An Exploration Into theUse Of Pedagogic Monolingual Dictionaries At High School Level (With Special Reference To Grade 11 Students)
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Date
1999-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study is aimed at finding out the views and attitudes of high school students in
general, and grade II students in particular, toward the use of MLD as one independent and self study
source of linguistic in formation in the process of learning EFL. In other words, it tries to
explore and describe the various uses of MLD and see how much of these pieces of pedagogic
information is recognized and exploited by grade II students. In short, the study tries to answer
the question, "To what extent do high school students benefit from the MLD."
To do thi s, three types of instruments were employed: A test of practical usewf a
dicti onary, questionnaires and an observation. A class of30 randomly se lected students and 20
English teachers from 6 different schools were also invovled in the study. The test which
comprises 30 items on the various uses of the dictionary was administered to the 30 students. The
questionnaires which also try to elicit views and opinions of the teachers and students regarding
the role of MLD in learning EFL were distributed to both subjects. The third type of
instrument--{)observation, was made to see how quick or slow the students were in finding a word
in the dictionary. In doing the test and the activity (task) for observation, the students were
provided with the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English.
The instruments were collected and analysed by converting the responses into percentage
figures. Comparisons were made between the responses of the students to all items subsumed in
the instruments to see the effectiveness ofthe students in using the dicitonary.
The results obtained showed that the students are not generally .. good at using the
dictionary for wide range of information. The results also indicated that there are no initiatives
from English teachers to coach students how to make an effective use of the MLD.
It is, therefore, recommended that teachers, syllabus designers and material writers should
take remedial measure to broaden the view of students to the use of MLD by integrating different
tasks that call for dictionary skills.
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Keywords
Pedagogic, Monolingual, Dictionaries