Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pkang0202]

I would like to get some dictionaries for my classroom. Paid for by my school of course.

I'm at a High School. Anyone recommend any good all English dictionaries for High Schoolers?

[lifeinkorea]

Mobile phones have dictionaries in them already, and some students (in middle school even) have electronic dictionaries. I don't know your class though, so if they don't have a way to look up words, then I would get a few dictionaries of one kind (from Korean to English) and then another (English to Korean). They can share them at half the cost and I think would look better in class than having everyone looking up words instead of interacting in conversation.

[Skippy]

Here is what I did once is I found a KOREAN used book store and found one that had a bunch of old pocket dictionaries English to korean, Korean to English bought all I could up. Only cost me about 10,000 won for about 6 good small dictionaries that cover 70 percent of my searches.

Any dictionary is going to do well. But some hints. Get one really big one that cover 95 percent of English language that is mostly for your use. Also one good picture dictionary to cover general enquiries and that. Then the one the student should use are you general pocket dictionaries about the size of a pocket edition of a Russian Novel that will solve most basic word search from Aarvark to Zoo but not Aerospace Engineer to Xeno Warship.

Good Luck.

[climber159]

I'm pretty sure Kyobo has a decent selection of various Oxford English dictionaries. They may give you a small discount if you buy a bunch of dictionaries at once.

I think you really should push to get dictionaries in your school. I've discovered that many of my students don't have much of a clue how to navigate a dictionary (English or Korean!). I don't think having cellphone and electronic dictionaries is a good excuse for not knowing how to use a paper dictionary. It doesn't take much more than a lesson or two of dictionary games to get them comfortable finding words fairly efficiently.

Good luck in your quest.

[pkang0202]

The last thing I want to do is give permission to my students to take out their cell phones. Even if some of them were using the dictionaries, I guarantee the majority would be playing cell phone games/texting under the pretense that they are using the "dictionary"

Thanks for the suggestions.

[lifeinkorea]

[CentralCali]

Many, if not all, schools in Busan now have the homeroom teacher collect the students' cell phones in the morning and return the things to them in the afternoon. Kind of hard to use the phone's dictionary when it's locked in the teacher's cabinet.

[ontheway]

You should only use English/English dictionaries.

The K/E and E/K dictionaries are riddled with thousands of mistranslations. There are no good ones. This is one of the main reasons that Koreans can never actually learn to speak English and why Korean English teachers can't teach English. The more students are taught K/E and E/K translation, the less English they will actually understand. Use an E/E dictionary, pictures, acting ... be creative, but never translate if you want to get the correct meaning across.