University Prep-school EFL Learners’ Dictionary Ownership and Preferences

Abstract

Dictionaries, regarded as lexicographical reference books, are considered as indispensable learning tools in foreign language acquisition. It seems that the recent advances in IT change and shape EFL learners’ dictionary ownership and preferences. Research on EFL learners’ dictionary ownership and preferences has been increasing in abroad EFL contexts to explore this new situation especially over the past decade. Such research mainly result that paper dictionaries are losing popularity and that electronic dictionaries are gaining importance among EFL learners (e.g. Jian et al., 2009 and Kobayashi, 2008). This rather recent situation surely has pedagogical and curricular applications. However, research on EFL learners’ dictionary ownership and preferences in Turkey is very rare, almost non-existent, especially over the last decade. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to investigate university prep-school EFL learners’ dictionary ownership and preferences. With this aim this paper reports on a descriptive study, about dictionary ownership and preferences of 157 university prep-school EFL learners. A modified Turkish version of the questionnaires based on Dashtestani's (2013) and Hasan's (2013) research was adopted and used in this study. The data were analyzed descriptively and the results were provided in tables. The results demonstrate that university prep-school EFL learners strongly believe that an EFL learner needs a dictionary but they also mostly report that they have not been informed about how to use dictionaries. The results also demonstrate that; most of the participants own bilingual paper dictionaries and use their cell phones as bilingual dictionaries but that only a few own pocket electronic dictionaries; and that they use their cell phones as dictionaries more frequently. The study concludes with the main suggestion that EFL learners should explicitly be informed about how to use paper dictionaries effectively in general and especially about how to use IT (cell phone/computer/CD/online) dictionaries.