Ambitious, yes, foolhardy even, but it would be interesting to go right back to basics and see what people think is important or can be passed over (and for anyone opposed to the idea, it would involve cutting down as much if not more than building up a wordlist).
From the growing consideration of the wordlist we could start to posit organizational categories or headings, pedagogical reccomendations, concrete activities etc. Who knows, we could even end up one day with the glimmerings of a halfway decent course if we gave it a reasonably serious go.
So, to get things started, here we have the first entry from the LDOCE4 (copied and pasted from the online version - the entry is identical in both versions):
(There is a a second entry for A as an abbreviation for amp or amps, and several things into which the symbol A enters: A&E, A-1, A3/4/5, AA, AAA, and going onto page 2, AB, ABC, then ABS on page 5 etc. This list should be sufficient for now in noting that abbreviations are important).A1 , a plural A's, a's
1 [uncountable and countable] the first letter of the English alphabet
2 [uncountable and countable] the sixth note in the musical scale of C major or the musical key based on this note
3 [countable] the highest mark that a student can get in an examination or for a piece of work:
I got an A in French.
Julia got straight As (=all A's) in high school.
4 an A student American English someone who regularly gets the best marks possible for their work in school or college
5 [uncountable] used to refer in a short way to one of two different things or people. You can call the second one B:
A demands £500, B offers £100.
> plan A at plan1 (5)
6 from A to B from one place to another
get/go from A to B
Hiring a car was the best way to get from A to B.
7 from A to Z describing, including, or knowing everything about a subject:
the history of art from A to Z
8 A34, A40 etc the name of a road in Britain that is smaller than a motorway, but larger than a B-road > A-road
9 [uncountable] a common type of blood
> A level
1-Let's assume that we are teaching adult students who at least know what the alphabet is, even if they are hazy on its exact order, or have problems with reading (we can make a note to ourselves to bone up on how to teach basic decoding, and dictionary lookup skills). Our main remaining task is then to teach the names of the letters for spelling over the telephone, or saying abbreviations aloud (as opposed to acronyms). Most courses address these basic issues early on, through exponents such as How do you/Can you spell that, please? Yes, it's A, B, C etc (These exponents will make a handy shorthand way of organizing the subject matter). > NAMES, TELEPHONING, LETTERS' NAMES, ABBREVIATIONS, USEFUL CLASSROOM ENGLISH etc.
2-Encyclopedic Knowledge (EK), but we can reconsider including musical notes (and one's ear, quality of singing voice etc) when we come to 'music' and 'notes' in the dictionary. Perhaps we should make a note of things like 'ear', 'tone deaf' etc somewhere e.g. on a filing card headed 'MUSIC', when we think of them.
3,4-What (grade/mark/?score) did you get (for your essay/in your exam/for the test etc)? This obviously forms part of the world of EDUCATION. Even though the students perhaps aren't at school or college anymore, they might find the exponent useful in asking each other about test results (> %?), or how each other's kids are doing at school. As for 4, it seems a little idiomatic/regional, and can be left to be picked up by processes of analogy/extension from the above 'What grade?' use (if we need to talk about good students we can simply say they are good at their subjects or usually get such and such a grade (see above again). Students could perhaps be told about phrases like 'a straight A student', and it would help explain sense 4 of 'straight', but there is so much to learn that anything that can be paraphrased should be, to speed things up and lessen the burden on the memory.
5-This is an interesting use of a symbol, and occurs often enough in instructions and dialogue labelling: You're A, you're B (INSTRUCTIONS, possibly contextualized in a dialogue about an English lesson? LOL). The Plan A/B phrase is very interesting, it isn't strictly necessary to learn, but it must be said, (Well, that was/so much for Plan A -) What's plan B? is a catchy and succinct way of saying 'What are we going to do (now)?' (I'd probably teach both, as part of a PROBLEMS > ADVICE/SUGGESTIONS > SOLUTIONS cycle).
6-Seems unnecessary when you can say actual locations instead (which students most likely will want to, in an effort to be clear).
7-Doesn't seem essential, what do you guys think?
8-Will become relevant only to those (especially drivers) in the UK.
9-What's your blood type/What blood type are you? (A common PERSONAL QUESTION, at least in Japan!).
Regarding the extra items with which A forms a partnership,
- A&E=ER, or we could just say X (has) had an ACCIDENT (i.e. a personal/bodily one, hurt or injured himself etc) and is in/had to go to (the?) hospital,
- A-1 is old-fashioned and can be paraphrased as per the definition given,
- A3 and other paper sizes could form a quick general (encyclopedic) knowledge quiz (EKQ), for the purpose of practising the letters A and B and numbers, if nothing else!
- AA - hmm, is drinking a problem for any of your students LOL (I feel such subjects could at least be mentioned in passing).
Wow, quite long already and only one entry done...but I hope it's been interesting, and shows just how many ideas and how much language is sitting inside and/or suggested by the dictionary. If anyone feels like adding their takes on the language, feel free, but please try to make reference to the order of entries as printed in the paper version of the Longman (LDOCE4), and perhaps continue using the typographical conventions I've introduced above (specifically, bold for functional exponents/suggested sentences, and capitals for general organizational headings).
