Using dictionaires
- 2. Different kinds of dictionaires One of the most useful resources for language students • Book form • Online • Mobile devices Smartphones, tablet computers
- 3. BILINGUAL DICTIONAIRES: words in two languages. Bilingual learner’s dictionaires (BLDs) are designed specially for language learners. MONOLINGUAL DICTIONAIRES: written in one language. Used by native speakers. MONOLINGUAL LEARNERS DICTIONAIRES: (MLDs): written in the target language. Definitions and information PRODUCTION DICTIONAIRES: such as thesaurus. Group words in topic areas.
- 4. What students can find in good learners’ dictionaires • MLDs list a series of headwords. A verb have different meanings. • Give information about the frequency of a word. • Say what part of speech a word is (noun, adverb, phrasal verb…) o Sometimes this is abbreviated. • Give the pronunciation of words. o Books usually done it in phonemic script. Online and mobile dictionaires have audio recordings. • Word definitions are written in simple language. • Give examples of the word in the context. • Give the collocations and list typical phrases and idioms. • List words with similar meanings and explain the differences between then. • Give different spellings, pronunciations and extra information (formal/informal/taboo). • Give synonyms and antonyms for words
- 5. Using dictionaires with students We need to train our students to understand dictionaires and what they contain. It is a good idea to give the students repeated short training experiences in the middle of lessons.. X but not try to include everything all at once. When the students read a text, we can get them to decide which new words they want to know. We then tell them to look the words up in the dictionary. We can start a lesson giving the students a word worksheet which asks them to find words they are going to use during the lesson in their dictionaires. Students can find words and test each other by giving the definitions. The others have to guess the word. We look at researching collocations, etc.