Customer Reviews

The Oxford Picture Dictionary for the Content Areas (Monolingual English Edition)

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I like this book because it is specfically made for school aged children. I am currently tutoring 11 and 13 year old boys, and I was previously using the more detailed Oxford Picture Dictionaries with them, but found this book today at my library. This is the only ESL picture dictionary I have found that specifically focuses on school subject matter. It contains illustrations of school aged children. However, I would like to see verbs commonly used, i.e, read, write, study, add, subtract, etc.

Most of the Oxford Picture Dictionaries seem too complicated or too cumbersome to use easily. This dictionary can really help a student trying to do homework in English. It can be a great help in fact.

The content areas being social studies, history, science, and math. As with the Oxford Basic Picture Dictionary, the design is simple and uncluttered. On the left page are the words, accompanied by individual, small but colorful illustrations. On the right page is a large, full illustration containing all the illustrations from the left page. In other words, the right page is the left page in context. Rather like understanding where the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle go by looking at the box cover. A user friendly and effective strategy.

I would recommend all TESOL instructors to have a set of these tapes to go along with the books because auditory skills are really valuable for language learning. This product is perfect to start out the beginner ELL. It is also a good introductory tool for intermediate groups or sheltered classrooms where there are students of many levels.

This book is very useful when you have newcomers who speak little to no English and need concepts presented in the content areas. Very useful. Provides excellent pictures and a large picture which synthesizes the concept. Recommended for Grades 3-5.