously selected 200 common idioms and express the hope that other everyday phrases they will be able to add to their active knowledge and gradually build up a store of useful colloquial expressions.
Considered from an overly pedagogic point of view as well as a general language learning point of view Making Sense of Idioms is undoubtedly an indispensable and handy companion to every learner of English who desires to build up a fair command of idioms in English.
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