The impact of E-dictionary strategy training on EFL class

Abstract

The present study attempts to clarify how effective strategy training has been with pocket electronic dictionaries for non-English major EFL learners in an English reading class. The study was designed on the basis of the results of my previous study (LET Kansai Chapter Collected Papers 15:109–119, 2015), which concluded that the reading task with dictionary strategy training for 10 weeks might positively affect the participants’ attitude to leaning, and also the dictionary strategies and reference skills have been well retained. The present study, therefore, provided the participants with: (1) metacognitive tasks as an outside-class activity; (2) setting a collaborative learning environment with peer review; (3) an explicit presentation of the strategies and reference skills with a projector. The results showed that the strategies and reference skills could have been retained by the non-English majors doing these tasks. Additionally, their attitude to learning English seemed to be improved in the present study.