Dictionaries

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We asked publishers to send us sample copies of dictionaries they have published in the past 18 months. These are our first impressions of the dictionaries we looked at for different levels and age groups.

The first thing we realised when we started looking at the dictionaries arriving at the iT’s office was just how much they have changed over recent years. Gone are the days when a dictionary offered little more than a definition or a translation of a word. Today’s dictionaries are designed to develop study skills, enrich vocabulary, and turn the task of looking up a word into an adventure and an exploration of the language.

Today’s dictionaries also have a lot to offer the teacher (including lesson plans), so if you’re thinking of using dictionaries in class with your students or want a new dictionary of your own, here are our first impressions of some of the latest titles and editions.

Primary

We’re going to start and end our look at dictionaries with picture dictionaries. Garnet has a new Primary Picture Dictionary that is about to be published in an English/Spanish edition. The pages are big, bright and colourful, and it has been specifically created to appeal to kids around the world. (The copy we looked at was for Arabic speakers.) The book is in two parts: at the beginning are the picture scenes and at the back is the bilingual dictionary, which includes more than 600 key words for Primary. A set of wall sheets is also available for classroom use.

The Larousse Junior comes with a CD (which we didn’t see) that promises activities and songs and gives kids the chance to hear the pronunciation of all the words in the dictionary. The book consists of 22 scenes in which the vocabulary is presented. The central part of the book contains the bilingual dictionary, followed by exercises in the final part.

For the older primary kids there’s the Larousse School dictionary and the Longman Primary Dictionary. They are both bilingual and would appeal to very different types of students and teachers. The strength of the Larousse lies in its clarity and simplicity. The Longman is more ambitious and is the first of the dictionaries we’re looking at to go beyond being just a reference book.

In the Longman’s introduction Mario Herrera writes that the contents of the dictionary “reflect young learners’ interests and the things they may want to express in English (e.g. ¡Cómo mola!) or the things they are likely to come across in English (What a cool jacket!).” It certainly does feel young, and it looks good. It has some fun colour illustrations, and it comes with a CD that includes pronunciation and comprehension exercises.

Secondary

Both of the new dictionaries we looked at for Secondary are excellent. The Oxford Pocket dictionary is very easy to use. It has everything you’d expect to find in a dictionary and more. There’s quite a complete grammar guide in the centre of the book that includes verb conjugations and uses, and information about nouns, punctuation and spelling rules. There are also notes on false friends, telephone language and text language. In the main dictionary sections there are culture notes, and the picture dictionary in the middle has “more to explore” boxes. Note the appearance of that word explore again.

The Longman Pocket Plus is more colourful than the Oxford Pocket and highlights the 2,000 most frequent words in red. This is a really useful feature that makes finding common words much easier. The grammar guide isn’t as extensive, but it does have a useful culture guide at the back that includes information about the education system, and weights and measures for both the United Kingdom and the United States. There’s also a mini phrasebook.

Both dictionaries come with a CD that allows students to hear each word being spoken with both a British and an American accent. There are also interactive exercises on both. On the Oxford CD these include category list translations, crosswords, hangman, pairs, anagrams and word soups. We really enjoyed doing the activities, so hopefully your students will too. The Oxford CD also includes exercises for KET and PET, as well as dictations.

An important feature of these dictionaries is the introduction that includes exercises designed to help students find their way around the dictionary and understand all the different features. It’s easy to start using a dictionary without taking the time to fully investigate and understand its features, so these exercises are particularly useful for a student to work through on their own or with a teacher in class.

So both of these dictionaries get the thumbs-up from the iT’s team in their Spanish editions for ESO and Bachillerato students. In fact, it’s impossible to choose between them because they both have positive features. If you’re a secondary teacher and want to start using dictionaries in class, then take a look at both of these titles and make sure you also check out the CDs to see what they offer.

Advanced

Comparing two dictionaries is difficult enough, but what happens when you have four quality dictionaries in front of you that come from the giants of the publishing world that are Cambridge, Macmillan, Longman and Oxford?

We’re now moving away from the secure bilingual world of secondary education to the monolingual world of the advanced learner (and teacher). These dictionaries don’t need to encourage students to explore English. They have been created for the student with a thirst for new words and the teacher who wants a dictionary they can rely on.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a copy of the latest edition of the Collins COBUILD to look at. It’s a significant dictionary because it was the first to be based entirely on a corpus. In fact COBUILD stands for “Collins Birmingham University International Language Database”, a corpus of texts gathered from British and American newspapers, books, TV programmes and real-life conversations that were analysed to gather information about how the English language is actually used and which words are used most frequently.

The other major dictionaries are now also based on a corpus and make a feature of their own particular lists. The Oxford 3000 is a list of 3,000 words that includes the most frequent words in English but that also “includes words which would fall outside such a list, but which are useful for learning as well as relevant for defining purposes”. In The Oxford Advanced Dictionary all the Oxford 3000 words are highlighted in larger type and given a key symbol.

The Cambridge Advanced Dictionary divides words into three groups: Essential (E) with 4,900 words, Improver (I) with 3,700 words, and Advanced (A) with 3,700 words. The dictionary also claims to show the relative importance of meanings and of individual phrases.

The Macmillan Advanced Dictionary, known affectionately as “the red Mac”, has a star system to indicate the importance of different words. The dictionary claims that it is “a dictionary of spoken as well as written English” and that “if you use it well, you should end up speaking like a native speaker, not a native writer”. It also promises more coverage of English words spoken in other countries than is usually the case, with Australian English, for example, well represented in the word list.

According to a reliable source, the Mac was the first to introduce a different colour to highlight the frequent words. It’s an effective device that is also used by the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, which highlights its 2,000 most important words in spoken or written English and labels them as S2 and W2. The dictionary says that the examples in the book are “usually slightly edited versions of real sentences from the corpus” and that “this means the examples are more realistic than in some dictionaries”.

The Mac has a nice feature for words with several meanings. A mini menu at the top of the listing guides the user to the appropriate definition, making it easier to navigate the entries. The Oxford and Longman dictionaries also highlight the different meanings effectively. The Longman has some attractive graphs that show which are the most common words used in a particular context, or which structures are most commonly used with a word. All the dictionaries have boxes that focus on different points of interest. These include common errors, choosing the right word, grammar points, cultural references and collocations. The Longman is perhaps the most comprehensive in its coverage of collocations and includes a further 173,000 collocations on its CD.

The CDs that come with these dictionaries are more than just an add-on. They allow the user to install the complete dictionary on their computer and use it as a reference while they are working in programs such as Word, Internet Explorer or Outlook. Some of them include mini pop-up dictionaries to enable fast access to definitions and other features. They also include exercises, spoken phrases and other resources. Students can record their own voices and compare pronunciation. And on some CDs teachers can find those lesson plans and worksheet ideas that will allow them to make the dictionary an essential component of the English course.

Stocking filler

Finally, a picture dictionary for adults that, together with one of the advanced dictionaries above, would make a very nice Christmas present for a teacher or advanced student. The Larousse Visual Dictionary has more than 20,000 words and 3,600 illustrations. These are the kind of illustrations that show you the inner workings of machines and buildings and then tell you what the different parts are called in five languages (Spanish, English, French, German and Italian). It is a real pleasure to dip into this dictionary and discover vocabulary through pictures. The dictionary is divided into 17 themed sections, and there is a list of all the vocabulary at the back of the book that directs you to the corresponding illustration.

You will find links to all the publishers mentioned in this article below.

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Dictionaries

Primary

Secondary

Advanced

Stocking filler