Rather than present a body of words to be learned as many other vocabulary texts do, Words around Us presents a variety of processes and techniques for understanding and learning the words that students see and hear around them. Words are organized for learning in groups--by origin, meaning category, social usage, and grammatical category. The text also utilizes the concepts of word families, family groups, meaning groups, and synonym groups. Students learn to form words, dissect words, paraphrase, and discuss the meaning of words. Finally, tables and illustrations help the learner visualize relationships and meanings. The text is divided into five sections: Learning Words and Using a Dictionary; Deriving Words with Suffixes; Compound Words; Prefixes and Word Roots; and Social Usage of Words. Words around Us is the ideal tool for teachers who want to improve students' communication in reading, writing, and speaking. The late W. D. Sheeler headed the English Teaching Division of the United States Information Agency for many years and authored numerous ESL textbooks. R. W. Markley is an ESL instructor at the University of Maryland. For advanced ESL/EFL students and self-study.