Effects of dictionary training on Turkish EFL students reading comprehension and vocabulary learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT Title: The effects of dictionary training on Turkish EFL students' reading comprehension and vocabulary- learning Author: Arif Altun Thesis Chairperson: Ms. Susan D. Bosher, Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program Thesis Members: Dr. Teri S. Haas, Dr. Phyllis L. Lim, Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program The present study investigated the effects of monolingual dictionary training on Turkish EFL students' reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. Thirty-seven intermediate- level Turkish EFL preparatory students in the Department of English Language Teaching at Mustafa Kemal University participated in this study. The study considered two research questions. The first question concerned the effect of monolingual dictionary training on students' reading comprehension. The second research question investigated the effects of monolingual dictionary training on students' vocabulary learning. To answer the research questions, the students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one experimental and two control groups. The experimental group, the Dictionary Training group (DT), received special training on the use of a monolingual dictionary. One of the control groups, Dictionary group (D), had access to a monolingualdictionary, but received no training. The other control group, the Guessing group (G), had neither training with nor access to a dictionary. To gather the data, a pretest- posttest procedure was followed. The data were analysed using ANOVA procedures. In order to measure students' reading comprehension, a multiple-choice test based on two reading passages were used. There were a total of 12 questions on the test. Vocabulary learning was tested in two ways: vocabulary production (recall) and vocabulary selection (recognition). In both these tests, the same 16 vocabulary items chosen from the two reading passages were selected. A repeated-measure one-way ANOVA revealed that there were no group differences on the posttest attributable to treatment (p_s. 105). Dictionary use with or without training had no significant effect on reading comprehension. The results of two seperate repeated-measures one-way ANOVAs showed group differences attributable to treatment on the vocabulary learning in terms of both vocabulary production and vocabulary selection. Follow-up post hoc tests were conducted.For vocabulary production, the DT group performed significantly better than the D group (p.s.001) and the G group (es.001). There was no significant difference between the D and the G groups. For vocabulary selection, the DT group performed better than the D group (p_s.05) and the G group (e=.001). There was no significant difference between the D and G groups. The findings of this study indicate that access to a monolingual dictionary, with or without training, had no significant effect on students' reading comprehension. However, dictionary training had a positive effect on both production (recall) and selection (recognition) of vocabulary. Dictionary access without training was not superior to guessing.