Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education Deputy Ministry for Teachers Colleges English Departments
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM COURSE SYLLABUS
Course Title: Dictionaries Course Code: Eng, 151 Number of credit hours: 2 hrs.
Instructor: Office phone: Office hours: E-mail:
I- Course Description:
This course aims to provide students with activities for improving dictionary using skills. Students are trained to use dictionaries as a rich and recourse for communicative activities. In order to turn them into more effective dictionary users, extensive familiarization activities focusing on all aspects of meaning, including collocations, idioms , and lexical sets will be emphasized. In addition, the phonetic symbols and stress pasterns will be focused on to develop students' pronunciation skills. II- Rationale:
One of a teacher's main tasks is to help students themselves, and one way of working towards this is to train students to be effective, systematic, and practical users of a monolingual learner's dictionary. So this workbook will give a great practice at finding and interpreting the information available in such a dictionary, provide both teacher and student with a wide range of insights into how the dictionary may usefully be incorporated into all stages of learning process and finally gain access to the full range of resources that a dictionary offers, whether for business purposes, travel, examination, preparation, higher education and for helluva.
III-Course Objectives:
By the end of this course, English majors are expected to be able to: 1- use an English- English dictionary well. 2- help the students themselves in their English studies. 3- find the information quickly and use it in their English studies. 4- know how to check spellings. 5- know how to use the phonetic symbols. 6- improve their English pronunciation. 7- a. find grammatical information. b. find the correct forms of idioms. c. find the meanings and usage of words d. find the phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions. e. find collocations and lexical sets
IV-Calendar, Course Contents and Assignment Specifications: 1 Time Topic Assignments First week First session: Students are to: Introduction: aims, advantages and - go over various extensive features activities , exercises in the assigned chapters and articles ( to be announced). - use dictionaries in highly rich and varied resource for communicative activities. - practice reflection. Second First session: Students are to: week - use the dictionary fairly quickly. The Dictionary Entry - able to do the exercises assigned in the textbook. - study the terms, symbols, typefaces and abbreviations used in the dictionary.
Third week First session: Students are to: - use the dictionary with written English The Dictionary and Writing in spelling. (Spelling, Silent letters, - look at problems of spelling and of Alternative spellings) finding words in the dictionary not sure how to spell. - use the dictionary for silent letters that are not pronounced. - work with more than one correct way to spell words in English. Fourth First session: Students are to: week - divide the long word at the end of the The Dictionary and Writing line. (Word division and Anagrams) - use the hyphen(-) after the first part of the word. - Work with the places of division shown in the dictionary for all headwords, derivatives, compounds. i.e. bold dot (. ) used where division is possible. - Work with words spelt the same backwards and forwards.( anagrams, palindromes ) Fifth week First session: Students are to: Dictionary and Speaking - practice and develop good English (The phonetic symbols, Consonants pronunciation. and Vowels, ) - be understood more easily when they speak. - hear and imitate English sounds better. - learn the words and their meanings with their correct pronunciation. - use the key phonetic alphabet printed inside the back or front covers of the dictionary. First session: Students are to: 2 Sixth week Dictionary and Speaking - differentiate the silent 'r' in both ( Silent 'r' in British & American spoken British & American English English, The syllable) through words and phrases. - Work with word syllable: One-word syllable, Two-word syllable, Three- word syllable, etc. - keep a list of these sorts of words as they are learned.
