Vol 07 No 1 TESL Reporter

              TESL
teaching english as
a

second language

vol i

7

no

1

an laie hawafi l

pa li 1973 f ail

1 I

dictionary
ESL COURSES
by dr kenneth croft
A foreign student in the united

USE IN

states

for secondary or higher education finds ii that an all english desk dictionary is one of his best friends actually he can hardly survive in his academic training without one back home the typical foreign student developed the habit of consulting a bi

COVTEVTS

I
1

a dictionary use in ESL coursses rr es page 1 by kenneth croft the importance of identifying the tense carrier in simple affirmative sentences by yao shen page 3 the tolleson six school reading project a revolutionary approach by grace A blossom page 6 intensive and extensive reading page 7 1 by vuki Tangitau tan g using crossword puzzles in TESL page 10 by kelly harris jr pronoun acrostic page 12 functions of BE in english page 14 by alice C pack reading instruction for native and second language students page 20 d e ns b bvi sid jJenson

lingual dictionary english and his native language to answer questions about words and usage but for pursuing courses in american educational institutions this habit should be broken as soon as possible he must be encouraged to switch to an all english dictionary As a rule the contexts for presenting information about english words in bilingual dictionaries are hopelessly inadequate furthermore the use of a bilingual dictionary reinforces a longstanding notion on the part of many students that there is a one to one correspon dence between english words on the one hand and words in the students native language on the other a completely false notion all students of english as a second language ESL know that a dictionary contains meanings of words and correct spellings and they consult it mostly for these purposes relatively few of them draw on the other useful information to be found there A unit of study based on dictionary usage at the beginning of a reading andor composition course is well worth the time and effort even the alphabetic principle in dictionary arrangement is not entirely clear to some

page 2

TESL reporter

students especially those from asian countries and the middle east A study unit devoted to familiarizing ESL students with the dictionary can be conducted best by means of a workbook on study skills with all members of the class using the same dictionary A good workbook explains what the dictionary contains and how the contents are arranged it also provides exercises for practice in locating specific information spelling pronunciation syllable division at present professor of english and anthropology at california state university san francisco he has been active in TESL programs and TESL teacher training for many years prior to his appointment in california he was head of materials development at the american language institute georgetown university dr croft has published widely in the areas linguistics structural linguistic o 0f anthropology and english as a second language his latest work is READINGS ON
is

tionary consultation is greater than the

americans
inasmuch as 1 have to look in a dictioI nary to check word divisions 1 can do no I do i k less than insist that my students bo llik ewise some ESL students but not all by any means are so intent on keeping their right margins straight they divide words at the end of the line too often and in many cases incorrectly because of the average ESL students shaky command of the language it is almost impossible for him to internalize the rules for english word division completely capitalization of proper nouns a lesser problem can be dealt with by referring to the dictionary too and this should be encou raged if for no other reason than acu curate spelling the ESL teacher can perform a valuable service to the student by the dictionary helping him develop habit

dr kenneth croft

TEACHER TRAINEES
publishers 1972

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE A ND F OR F0 R AN D

por

TEACHERS

winthrop

derivation meaning part of speech usage synonyms and the like

in general an ESL student goes to the dictionary for the same reasons as an american student but the questions he wants answered are usually less sophisticated than those of the american whereas the american student may decide to look up inscrutable to see if the ending is ibie or able the ESL student is l il ke n more likely to look up a word like fiittttiing to u see if it contains one or two ts spelling s 1 c rules can be and are learned but L hear a I frequent comment that it is easier to look in the dictionary than remember the rules also because he lacks security in the language particularly in reading and writing the ESL stude tits need for frequent die uden

provided the ESL student does not switch back and forth from one dictionary to another or switch around from one to another he can usually learn the conventions for marking pronunciation in a single dictionary and make good use of them at least he can locate the syllable of a word with the heaviest stress and by studying the pronunciation key he can learn to rece ognize the various indicators of vowel and v consonant quality how ever in quite s w few cases the dictionary symbols tend tc confuse the student unless he has guid ance from a native speaker of english be cause some of the sounds marked are noi no l in the students repertory in his non fluent command of the laanguage he subl ngua g stit utes the nearest equivalent from his native language for english sounds
moreso than for spelllliinn and pronuncing d g pe li g and fore so ation th e ESL student values the dictionary for the meanings of words given using the same dictionary all the time is u continued on page 8