Oxford English Dictionary - OED (for Bluedict and Mdict)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the accepted authority on the English language, providing an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of more than 280,000 entries – past and present – from across the English-speaking world.
The OED is a historical dictionary and very different from dictionaries of current English where the focus is on present-day meanings. It contains the history of each word, and of the language, traced through more than 3.5 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.
Using Unscripted Spoken Texts in the Teaching of Second Language Listening
Most spoken texts that are used in second language (L2) listening classroom activities are scripted texts, where the text is written, revised, polished, and then read aloud with artificially clear enunciation and slow rate of speech... The article concludes with a number of suggestions for incorporating unscripted spoken texts into the teaching of L2 listening comprehension, with the goals of making learners aware of the textual and phonological characteristics of unscripted texts, preparing L2 learners to be able to comprehend real-world spoken language, and promoting learners' communicative competence.
This highly accessible introductory textbook carefully explores the main issues that have driven the field of second language acquisition research. Intended for students with little or no background in linguistics or psycholinguistics, it explains important linguistic concepts, and how and why they are relevant to second language acquisition. Topics are presented via a 'key questions' structure that enables the reader to understand how these questions have motivated research in the field, and the problems to which researchers are seeking solutions. It provides a complete package for any introductory course on second language acquisition.
Innovative and evidence-based, this introduction to the main concepts and issues in language teaching uses a 'key questions' structure, enabling the reader to understand how these questions have been addressed by researchers previously, and how the findings inform language teaching practices. Grounded in research, theory and empirical evidence, the textbook provides students, practitioners and teachers with a complete introductory course in language teaching. Written in a clear and user-friendly style, and avoiding use of jargon, the book draws upon real-life teaching experiences and scenarios to provide practical advice.