Seventh First session: Students are to: week Dictionary and Speaking - understand how words and phrases are (Stress, Stress patterns) stressed in English. - recognize words by their pronunciation & their stress patterns. - acquire and practice the general rule for pronunciation and stress in derivatives, compounds and idiomatic expressions. Eighth First session: Students are to: week Dictionary and Grammar - be familiar with grammatical (Count & non-count Nouns, information and their abbreviations Determiners: a few, few, a little, contained in the dictionary: Countable little, much, many etc) & Uncountable Nouns, Singular or Plural, Irregular Noun Plurals.. - form the singularity and plurality. First session: Students are to: Dictionary and Grammar - be familiar with grammatical Ninth ( Comparatives & Superlatives, Verb information about comparatives & week Forms) superlatives and verb forms - form comparatives & superlatives and irregular ones.. - find the regular & irregular verbs, infinitives. - use the four main verb forms correctly. Tenth First session: Students are to: week The Meanings of Words and - use the meanings & definitions quicker Phrases and more accurate. ( Entries & Definitions ) - learn further meanings & usages of words already known as they learn new ones. - Separate meanings & definitions within one entry numbered in the dictionary. - Be able to choose the correct Headword, Definition, and both together. - know & use the special meanings of the plurals of countable nouns.
3 First session: Students are to: Eleventh The Meanings of Words and - be familiar with Synonyms & week Phrases Antonyms.( Their definitions, use, ( Synonyms & Antonyms) usages and meanings) - find, use & practice them. - use the Thesaurus Dictionary.
Twelfth First session: Students are to: week The Meanings of Words and - be familiar with Idiomatic Expressions, Phrases Phrasal & Prepositional Verbs.( Their ( Idiomatic Expressions, Phrasal & definitions, use, usages and meanings) Prepositional Verbs) - find, use & practice them.
Thirteenth First session: Students are to: week The Meanings of Words and Phrases - acquire the meanings of ( Affixes, Style) Affixes( prefixes, suffixes..). - form words using prefixes & suffixes. - use certain English words in a particular style or context marked as formal, informal, colloquial, slang, archaic or old use, etc. Fourteenth First session: Students are to: week Further Suggestions for the Students - fairly quickly use the dictionary. - explore & investigate the language. - learn more about English words, phrases, expressions,.. - not to look up words in the dictionary while reading. - make vocabulary lists. - use Word Family Diagrams. Fifteenth First session: Students are to: week Final Oral & Written Exams - go over all the things , extensive & communicative activities, annotations, papers, handouts, every single word covered. - prepare themselves for the finals.
V- Evaluation: The final grade will be based on the student's performance as follows:
Attendance, Homework & Participation 10% Midterm test 10% Annotations & Projects 20% Final exam 60% Total 100%
VI- Required texts:
1- Dictionaries by Jon Wright. 2- Use Your Dictionary by Adrian Underhill. 3- Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. 4- Oxford Student's Dictionary of Current English. 4 VII- Instructional Procedures:
Students are expected to be responsible about class attendance. No make-ups will be allowed .No late assignments will be accepted. Students are expected to maintain good behavior in dealing with their colleagues and professor.
VIII- General Course Requirements: - Required level of linguistic knowledge and skill. - Be familiar & able to work fairly quickly with a dictionary in the English Language. - Be familiar with using a dictionary for various purposes. - Be familiar with phonetic alphabet, parts of speech, different meanings for one word, etc. - Be familiar with English texts and bilingual dictionaries. - Be familiar with dictionary entries, definitions, terminology. IX- Internet sites for teaching English as a second or foreign language: 1- www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar 2- http://www.eslpartyland.com/quiz%20center/quiz.htm#Business%20English 3- www-personal.umich.edu/~cellis/antagonym.html 4- humanities.ucsd.edu/writing/grammar/grammarindex.html 5- www.aitech.ac.jp/~itesls/slang 6- a4esl.org/q/h/idioms.html 7- www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/vocabulary.html 8- www.manythings.org 9- home.t-online.de/home/toni.goeller/idiom_wm 10- www.languageguide.org/english 11- webster.commnet.edu/HP/pages/darling/grammar.htm 12- www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/grammar_handbook.htm 13- http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/index.phtml/fid/541 14-http://www.skillstutor.com/index.cfm
X- References:
1- Pronunciation, by Clement Laroy. 2- Vocabulary, by John Morgan. 3- Grammar Dictation, by Ruth Wajnrub. 4- Working with Words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Vocabulary, by R. Gairns 5- Dictionaries, Lexicography and Language Learning, by R. I lson.
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