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Using Learners' Dictionaries

© Brenda Townsend Hall

It is always difficult to wean students off their bilingual dictionaries, so it is probably best to encourage them to use their learners' dictionary alongside their bilingual crutch. However, to help them make the most of all that the learners' dictionary has to offer, the teacher needs to show them how to navigate its many routes.

As well as definitions of meaning, a learners' dictionary contains a great deal of information to help students understand and use English more accurately. If we take the Cambridge International Dictionary of English as an example, then we can demonstrate how it shows the different meanings of a single word in separate entries with boxed guide words to help the student find the definition needed. Check this by looking up the word "old."

How many guide words are there? What is the meaning of old if it is used before the noun?

- The CIDE shows which words will often be found with the word you are checking by putting these in bold print.

Look up the word "frost." Which adjectives are used to describe frost when it is severe?

-The CIDE shows you some of the most confusing "false friends" from other languages. False friends are words in English that are very similar in form to words in other languages and which probably have the same root. However, the meanings are no longer the same and so they can cause the learner problems. An entry for a false friend has a circled letter or letters at the end of the entry, e.g. F for French, to indicate that there is a "language portrait" giving a list of common false friends in that language.

Look up the word "sympathy." In how many languages does this word feature as a false friend? Is your language among them? If so, check the entry under your language to see how the meaning is different.

-The CIDE tells you whether a word is used as a noun, adjective, verb, adverb etc. by an abbreviation in italics. If the word can be used as a verb there is also information about how the verb can be used. The abbreviations for these forms can be found on the inside front cover of the dictionary.

Look up the word "play." How many definitions can you find for "play" as a verb? In one definition, the verb can be used without an object. What does it mean if used in this way? Find two different meanings of the verb "play" when it is used with an object and write two sentences to illustrate the meanings.

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