Second edition

Part i Selection and use of resources


Unit 23 Consulting reference resources to help in lesson preparation

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  How do we consult reference resources?
  

Reference resources are ail the sources of information about language and about teaching that we can refer to for help in lesson preparation. They include reference materials, such as dictionaries and grammar hooks, books and articles in teachers' magazines about language, supplementary materials in a coursebook such as phonemic charts or lists of irregular verbs, and websites on the internet. Reference resources may also include people, for example, the head of department or colleagues who teach foreign languages or other subjects. We consult reference resources by knowing where we can find the information we need and how to find it. There is a lot of information available to teachers and it is important, therefore, to develop the ability to со rnpa re re fere n ее resort rces a n d d e ci de on 1 h e ir q u a l i ty a n d use fill ne s s.

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  Key concepts
  

There are many reasons for using reference resources. Think of at least three.
Checking the form and use of grammatical structures
Some g ra mm a r b 00 к s a r e w r i tie n f о r t ea die r s a nd have very detail ed e x p 1 a n a ti on s. Others, designed for learners at d if fere tit levels, use simpler language to give essential information about grammatical structures. Grammar hooks for learners can help us to see what information our learners need about grammatical structures and can provide us with suitable ways of describing or explaining grammar. The easiest books to use are those organised iti alphabetical order, or which have a detailed index or table of con tents. Some grammar books also include practice exercises, which teachers (and learners) often find useful.
Some more recent grammar books are based on huge electronic collections of examples of spoken and written language in use (corpora). These books now tell us how people really use the language.
Checking the spelling, pron unciation and use of lexical items
Advanced learners' dictionaries are very useful for teachers to use themselves, as they include example sentences, as well as information about the form and use of words. Most of these are also available on CD-ROM and online on publishers' websites. Bilingual dictionaries (where the word and its meaning are in different languages), including electronic dictionaries, are useful when learners are looking for a word that, they don't know in English. But these dictionaries usually give very little information about how to use a word, so it's a good idea for learners to check the words they find in a monolingual dictionary (where the word and its meaning are in the same


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Module 2

language). Learner dictionaries, like learner grammar books, can help teachers to lind the most suitable ways nl defining words and giving examples ol iheir use. All languages change over time, and because English is so widely spoken in so many parts of the world, it changes faster and more frequently than many other languages. So new editions of dictionaries are published every few years. The most recent editions of monolingual learner dictionaries include many new features, such as information about collocation, synonyms, antonyms and related words, indications of frequency, notes warning learners about common errors and extra examples on a CD- or DVD-ROM, or on a website.
There is also a wide range of special dictionaries, e.g. dictionaries of collocations, of idioms and of phrasal verbs, pronouncing dictionaries, dictionaries of culture and dictionaries of common errors, dictionaries of synonyms, picture dictionaries for younger learners and dictionaries of different curriculum subjects for secondary and university students.