The list of 11 words added to Oxford Dictionary's June edition

 

We share with mid-day readers a list of 11 words that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) June edition

 

> Arre (interjection): Used to express a range of emotions and commands, esp. annoyance, surprise, or interest, or to attract someone’s attention. [First recorded in 1845]

 

> Batchmate (noun): A member of the same graduation class as another; a classmate. Also used in Philippine English. [1918]

> Bhelpuri (noun): In Indian cookery: a dish or snack typically consisting of puffed rice, onions, potatoes, and spicy and sweet chutneys, sometimes served on a puri. [1950]

> Carcade (noun): A procession, parade, or convoy of cars, typically one escorting a prominent person. [1964]

> Churidar (noun): Tight trousers made with excess material at the bottom of the legs which falls in folds around the ankles, traditionally worn by people from South Asia. [1880]

 

> Dhaba (noun): In India or in Indian contexts: a roadside food stall or restaurant. [1957]

> Incharge (noun): A manager, a supervisor. [1956]

> Multi-starrer (noun): A film having an ensemble cast featuring many star performers. [1976]

> Revert (verb): To answer in speech or writing; to reply. [1973]

> Topper (noun): The leading student in a particular class, school, exam, etc.; a high-achieving student. Frequently with preceding word. [1971]

> Yaar (noun): As a familiar form of address: friend, mate. [1963]

A few more that we bet you didn't know were in the OED:

> Biodata (noun): Biographical details, esp. summarising a person’s educational and employment history, academic career, etc. Used chiefly in North America and South Asia. [1947]

> Videshi (adjective): In India: foreign; coming from a country other than India. [1980]

> Papad (noun): poppadom [1813]

Source | Mid Day | 3 August 2015

http://www.sandesh.com/article.aspx?newsid=3102409

અંગ્રેજી શીખવાડશે આ મોબાઇલ એપ ‪#‎Technology‬

અંગ્રેજી શીખવાડશે આ મોબાઇલ એપ

આજે શીખવું અને ભણવું માત્ર પુસ્તક અને શાળા સુધી મર્યાદિત રહ્યું નથી. હવે મોબાઇલ એપ પણ તમારું ટ્યૂટર બની શકે છે.

SANDESH.COM

અંગ્રેજી શીખવાડશે આ મોબાઇલ એપ Jul 23, 2015 19:02 Tags:   • sandesh • Gujarati news pepar • Technology                Viewed: 4502 | Rate: 5.0 | Rating:      |

આજે શીખવું અને ભણવું માત્ર પુસ્તક અને શાળા સુધી મર્યાદિત રહ્યું નથી. હવે મોબાઇલ એપ પણ તમારું ટ્યૂટર બની શકે છે. ઇંગુરુ નામની મોબાઇલ એપ એક સારા અંગ્રેજીના શિક્ષકની ગરજ સારી શકે એમ છે. આ મોબાઇલ એપની મદદથી તમે કોઈ પણ સમયે ઇંગ્લિશ શીખી શકશો અને તે પણ એકદમ ફ્રીમાં. એક વખત આ એપને ડાઉનલોડ કર્યા બાદ આના માટે ઇન્ટરનેટ કે વાઇફાઇ કનેક્શનની જરૂર રહેતી નથી. આ એપ બેંગાલુરુના એક સ્ટાર્ટ અપે લૉન્ચ કરી છે. ગણેશ પટરાઈ કામની શોધમાં નેપાળથી મુંબઈ આવેલા, પરંતુ અહીંયા ઇંગ્લિશના જ્ઞાનના અભાવને કારણે તેમની મુશ્કેલીઓ વધી હતી. જ્યાં પણ કામ કરવું હોય ત્યાં ઇંગ્લિશ જરૂરી હતું. ગણેશ જેવા અન્ય લોકોની પણ મુશ્કેલીનો ઉકેલ આ એપ દ્વારા મળી શક્યો છે. આ એપનો ઉપયોગ સરળ છે. તમે આસાનીથી અંગ્રેજી ભાષાનું જ્ઞાન વધારી શકો છો. આ એપ ઇંટરેક્ટિવ ગેમ્સ દ્વારા અંગ્રેજી શીખવે છે. ઇંગુરુને બનાવી છે બેંગાલુરુના સ્ટાર્ટઅપ કિંગ્સ લર્નિંગે. કિંગ્સ લર્નિંગના સ્થાપક તાહેમે કહ્યું છે કે માત્ર 2 મહિનામાં 70,000 લોકો આ એપ ડાઉનલોડ કરી ચૂક્યા છે. વેંચર કેપિટલિસ્ટનું માનવું છે કે લેંગ્વેજ લર્નિંગ એપ જેવી ટેક્નોલોજી ભારતમાં શીખવા અને શીખવાડવાની પદ્ધતિમાં ધરખમ ફેરફાર કરી શકે છે. ઇંગુરુ લોન્ચ કરનાર સ્ટાર્ટ અપ કિંગ્સ લર્નિંગની ઇચ્છા આવનારા સમયમાં બીજી ભારતીય ભાષાઓની એપ ડાઉનલોડ કરી માર્કેટમાં ઉતારવાની છે.

