Customer Reviews

HarperCollins Beginner's ESL Dictionary

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I bought this before going over to China to teach ESL, and I wore it out over the course of a year. Not only was the layout easy and intuitive, but there are helpful usage notes, and frequent words are clearly marked. Students were fighting over it on more than one occasion! It includes several pages of pictures to teach vocabulary, each grouped according to category, i.e. tools, sports, musical intruments; and a page on "lines," which has pictures for the terms: "row," "column," "queue/line" "procession," and "parade." It has sections on American vs. British English, and it also uses IPA symbols, which is great.

The 200-page grammar section at the back was a nice extra. It consists of 102 units plus sections on irregular verbs and prefixes and suffixes. While we didn't use these in class, the appendices did help to narrow my focus in planning from time to time.

The only negative thing I have to say about this book is that it's a bit smaller than the more expensive ones- this one has about 40,000 words, where other dictionaries have twice that.

In class, this book came in handy during group work, and it also helped me when I had difficulty explaining a concept to a student- I'd read straight from the dictionary with excellent results. While it's intended for beginners, you could use this book with practically any level.