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Getting Students to Use a Dictionary More Effectively

Hande Özer

Hande Özer is a lecturer of English at Bahçeşehir University in Turkey and has seven years of teaching experience, three of which involve resource development and curriculum design. Shehas completed the DELTA and is currently doing an MSc in English for Specific Purposes atAston University and is also working as a teacher trainer for the British Council.Email: cakicihande@yahoo.com

MenuIntroductionThe Importance of DictionariesWhy don’t learners use dictionaries?What can be done to get the students use a dictionary?Conclusion

References

Introduction

Student A: “Ms. ... what does ... mean?”Teacher: “Check your dictionary, please.”Student B: “Ms. ... what’s the adjective of ...?”Teacher: “Don’t you have a dictionary?”-Student Z: ...

Do these sound familiar? These are dialogues from my class during a writing task.

I work at a private university in Turkey and my students study English at preparatory school for a year. After they successfully finish preparatory school, they move on with their studies intheir faculties. Therefore, they need to study English for academic purposes and they havegraded writing tasks each week and during these tasks they tend to use me as a dictionary. Thismade me think about how I could get the students use a dictionary more effectively.

The Importance of Dictionaries

In his book, Thornbury (2002) mentions that knowing a word includes knowing its written and

spoken form, its meanings and the words it is most commonly associated with, its derivation,how it is used in different situations, its frequency, its grammatical behaviour, its connotations,and how it can be used as a verb, noun, adverb, etc. Learners can individually find all thisinformation in a well-chosen dictionary.

Using a dictionary will also;

- help the learner develop autonomy:“A learner who makes good use of a dictionary will be able to continue learning outside theclassroom, and this will give him considerable autonomy about the decisions he makes abouthis own learning.” (Gairns & Redman, 2005:79)

- give the learner good learning habits:

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“There is tremendous amount of information in a good learner’s dictionary – sometimes anoverwhelming amount. Helping students tap into that information efficiently is one of the bestways to help them become independent, lifelong language learners.” (Leaney, 2007:1)

To help learners fully understand a word and thus develop their vocabulary, to help them bemore autonomous and to enhance good learner habits, as language teachers, we should all be

aware of the importance of using a dictionary in language learning. We should guide our students to choose a good dictionary and encourage them to refer to it frequently.

Why don’t learners use dictionaries?

From my observations and talking with colleagues and students, I have come up with thereasons below:

• The students are not used to using a dictionary due to both the Turkish culture and theTurkish Education System. The Turkish culture and education system do not encouragestudents to do much research and thus, do not promote learner autonomy. Therefore, in their 

 previous studies, the students do not have the habit of using a dictionary. They think thatthey can carry on their education, including language learning, without a dictionary.

• Students usually do not bring their dictionaries to school in the first place because they areheavy. They prefer to use the small pocket dictionaries or the electronic ones because theyare easier to carry. However, these dictionaries usually mislead the students by only givinga single or an inaccurate definition. A solution to this problem may be having lockers for thestudents in the school corridors, but this is an administrative issue and not very easy for ateacher to provide. A colleague of mine suggested collecting all the students’ dictionaries atthe end of the day and giving them back the next morning. This seems like a good idea but

again depends on how many students a teacher has. Moreover, if a student has only onedictionary and leaves it at school, then s/he cannot use it at home.

•  Nation (2003) states that students who are learning vocabulary need to know at least 2000words in English to use a monolingual dictionary easily. Furthermore, students do notachieve this until after 5-6 years of language study. Therefore, students do not want to usethe monolingual dictionaries provided in the packs containing course materials because theyfind them difficult to understand. I believe that the level of the student is important inchoosing a dictionary. Teachers should not insist their elementary level students use amonolingual dictionary. According to Laufer and Melamed there are three main types of ELT learner’s dictionaries: monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualized. ELT monolingual

dictionaries are written in the L2 (i.e. in the foreign language, English); bilingualdictionaries contain L2 - L1 and/or L1 - L2 translations (where L1 is the learner’s nativelanguage and L2 English); and bilingualized dictionaries typically contain a monolingual L2(English) definition plus an L1 translation after the definition. Each type of dictionary,while having its own advantages, also hinders the learning of the foreign language. At lower levels, bilingual dictionaries serve as the main entrance to the foreign language;monolingual dictionaries, on the other hand, are particularly indicated for intermediate or advanced learners. At lower levels, bilingual dictionaries are especially useful for 

 production and comprehension; at intermediate levels, bilingual dictionaries are moreefficient for production, whereas monolingual ones are more useful for comprehension; andat advanced levels, monolingual dictionaries tend to be the most efficient both in terms of 

 production and comprehension (as cited in Corrius and Pujol, 2009).

