Learners and Their Dictionaries - Assignment Example

Learners & Their Dictionaries Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Acronyms EFL: English first language ESL: English second language Learners & Their Dictionaries This assignment entails an observation of the way in which a learner uses her dictionary and a plan with activities for helping her to improve as well as maximize her skills in the use of a dictionary. It involves an observation of one student in the use of dictionary for the purpose of getting the meaning of words. All students are very enthusiastic in using their dictionaries and that is why in every level of schooling one of the main mandatory resources is a dictionary. The challenge is the fact that most of them lack sufficient and efficient knowledge on how to make good use of a dictionary. This explains why it is important for a teacher to first instruct the students on how to use the dictionary and especially the referencing skills to be in a position to make use of all the referencing skills available in a learners dictionary (Cowie, 1999). The teacher must ensure that the students are coached to use both the bilingual and the monolingual dictionary appropriately. Some of the students are conversant with the skills but it is still not harmful for them to learn new skills. Some of the features that the students have problems with includes IPA for the pronunciation, the grammar code which are mainly for helping with syntax as well as multiple listing of items (Cowie, 1999). The challenge here is that the students will never go beyond the words they are looking for when need be and so they end up limiting their ability to learn. Earlier in the days the monolingual dictionary for the learners there were three designs of the futures that dominated the plans used by the lexicographer but most of the dictionaries that were published during that period did not incorporate all the three designs (Barbara, 2005). The three designs includes; the detailed information of the functional words, definition that is based on a kind of controlled vocabulary definition that the students from foreign origin are expected to clearly understand and a coverage of variety combination and great number of words. These dictionaries however lacked the three combination of the design and if they were available then the encoding and the decoding needs of the learners would have been taken care of appropriately. The lack of the above designs in those dictionaries gave a lot of difficulties to the learners, writers and also the translators of English (Dominic et el., 2007). The introduction of the Bilingual dictionary was not only for the purposes of helping the learners at the level of the lower-intermediate but also for the purposes of serving as an introduction to the syntax patterns and grammatical terms. According to Lindsay (2010), during those days whereby there was little need for linguistic discussion, the dictionaries totally covered the theoretical need of the learners. With the modernization and evolvement of English as a language there is need for learners to understand the language and its elements just like they understand their mother tongues (Nat, 2005). Proper use of dictionary is very important in teaching English. This is because most of the foreign students have no clue of proper use of English grammar. Understanding the use of dictionary is very important for the teacher to be able to guide the students in not only checking out the meaning of words but also the other aspects of grammar (Lindsay, 2010). It is very important for a teacher of English to ensure the structure of the dictionary she or he refers the students to is efficient and the Monolingual learners’ dictionary is not effective because it is inefficient in research and reference skills but for the students who are beginners, it is very effective. This means the teacher should be in a position to understand which specific grammatical area a dictionary is effective for (Pedro, 2010). The level proficiency in linguistic and year of study of the students of second language should be considered before giving the dictionary reference they should use for their study. This is why for me as an ESL teacher; bilingualized learners’ dictionary is more effective for the advanced students in the language because it offers quick comprehensive way of learning. Herbert (2008) was greatly concerned in developing a dictionary with innovative designs which are very strong in especially the areas where the dictionaries of the traditional languages was weak. The main aim of that dictionary was bridge the gap that was left between the teaching lexicon and teaching gramma. This was in turn to encourage the learner to be able to break off from the influences caused by the mother tongue. So much contribution has been put in to improve the research related use of the dictionaries. The evolvement of the EFL dictionary was very useful since the learners got a chance to not only learn the meaning of the worlds but also to be able checkout the pronunciations and other grammatical elements of the language (Herbert, 2008). The dictionary presents a learner with a new and higher level of reference skills. This reference and research skill includes; clear denotation of grammar and other meanings of the words idioms, the phrases that can be used with the word, further details on the possible grammatical combination of words with that particular word, shows clearly how the word should be pronounced, shows more usage of each of the words meanings clearly and with more examples and the layout of the word meaning, pronunciation, usage and examples is better displayed. Description of the learner who will be observed The student that I will observe is a lady called Zakiah aged twenty five years who is my wife. She just came to Australia about four months ago and she is basically here to study a course in English at English Language centre in the University of New England. Her fist Language is Arabic which automatically explains that English is not her first language. She could not speak English at all before coming to Australia but now she is trying. She has a lot to learn since she is a totally a beginner in the English grammar but she is a student who is willing to learn and is very cooperative. The Student is very eager to learn and she participate but she greatly struggle with accents since English is not their first language for most of them Report on the use of dictionary according to ESL Generally dictionaries are used as the reference for the meaning of words and also in most cases they are also used for the purposes of checking out the spelling of words. The other aspect of the use of dictionary is spelling (Evelyn &Robert, 2010). According to the student I will be using for my research she is still not conversant with English and so the dictionary would be perfect for her to checkout the meaning and spelling of words and later learn the words pronunciation. Although the Order goes the other was round since the main reason as to why most of the students have dictionaries is to check out the meaning and the spelling of the words. My student is still struggling with English and it would be important fro her to be able to differentiate the worlds has in a passage. The main question is where she is able to trace the word in the dictionary as it is written or as it