Smart Classroom Technologies - 15 Online Resources That Help Improve Essay-Writing Skills

Smart Classroom Technologies

15 Online Resources That Help Improve Essay-Writing Skills

Throughout the journey from kindergarten to 12th grade, students are supposed to gain appropriate vocabulary and grammar skills that need to be successfully implemented into essay writing. Here are some effective online tools that can help you make the art of essay writing more attractive for your students.

1. ReadWriteThink – Student Interactives

This page is a great source of interactive tools that help students accomplish various goals, from organizing their thoughts to learning about different aspects of the English language. Some of the most popular tools for grades K-12 include Story Map, Persuasion Map, Word Family Sort, Acrostic Poems, Trading Card Generator and Comic Creator. You can choose different tools based on the grade level, capabilities, student interactive type, theme, and learning objective. 

2. Interactive Sites for Education

This website serves as a resourceful guide to English language arts topics. You can find educational, interactive games and simulations for grades K-5 in the categories of grammar, compound words, capitalization, phonemes and words, punctuation, poetry, reading and sight words, parts of speech, writing and rhyming. These activities work well with an interactive whiteboard. However, you can also recommend them for individual learning at home. 

3. Graphic Organizers

Young students can hardly manage all the ideas they get if you leave them in front of a piece of paper and saying they should write an essay right away. The process requires pre-writing stages, where these graphic organizers will be of great help. Your students can use them as a way of putting their ideas and notes in order. Then, the actual writing stage will be much more focused. 

4. Teach the Children Well – Language Arts

This website may not be that appealing in terms of design, but it’s a great base of resources that will help you become a better teacher. This is actually a collection of awesome articles related to writing. Every educator should spend time examining these resources as they progress through different teaching methods.

5. Free Writing Resources

Time4Writing.com is mostly known for the eight-week online writing courses it offers. However, the website is also a great source of free resources in seven categories: teaching writing, writing skills, writing sentences, writing paragraphs, writing mechanics, writing essays and standardized-test writing.

6. Guide to Grammar and Writing

This website offers comprehensive lessons on all aspects of English grammar and writing. You will easily locate all materials you need in the Index, which includes links to all resources of the Guide to Grammar and Writing, as well as Principles of Composition. This online source is like the grammar textbook you always wished to have. Now you can use it to make the lectures more accessible for your students.

7. Essay Mama

This is an online agency that offers professional assistance to students who need advice with essay writing. The company has hired PhD tutors from various areas of study, so its users can get reliable help regarding the topic they need. The blog section at this website is worthy of a bookmark, since it’s a great source of inspiration, news and tips on school writing. The glossary of essay terms and essay writing guide are efficient tools that will make the process easier. In addition, your students can enter writing contests at the same website. 

8. Essay Punch

Essay Punch is an interactive, online, essay-writing tutorial that takes students through all stages of the academic writing process. The guidance it offers is based on pre-set writing prompts and interactive exercises for the pre-writing, organizing, writing, editing and publishing stages.

9. Teen Ink

This well-established magazine publishes high-quality essays and other written forms created by students. The categories at the website include nonfiction, poetry and fiction. There is no need to subscribe to the monthly print magazine; all you need to do is recommend the website as a source of inspiration. You can select some of the featured essays and read them in class in order to show great samples of academic content. 

10. Thesis Builder

Your students will love this tool! Since they are always struggling to come up with a believable thesis statement, you can recommend the Thesis Builder, an automatic engine that launches a statement based upon the topic, opinions and supporting arguments the users provide in the form. Once they get the thesis, your students can proceed with the creation of an outline without looking for another online tool. 

11. Novel Guide

This website offers plot summaries and discussions on some of the most notable novels ever written. Needless to say, you should warn your students about plagiarism issues; make sure to instruct them to use the content solely as an addition to their studying materials. 

12. Hemingway Editor

There is a rule about long, complex sentences: You can only use them if you know how. K-12 students rarely manage to handle complex sentence structure, but they still want to impress you with big words and endless arguments. When you want to emphasize the importance of clarity, use Hemingway as an example. This tool will highlight the common errors and long sentences that need corrections. 

13. The Readability Test Tool

This tool tests the readability of a piece of writing according to a set of commonly used indicators. You can recommend it to your students as an editing aid that will help them improve the readability of their work before they submit it to you. 

14. WordCounter

When you assign a specific word count for a piece of writing, you want your students to respect it. This tool will help them achieve that goal. It will not only provide them with a correct number of words in their essays, but will also enable them to locate repetitive words and phrases. 

