The effect of OED on the educational process of the English language

• 9 years ago
• Posted in:Uncategorized, Video documentary (Assignment 2)
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• Author: nidal khalifeh

Assignment 2
Nidal Khalifeh (2015S1-2-ETEC540-66)

Assignment 2 Script – Nidal Khalifeh

In 1858 two committees were appointed to collect materials to build the OED. Both the Herbert Coleridge & Dr. Furnivall created the foundation of the process (Craigie 1929). The Oxford English Dictionary is founded on materials gathered by the philological Society and was published in sections on a period of 44 years (1884 to 1928). The book now is 15000 pages now. Until today no library is considered complete without it. It is called Oxford Dictionary because it was edited in Oxford. The OED was built with a none commercial basis, both the collectors and the university print shop made the OED a contribution to the society.

The fact that the dictionary can be used by different types of people for different purposes was only noted in 1960’s by Householder (Householder 1967: 279). Later in 1980s and 1990s learner’s dictionaries have evolved (Nesi, 2014). Those are dictionaries used by learners of English as a foreign language. Learner’s dictionaries are very important pedagogical tools for use by both teacher and learner on lexical information and vocabulary problem solving (Yorkey 1997). Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary is the first learner’s dictionary that was published by Oxford University Press. After 1978 a group of learner’s dictionaries emerged such as; Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, and the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (Standop, 1990).

When you visit the OED.com website you will find many interesting stories about the use of OED in education. For example Jessica Stevens concluded in a newsletter that OED Online is very important for A level English students (Stevens n.d.). The OED Online service is full of tools that can help both teachers and students learn more about the English language and its origin. The resources can be as simple as the word-of-the-day post (Leyland n.d.) or the English-in-use page that links the language to the culture and keeps it within context.

It is very difficult to research dictionary use and its effect on the learner (Nesi, 2014). This is due to the complexity of the operation which involves many unstructured factors (Garcı́a, 2001). Yet it is very important as a source of contextual instruction helping teachers create a constructivism learning environment by teaching English within context.

References:

Aspects of English – Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved 2 July 2015, from http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-english/

Barber, C. (2000). The English language a historical introduction. http://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139106894

Craigie, W. A. (1929). The oxford english dictionary and afterward. The English Journal, 18(5), 396-403.

Garcı́a, J. S. (2001). The use and abuse of EFL dictionaries. how learners of english as a foreign language read and interpret dictionary entries Elsevier Ltd.

Kozulin, A., Gindis, B., Ageyer, V. S., & Miller, S. M. (2003). O: Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

From the OED archives: ‘addendum’ – Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved 2 July 2015, from http://public.oed.com/from-the-oed-archives-addendum/

English in use – Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved 3 July 2015, from http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-english/english-in-use/

Leyland, C. (n.d.). Why the OED’s Word of the Day is special – Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2 July 2015, from http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-english/english-in-use/why-the-oeds-word-of-the-day-is-special/

Robert Cawdrey. (2015, April 30). In Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cawdrey

Nesi, H. (2014). Dictionary use by english language learners. Language Teaching: Surveys and Studies, 47(1), 38

Standop, E. (1990). Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current english. System, 18(2), 265-267.

Stevens, J. (n.d.). OED Online for A level – Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2 July 2015, from http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/newsletter-archive/oed-online-for-a-level/

Noyes, G. E. (1943). The First English Dictionary, Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall. Modern Language Notes, 58(8). http://doi.org/10.2307/2910785

Yorkey, R. (1997). Dictionaries for language learners. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 177-181.