Online dictionaries are always a good resource for both the pronunciation class and the writing class. Students can quickly check pronunciation and typo errors by consulting a good online dictionary. Create this habit in your students and you will soon see pronunciation and writing improvements in your students’ work. Some good online dictionaries are:
- Encarta Dictionary
- Merrian Webster Online
- Free Dictionary
- American Heritage Dictionary
- Webster Dictionary
Suggested activities:
- Make up a list of difficult words and ask students to predict stress placement based on stress rules you provide in class. Then ask students to consult an online dictionary, check their predictions, and explain which rule applies and why. Students ultimately learn the stress rules as they try to find the one that applies for each word. Also, they soon learn to rely on their stress predictions without the need to consult a dictionary.
- Encourage students to check how sounds are pronounced. One way to do this is to give them an activity in which they have to check online the pronunciation of difficult words to prepare for a read-aloud assignment.
- Ask students to consult the thesaurus to learn and/or find antonyms and synonyms.
- Make a list of words students tend to use interchangeably (e.g., lie/lay; affect/effect, and so on) and ask them to consult an online dictionary (a) to correct sentences you selected from their homework assignments; (b) to explain how these words differ and provide examples of use; and/or (c) to make a glossary of difficult words that they can consult for their written assignments.
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