15. Citation Machine

Referencing is certainly not the most exciting part of any writing assignment. Nevertheless, you cannot simply neglect all those details and citation rules. This tool provides instant citations in Chicago, Turabian, APA and MLA styles. Upon entering the appropriate parameters, the students get a properly formatted reference without any fuss.

Source | http://thejournal.com

Vocabulary

Date: 07-05-2015
Sr. No.	Word	Meaning	Example	Synonyms
1	Cumbersome	बोझिल, दुष्कर, भारी, कष्टकर	How do you make your selfies look good, while making the task less cumbersome?	difficult, arduous, Impracticable
2	Aura	आभा प्रभामण्डल, तेजोवलय, परिवेश	Eg.1 I tell people to clear their aura so that it doesn’t drive people away-old baggage, hurt, etc. Eg.2 The ceremony retains an aura of mystery	gust, sigh, spirt, puff, spurt, aura
3	Disenchantment	मोहभंग, निराशा, , आशाभंग	There’s disenchantment despite achieving material success.	disappointment, despair, frustration, hopelessness,
4	Callously कल्लोउस्ली	ઉદાસીનતાથી	Does your partner brings surprise guests for dinner or Callously makes a joke without realizing your discomfort?
5	Mannerisms	व्यवहार ढंग, प्रणाली, रंग, शैली, भांति, वज़ा	People have forgotten how small things and mannerisms ruin relationships, like not to throw   away the Sunday paper before your spouse has read it, cleaning the sink after using it.	manner, means, style, method, modus, mannerism
6	Courtesy	शिष्टाचार सौजन्य, शिष्टाचार,	We have moved away from a lot of things that were considered basic courtesy earlier.	etiquette, manners, tact, decorum,
7	Aging	वृद्ध हो जाना, बूढ़ा हो जाना, पुराना हो जाना,	This class is for those want to get old gracefully and understand the process of aging, without attaching negativity to it.
8	Spurt	उछाल, कूद, फलांग, छलांग, डींग, शेख़ी	A Spurt in divorce rates has given rise to the demand for classes that help people cope with the end of the relationship.	bounce, leaping, spurt, skipjack, leap, hop
9	Agitated	उत्तेजित उत्तेजित, संदीप्त, उत्तेजना में	Not getting a task done leaves us feeling guilty, tense and agitated. So we are riddled with guilt all the time	excited, agitated, elated, fevered, feverish, hot
10	Riddle	पहेली, उलझन, समस्या, चक्र-व्यूह, मुअम्मा, गोरखधंधा		puzzle, riddle, conundrum, enigma, riddel, secret
11	Stumble	ठोकर, स्र्कावट, भूल-चूक, ग़लती	A Stumbling block even bigger than procrastination is lack of self-awareness and hence, confidence.	mistake, error, inaccuracy, boner, slip-up, stumble
12	Impediment	बाधा, अवरोध, व्यवधान, निरोध, प्रतिरोध, व्याज	Disorganization can be as big an impediment as lack of discipline or procrastination.	obstacle, hindrance, handicap, obstruction,
13	Regimen रेगीमें	परहेज, नियमानुसार राज्य, पथ्य, आहार नियम	A good morning regimen helps you be happy in the long run.
14	Flurries	आंधी ,घबराहट,बेचैनी, घबराहट, घबराहट	Snow fell in thick flurries as we watched spellbound nature’s grand spectacle unfold right in front of us.	bewilderment, palpitation, dither, fash, tizzy
15	Spellbound	मंत्रमुग्ध, अभिमंत्रित,		charmed, spellbound
16	Spectacle	चमत्कार, दृष्टि, तमाशा		miracle, marvel, sight, spectacle
17	Ridge	चोटी, टीला, पर्वत पृष्ठ, उभाड़, संकरा ऊंचा भाग	Sitting on a high Ridge in the Tarbung valley, Ladakh the smooth brown rolling hills, reminiscent of moonscape.	top, braid, plait, summit, topping, ridge
18	Reminiscent रेमिनिसेंट	याद ताजा, स्मरणकारी, बीती बातों को याद करने का आदी, बीती बातों से संबद्ध
19	Proverbial	लोक-प्रसिद्ध જાણીતું અને સર્વસંમત	It was like searching for the Proverbial “needle in a Haystack”.
20	Haystack	सूखी घास का ढेर
21	Expedition	अभियान, सैनिक कार्यवाही, आंदोलन,		campaign, drive, expedition, sledding, action
22	Altitude	ऊंचाई, उच्चता, उंचाई, बुलंदी,	On landing in Leh, adventurers suffer not only from the effects of big altitude but also willingly suffer from ‘Scenic overdose syndrome”	height, altitude, elevation, rise, highness, rising
23	Scenic सीनिक	सुंदर, सुरूप, ख़ूबसूरत, ख़ूब, शोभायमान, मंजु		beautiful, pretty, lovely, scenic, handsome, graceful