The Oxford Picture Dictionary: English-Spanish Edition

Whether you want a monolingual English dictionary to help expand the vocabulary of your intermediate or advanced ESL students, or you want to help a struggling beginning Chinese student make a link from their language to English, or you have five different language groups in the class and want to discuss with them the items in a kitchen or fruits or vegetables, the Oxford Picture Dictionary can be a great help. Since the subject-numbering for the pages in all versions of the dictionary are the same, all language groups can listen to the English pronunciation and read the same word in their own language without searching for the right page.
The indivisual students or the teacher needs to help control the rate that the oral words are introduced. Using Pause/Play on the computer for independent or group study or having the teacher or assistant read to the group are both possible. An Advance button on the computer would be much easier than Play/Pause. Maybe there is such a thing, just need to know.
A more accesable list of all the languages included in this publication would be useful. I can find most, but I never know if I've found them all. Over all, this is an extremely useful publication.

This well-structured and nicely illustrated English/Spanish dictionary is a good resource which could easily have been made excellent. Where it comes up short is the lack of bilingual coverage for many entries.

Though the product description does flag the fact that the dictionary's purpose is to "meet the needs of today's English language learners," the layout of the dictionary gives the impression that it is for English speakers learning Spanish as the initial entries are given in English. However, many examples -- most notably the practice exercises -- are given in English only. This could prove frustrating for those wanting learn or expand their Spanish with it or vice versa.

I have been teaching French, Spanish and ESL for many years. I have tried every teaching tool I could find. I can honestly say, this book is the best language tool ever! My students take this book with them everywhere they go and they are the ones who started calling this their "bible."

Apr 5, 2008: Has all sorts of practical vocabulary for everyday situations: household vocabulary, garden care vocabulary, medical vocabulary and many other situations. Would be valuable to communicate with Spanish speaking employees who may have limited literacy, because it is a picture book aimed at adult immigrants. Has lots of words for tools, car repair and furniture that you don't get in high school textbooks.

I am an English as a Second Language Instructor. Every time we use the class set of Oxford Picture Dictionaries my students always want to purchase them. I get a lot of requests for these. I see the students using them all of the time. It increases their knowledge of English & their confidence. I highly recommend it for anyone learning English or Spanish!