eLearnAid® Newsletter 20 - 15 May 2007

For the first time since starting this business in 2000 I was able to take a long vacation and spent almost a whole month in the Caribbean. I had a wonderful time on a cruise ship visiting islands, swimming, meeting people and even doing a large course. Although I kept in contact with the business there were few problems. This would have been impossible if it were not for my two competent assistants Kathy and John.

One of the reasons I started this business was to help people become competent by providing them with good dictionaries and study guides. What makes a dictionary good? What is a good dictionary for you? We answer these questions at http://www.elearnaid.com/dictionaries.html .

The availability of competent people influences far more than just one’s ability to take a vacation. As a member of a group (business, government department etc.), it affects the ability of your group to expand and to provide quality products and services and provide decent pay. As a member of society it affects the quality of your life. What would society be like if everyone was bright, knew they could learn easily and was interested and completely understood what they were doing? I think it would be pretty fantastic! That is why we sell dictionaries and study skills books. (see http://www.elearnaid.com/studyguides.html )

There is one school and tutoring center that does such a particularly incredible job that we recently gave them sixty four copies of the e Learn Aid® reprint of the Webster’s Young Readers dictionary. We do not normally give dictionaries away as we make our living selling dictionaries but this school and tutor center is so amazing and exemplary that I feel compelled to help them. 80% of their student body have failed elsewhere and they were told they have learning disorders and were put on drugs. This school and tutor center, HELP Miami, turns the students around and they become bright and interested in their studies.

How do they do it? They do two things that I am aware of that are unusual. 1. They encourage a student to study things he or she is interested in. 2. They help the student with his studies and put their basic skills in on studying and writing while the student is studying things he is interested in. They use the study skills books that we sell at http://www.elearnaid.com/studyguides.html For more information on HELP Miami go to http://www.elearnaid.com/rivera.html

A course administrator recently told us that he has had the e Learn aid Young Readers Dictionary for eight months now and is very pleased with the way they have lasted. His classrooms are busy day and night and the dictionaries are constantly being used. So much so that the binding falls apart on some dictionaries after only three months and on other dictionaries the pages get all folded in. He has not seen this at all for our dictionaries. Further, even though the students have a choice of dictionaries the e Learn Aid Young Readers are all in use and he has ordered from us three times in the past year!

For more information go to http://www.elearnaid.com/wenewwodifor.html

One of the newest entries to this field is the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. We recommend this dictionary because it is the most extensive and has brilliantly simple definitions that are very descriptive. This is a very good dictionary for any school that teaches adults including Colleges and Junior Colleges. However, because the descriptive definitions define words like "sex" this dictionary is often not suitable for schools with younger students.

All of the ESL dictionaries have unique grammatical classifications that you may have to learn. These are useful for the non-native speakers learning how to use a word in a sentence.

Native speakers who want an easy-to-understand dictionary often find it is worth their time to learn the classifications. The Macmillan has simple grammatical classifications that are simply explained on both the inside front and back cover and it is the most extensive. Go to http://www.elearnaid.com/macmillan.html and look at the red dictionaries.

We have sample pages of most of the dictionaries we sell. We recommend you look at the sample pages and pick one that gives you the data you feel you need to fully understand a word and yet has few if any words in the definitions and example sentences you need to look up. For sample pages of the Macmillan go to https://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/elearnaid/macmillan-US-sample-pages.pdf