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What can be done to get the students use a dictionary?

Firstly, students should be familiarized with dictionaries at the very beginning of a course. Theyshould be introduced to the typical entries of dictionaries and they should know how to look upa word and what the abbreviations (e.g. C , AmE , adj, etc.) in a dictionary stand for.Secondly, the students’ dictionary skills should be developed using a variety of dictionaryactivities on how to use a dictionary effectively. These activities can focus on spelling, parts of speech, definitions, meanings, register, pronunciation, collocations, antonyms-synonyms,American vs. British English, etc. (see Table 1 for some example questions).Thirdly, students should be given some dictionary activities from time to time according to their level.Finally, teachers should not choose the easy way and just tell the student the word s/he needs. Itwill take time to get the students used to referring to dictionaries. When a student asks a word,the teacher can go by him/her and encourage him/her to check from his/her dictionary, and evenshow him/her how to do so.

The activities in Table 1 below will give an opportunity to the learners to use a dictionaryeffectively.

Table 1 (with answers)Activity Type Example Question

Meaning Use your dictionary to find 3 different meanings of “fall”.1. move downwards2. become less or lower3. autumn

Spelling How do you spell the noun form of “generous”?generosity

Parts of speech Which one is the noun and which one is the verb?a. advice (noun)  b. advise (verb)

Definitions Find the definition of the word “caution”.great care and attention

Register What are the 3 informal ways of saying “grandmother”?1. gran2. granny3. nana

Pronunciation Which syllable is stressed in the words below?a. export (v) exPORT  b. export (n) EXport

Collocations Find 3 adverbs which are usually used with the verb “love”.1. deeply2. passionately3. truly

Antonyms-synonyms Find 2 synonyms and 1 antonym of the word “increase”.Synonyms: enhance/expandAntonym: decrease

American vs. British English What is the American word for “boot”?trunk 

Here are some different ways to exploit the question types in Table 1:1.

To increase motivation, a competition could be done in pairs or groups of 3. Each group canhave one dictionary and the teacher can ask the questions one by one. The group who findsthe answers first and correctly in their dictionary can get points. Having a competition canalso increase the students’ speed of looking up a word in a dictionary.

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2. Another activity can be done in pairs. Both students can have dictionaries and they cancome up with questions to ask each other. They can give each other points for correctanswers. Having students prepare their own questions will give them a sense of autonomyand thus enhance motivation.

3. Or simply, a worksheet for individual study can be given in class or as homework. Theworksheet can be prepared by the teacher with similar questions to the ones in Table 1.

4. Some interesting dictionary activities could also be found at the links below:

• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/dictionary/wordentry/ (for young learners)• http://www.pearsonlongman.com/dictionaries/students/

(for Pre-Intermediate/Intermediate/Advanced level)• http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/resources/resources.htm

(for Pre-Intermediate/Intermediate/Advanced level)• http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/search/node/dictionary (some ideas for the classroom)

ConclusionI have tried to give some practical ideas to promote dictionary use in the classroom. Theactivities I have mentioned above are the ones I have tried out with my learners and found quiteuseful. The learners should have the opportunity to try different techniques to learn newvocabulary items apart from memorization. Thus, I believe that a well-chosen dictionary can bea lifelong learning tool. Of course it is not possible to get all our students use a dictionaryefficiently. I believe that it is a joy even if one or two of our students gain the habit of referringto a dictionary. This may be the first step for that student to become a lifelong autonomouslearner.

References

• Gairns, R. & Redman, S., (2005). Working with Words. Cambridge University Press.• Leaney, C. (2007). Dictionary Activities. Cambridge University Press.• Corrius, Montse and Pujol, Dı´dac. (2009).  Linguistic and cultural strategies in ELT 

dictionaries. ELT Journal.•  Nation, P. (2003). The role of the first language in foreign language learning. Asian EFL

Journal, 5. http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june2003.subpn.htm

• Thornbury, Scott. (2002). How to Teach Vocabulary. Longman

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