ESL Teacher Textbook Review - The Oxford Picture Dictionary

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If you are an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher looking for the ultimate textbook to teach your students vocabulary, then you are going to love the Oxford Picture Dictionary (Monolingual English). This textbook is perfect for any ESL student and any ESL teacher. It can be used by students of all levels, and contains important English words or vocabulary. We use this book at our ESL school, Hawaii Literacy's Drop In Center, because it can be used with any level of student. As long as the student has learned their basic ABCs and basics of English reading, they can learn from it effectively.

To understand the amazing adaptability of this ESL textbook, I will discuss a little more about how it is used in our school. The Drop-In Center is a free ESL school for the local immigrant community of Hawaii, hence student attendance is not consistent. Students are free to come and go and thus it is difficult to have a traditional lesson plan structure. In addition, since the school is mostly run by volunteers, there are often not enough ESL teachers to divide students into different levels.

The Oxford Picture Dictionary offers many advantages for us:

1) It has relevant vocabulary for all levels of students (you can check out the table of contents on Amazon.com).
2) Students and ESL teachers can begin on any page at any time (so new students will not feel like they are behind the class).
3) Pictures can be understood even if the student has a very minimal level of English.
4) All levels of students find the book useful and engaging.
5) The teacher's manual and workbooks are excellent and make teaching and learning much easier.
6) It is inexpensive for most students (about $17)

Of course, even with these many advantages, the book is a reference book...a picture dictionary. Therefore, in order to make it interesting to students, the ESL teacher will need to integrate it into an effective classroom experience.

For my class, I usually use the Teacher's Manual, which already has ready made sample dialogues, lists of sentences for dictation, discussion questions, related vocabulary and other suggested activities. I might throw in a quiz or two to help the students check their comprehension.

Then I have them go home and review the vocabulary on their own at ESL teacher http://www.eslteacherguide.blogspot.com/, a blog I created with the corresponding video lessons. We have the students work on only one page of the book a week, so that they have the opportunity to go home and absorb the words effectively. Some of the other ESL teachers at our school integrate the vocabulary into their grammar practices, or into their own self-created activities. Whatever your classroom focus is or what methods you use, the Oxford Picture Dictionary is by far the best textbook for American English vocabulary building.

Meylysa Tseng,
ESL Teacher (Resources for Students Learning English, Resources for the ESL Teacher), http://www.eslteacherguide.blogspot.com/

Online Oxford English Dictionary

The most popular and widely accepted dictionary all over the word is Oxford English dictionary. There were two editions of this earlier and the third one is about to launch. The head of the Oxford university press, Mr Nigel Portwood said that the third edition of the dictionary will only be in electronic form. The online version of the Oxford English Dictionary was a great success and this was the inspiration for them to publish the third edition electronically. The first edition of Oxford English Dictionary was printed in 1928 and in the year 1989 the second edition was printed.

There are many benefits for the online version. The online version is more economic. Usually the printed edition was sold for about nine hundred and ninety-five dollars and the online version is available for two hundred and ninety-five dollars. It is always easy to use your desktop or lap to check the word meaning rather than checking the big book with your hands. The space for keeping the book in your shelf can also be saved if you are subscribing the online version.

There are frequent updates provided to the online version which will not be available in the printed version. The printed version contains the meaning of the word, its usage in the history, the proper pronunciation and the etymology. About eighty lexicographers are working for the third edition of Oxford English dictionary. The revised entries will be updated to the online edition every three months. The Amazon has reported a great hike in the sales on online books. Therefore it is sure that the online dictionary will be accepted wholeheartedly by the language lovers. But still then there are many people who prefer to buy the printed version still sticking to the traditional way of reading. But during the time of power loss everyone will be thinking of having a printed edition of the books.

Online Oxford Dictionary [http://www.buzzycode.com/ShowArticles-Online-Oxford-English-Dictionary-602.aspx]

The Oxford Essential Writer's Reference (Book Review)

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As a long time devotee of Oxford publications, there is one small reference book I carry with me whenever I travel. This book, "The Oxford Essential Writer's Reference," fits neatly into a carry-on bag or a medium-sized purse. For so small a size, the aid this book can give to writers is tremendous.

These words in the prologue "A helpful way to think of this book is as a literary Swiss Army Knife" are very true, because so much is neatly arranged in this 368 page paperback. Just a quick look at the chapter headings is enough proof of this book's usefulness.

The book has nineteen chapters:

1 Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling, and Usage guides

2. A List of the Most Commonly Used Foreign Words and Phrases

3. 100 Tricky Usage Problems and Pitfalls Explained

4. 100 Rare Fifty-Cent Words and Their Meanings

5. 125 Synonym Studies

6. Proofreader's Marks and What They Mean

7. Common Citation Styles

8. A List of Clich?s to Avoid

9. A List of Common Rhetorical Devices, Poetic Meters, and Forms

10. A Quick Guide to All the Plays of Shakespeare

11. A Timeline of Great Works of Literature in English

12. Biblical Quotes, Characters, and Books of the Bible

13. Major Mythological Characters

14. A List of Great Print Resources

15. A List of Writers' Advocacy Organizations

16. How to Copyright Your Work

17. A common-Sense Guide to Manuscript Formats

18.Great Websites for Writers

19. Forms of Address for Letter Writing

The few introductory paragraphs or one or two pages at the beginning of each chapter make some enjoyable reading on their own.

I found every part of the book to be indispensable, but synonym studies can be very useful to novice writers who may not have grasped the nuances in the meanings of some words. For example, on page 173, the differences between the words "get, acquire, attain, gain, obtain, procure, secure" are succinctly explained.

In the "Quick Guide to Shakespeare" after a two-page introduction to Shakespeare, each play's title, date, and theme are given, as well as one or two famous quotations and a list of characters. It is not an in-depth study of Shakespeare by any means, but it is a quick reference one can glance at when the heavier tomes are not within reach.

The Bible Quotations are given as book, chapter, and verse, after a few paragraphs that point to the importance of the Bible as the reference source by the most famous writers.

Published by Berkley with ISBN: 0425206890, "The Oxford Essential Writer's Reference" is also easy on the wallet. Listed to be sold for $6.99 in the bookstores, from online it can be bought new for about four dollars.

Whether a student, a novice or an experienced writer, or a person who has an interest in the language arts, "The Oxford Essential Writer's Reference" is a valuable book.

Joy Cagil is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers. Her education is in linguistics.