Week 7: Reading skill

Online English-English Learner

Dictionaries Boost Word Learning

“Vocabulary is one of those things where the rich get richer.”

                                                  —Dr. Eli Hinkel (Editorial Board 2009)

        English is one of important language for connecting with one another such as between co-workers, students with teachers, students with students and the others. In EFL/ESL classroom, students often found new difficult vocabularies that are not easy to understand, they also look up some vocabularies in dictionaries especially online dictionary. EFL/ESL Students may be familiar with several online dictionaries that are unnecessary the best choices for learning English context. EFL/ESL Learners usually search sources like Dictionary.com (www. dictionary.com) and Merriam-Webster (www.merriam-webster.com) while teachers are teaching English in the United States. Online Dictionaries contain more definitions, pronunciation, example sentences than found in general-use dictionaries. EFL/ESL teachers should educate and introduce several good online dictionaries for students. Teachers should use dictionaries to big benefit in class. There are five items in the best online learner dictionaries, including (1.)Corpus-based dictionaries; (2.) frequent word data; (3.) collocation; (4.) examples of how to use words; (5.) topical vocabulary.

     Students use learner dictionaries for offering information on different meaning of words. First of all, corpus-based dictionaries means definitions of words are used. Corpus-based dictionaries help students easy to focus first on frequent words and meanings. Teachers can apply corpus-based dictionaries to raise awareness both of teachers and students to know how differences between general-use dictionaries and corpus-based dictionaries are complied. Teachers can provide eye-opening activities to explain two types of dictionaries. For example, teachers choose a few words (e.g. appointment, breakfast and discriminate), write on blackboard or has students to write them on paper and asks them to check the meaning from one general-use dictionaries (e.g., dictionary.com or www.merriam-webster.com)

        Second item is frequent word data. It is helpful information to students for speaking and writing skill. Students can learn more about frequency lists at www. lextutor.ca/freq/lists_dowload by Tom Cobb. Important high-frequency word lists makes students more efficient and strategic because they know which words to learn first. This activity allows students notice and need high/low- frequent words. Teachers can apply a classroom activity asking students to make listed new words that they gain while reading a text or participating in or listening to a dialogue. Third item is collocation. Students should avoid mistakes. For example, students usually say “do an appointment” instead of “make an appointment.” Teachers should remind them to look up word entries. Example classroom activity, the teacher writes words found in short passage with six mistakes by students on blackboard and discuss the meaning of the collocations as group activity.

         Yesterday I did not make my homework because I wanted to get fun with my friends. I called my friends and invited them over to my apartment. I wanted to do a special effort and decided to cook for everybody. Surprisingly, all the invited people came at the same time because John put a ride to everybody. We ate, heard some music, and looked at a movie. Everybody had fun.

    Fourth item is authentic examples. Learner dictionaries contains authentic examples how to use words in context, including sentences or phrases. Learner dictionaries help students to get word. Teachers can divide students into groups. One student in each group chooses one learner dictionaries to know how to use target words in example sentences. After that, students share them in other group and produce sentences. The last item is topical vocabulary. Learner dictionaries present topical vocabulary how the words relate to different categories. Dictionaries provide how a single word relates to different concepts. Teacher can apply topical vocabulary as tool to activate students’ background knowledge. Before starting new unit, teachers direct learners to discover words or phrases to new topic. The teacher gives learners a few key words (e.g., psychology, college, and politics) and ask them list of words related to the main topic of the unit. 

     Conclusion, dictionary is so important for students. General-use dictionary provides meaning of words, some example sentences or other. However, Learner dictionary provides meaning of words, synonyms, acronyms, pronunciation guides, lots of example sentence, how to use words in context, etc. Some learner dictionary also provide sound of pronunciation have students easy to read and speak. Teachers should guide students to guess the meaning of words from the context than only looking up in dictionary. If students can know meaning of words from the context, they may recognize them for long time. For example, students are reading newspaper, they have to read continuously without looking up difficult meaning of words. In my opinion, I think both general-use dictionary and Learner dictionary also are good for looking up what students want to know. Do you agree with this article? Why? How?

Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Pronunciation	Meaning
Oppose (v)	/əˈpəʊz/	to disagree strongly with somebody's plan, policy, etc. and try to change it or prevent it from succeeding Ex: This party would bitterly oppose the re-introduction of the death penalty.
Comply (v)	/kəmˈplaɪ/	to obey a rule, an order, etc Ex: They refused to comply with the UN resolution.
Discriminate (v)	/dɪˈskrɪmɪneɪt/	to recognize that there is a difference between people or things; to show a difference between people or things Ex: The computer program was unable to discriminate between letters and numbers.
Awareness (n)	/əˈweənəs/	knowing something; knowing that something exists and is important; being interested in something Ex: There was an almost complete lack of awareness of the issues involved.
Collocation (n)	/ˌkɒləˈkeɪʃn/	a combination of words in a language, that happens very often and more frequently than would happen by chance Ex: ‘Resounding success’ and ‘crying shame’ are English collocations.
Entry (n)	/ˈentri/	something that you do, write or make to take part in a competition, for example answering a set of questions Ex: There have been some impressive entries in the wildlife photography section (= impressive photographs).