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Written by: 9/22/2010 12:47 PM
WORDS TO SUCCEED BY
How many South Africans would notice something strange if they were asked to “Pass me a scissor”? How about “She was so frightened for the dog.”? *
Together with quality textbooks, teachers know that a good dictionary helps learners learn – and stops them making mistakes that could stand in the way of their success at school, and after.
A 2007 study conducted among teachers by educational publishers Oxford University Press Southern Africa gave key insights into what teachers value in a school dictionary and what improvements they’d like to see, and led to Oxford publishing the third edition of its top-selling Oxford South African School Dictionary.
The earlier second edition was approved for use by teachers in all nine provinces through its inclusion in the Department of Basic Education’s catalogues of curriculum-compliant textbooks and resources.
The third edition, published in January 2010, is already approved for school use in almost all provinces, following the dictionary's choice in 2009 as a required resource for Grade 12 learners in the North West by the DBE. The curriculum team there was swayed by the dictionary's unique focus on improving learners' understanding of their school textbooks.
The decisive role of the language used for learning is close to the hearts of the dictionary-makers at Oxford, who, with a team of school-focused lexicographers, subject specialists, and language experts put meticulous care into compiling the latest edition of the School dictionary.
The team was headed by dictionary publishing manager Megan Hall, and comprised more than eight compilers, four final editors, a team working on the study pages, two computational lexicographic consultants, two designers and four illustrators, all led by experienced chief editor and publisher Mary Reynolds.
“It’s been so rewarding to see how positively learners have responded to the dictionary in recent trials at schools,” says Reynolds. “Comments such as ‘easier to use’, ‘helps me a lot’, ‘saves you time’, ‘helps you pronounce words’, come up again and again, so we feel that we've achieved our aims with the third edition.” Geraldine Goldblatt, Curriculum Adviser at the Western Cape Education Department, concurs, “This is benchmark in dictionary composition because of the clarity, range and usefulness of entries … at all times easy to read … The study pages as a whole offer one of the most concise and clear summaries of grammar and interactive exercises that I have seen.”
Says Megan Hall, “Our dictionary was made from a textbook corpus – a collection of texts – so that we could see which words were often used in textbooks, and which ones learners therefore needed help with. These range from words that form the foundation of other learning areas, like angle and mammal, to more advanced curriculum terms, such as algorithm and ammeter. Even words such as skollie, spaza and tik – which, although informal, form part of everyday South African English vocabulary – were identified.
“We paid particular attention to the way these words were explained, as well as including carefully-labelled diagrams for many of them. These pictures boost learners’ understanding of difficult concepts like the difference between revolve and rotate, as well as broadening their vocabulary of related words.”
Hall continues: “It is widely known that good usage notes help learners avoid common mistakes, so we’ve included them for many more entries in the new edition. Now learners can look up when to use fast versus when to use quick, or why they shouldn’t use the word meter when measuring a piece of string.
“We’ve also included word histories covering a range of source languages from French, Greek and Latin to Japanese and a range of South African languages. The study of word origins is part of the curriculum, after all. So, for instance, many people would assume that the word naartjie has its origins in Afrikaans or Dutch, when it in fact originates from a Tamil word meaning ‘citrus’.”
Goldblatt noted that curriculum words also pose problems for some learners, as their school textbooks often do not explain technical jargon – words like algorithm and biomass – properly. “It is probable that many teachers … will rely solely on this dictionary.”
She went on to say: “This is the type of dictionary that will encourage children, and in fact some adults, to read it for pleasure and curiosity, and not only to look up words. It is a real learning tool.”
Oxford is the publishing house synonymous with dictionaries, and since 1978 has grown a strong local dictionary programme of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual dictionaries for South African learners, students and adults. It has produced English monolingual dictionaries such as the Oxford South African Illustrated School Dictionary, the Oxford South African Secondary School Dictionary, and the Oxford South African Concise Dictionary, a popular reference dictionary for adults and school libraries. There is a series of award-winning bilingual dictionaries for school learners, three in total so far, in English-IsiZulu, English-Northern Sotho, and English-Afrikaans. The Afrikaans and Northern Sotho are winners of an ATKV Word-Wise Award and the South African Translators’ Institute Award for Excellence in Dictionaries respectively.
Oxford also published the first series of bilingual dictionaries in all eleven official languages for Grade 2 to 4 learners. The Oxford South African School Dictionary is available in paperback (R89.95, ISBN 9780195983968) and hardback (R129.95, ISBN 9780195991338) from leading bookshops.
In addition to the activities included in the classroom-ready study pages, a separate Workbook with games and activities to build a wide range of dictionary skills is also available.
* The correct standard usage is in fact, “Please pass me a pair of scissors” and “She was so frightened of the dog.” Oxford – The World’s Most Trusted Dictionaries
The Oxford name is synonymous with dictionaries. Oxford is trusted to support learning in homes, schools, and higher education classrooms. Our world-renowned user-friendly dictionaries range from school dictionaries to advanced monolingual, bilingual, multilingual and reference dictionaries. Our range of thesauruses provides a complete range of word alternatives.
www.oxford.co.za
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