appears in a comprehension. The strategies they use My main strategy was first to present her with five names and a dictionary to checkout the meaning of those words. The main aim was to point out the problems that she will encounter in trying to locate words in the dictionary as well as the ability to accurately locate names that are also similar in their appearance. The following is a passage that the student was presented with to checkout the meaning of some words which I will list after the passage. The following is a passage. Checkout the meaning of the following words as use Satisfaction, Marketing, strategies, business, achievement, development, competency, opportunities, performance, individual and expectation “Marketing strategies are very important for the success of every business and achievement of its objectives. This is because the development of profitable and clear strategy relies on the issue of balancing the abilities and competency of the business against the opportunities in the future. The individual expectation in conjunction with the perceived performances leads to the customer’s post purchase satisfaction and especially in the supermarket. This is as a result of the positive and the negative disconfirmation of the customer between the performance and the expectations”. The problems she faced My student was using the Macmillan English Dictionary. One of the main challenges she had was her on attitude toward the use of a dictionary. She was generally very impatient in the sense that it requires a lot of browsing through or perusing through the books to get meaning of each of the words. She was very ignorant of the words structure which gave her difficulties in tracing the words of the dictionary; she basically was not conversant with the use of the dictionary meaning that she had put so much effort. She did not know that to get the meaning of the words one has to checkout the first letter of that word and then go straight to the section of the words in the dictionary that begins with that letter and from there following the alphabetical order (Pedro, 2010). Example I realized when checking the meaning of the word “satisfaction” she started checking from page one of the dictionary word after word which took her almost the entire day to get to the word in the dictionary which starts with “S”. According to the dictionary the word in found in page 1258. However, she started screening or checking for the word from the first page which was very tedious for her. Below is the layout of the word as in the dictionary on page 1258 (Michael, 2007) “[uncountable] formal the action of providing something that someone wants or needs satisfaction of: Our main priority is the satisfaction of people’s immediate health needs. Thesaurus entry for this meaning of satisfaction 1. a. legal the action of doing something that is legally necessary Thesaurus entry for this meaning of satisfaction 2. 3 [uncountable] formal a satisfactory reply to a complaint, or a satisfactory solution to a problem We got no satisfaction from the sales department, so we wrote to the president of the company. Thesaurus entry for this meaning of satisfaction” (Michael, 2007) She could have probably gone straight to page 1249 where words beginning with letter “S” starts and then peruse from there. It was very tedious for her to get the names from the dictionary because she lacks the basic knowledge of the dictionary usage. Another problem she faced was determining which meaning that was practical because most of the names entail more than one meaning. She also complained that the use of the dictionary was rather complicated because there was so much information that was provided. This is because generally a dictionary will give the meaning, the word structure, the use of the word and the phrases that can be delivered from the words (Anthony, 2002). Meaning as the Focus A dictionary can be used for many and different functions but the focus in this case is the meaning. This means that the student must ignore all other options that are given in the dictionary. Most of the word can be presented in a past tense form or future tense and then the student is expected to check the meaning (Cowie, 1999). This means that there is a great need for the student to understand the grammatical order of words in the form that they take to when they change from the present form to other forms. In this exercise the student is still a beginner in English language and so it is important for the student to begin with simple words. Some of the words in other tenses are suitable for the students that are in their higher level of English learning because they are familiar with the way the words change in tenses. In most cases a student will have to keenly get the right spelling for the word before using the dictionary. This is because there are some words which are almost alike and only two or one letter makes the difference. For example fanny and funny, fan and fun (Cowie, 1999). Implemented activities for teaching the learner on the use of a dictionary to check meaning of words One of the strategies to help is to encourage her to learn that the names in the dictionary are written down in alphabetical order, this whereby for some of the dictionaries like the Learner’s Oxford dictionary which she will be using indicates clearly each alphabetic letter section of the words on the edge (Cowie, 1999). By doing so, she will be able to learn faster that for each word it is not important to go through the entire dictionary but she only has to straight away go to the section of the first letter of that word. For example when checking for the meaning of the word “Marketing” she needs to go straight to the dictionary in the section of the words that begins with letter “M” and then since the second letter Is an “A” she can check through until she sees the name. The second most important strategy of checking up the meaning of the words is ensuring that she is using the right spellings of the words. Very often in the use of the dictionary a student will encounter words which have more than one meaning but it is important to ensure the spelling of the word is correct (Cora, 2007). She is therefore to ensure the word she is looking for is well spelt out. Then the next step is to ensure she checks through the meaning of the words to ensure she gets the word that is most relevant in the context of the passage. This is because like checking for the meaning of the word “development” there are four meanings of the word which are as follows and she must get right meaning as per the passage of reference (Michael, 2007). Development means: The process of the creation of new method or products A new event that brings changes in a situation The process of putting up some new buildings in a land Growth, change or improvement that occurs over certain period of time According to the four meanings above, a student must be careful to pick the right meaning with reference to the context it is used in the passage. The first meaning is best fit for the meaning according to the passage because the passage is talking about marketing which deals with the issue of the process that allows an organization, business or company to concentrate all of its limited resources to a greater opportunity for the purposes of increasing its sales and achieving a business competitive advantage. With that in mind the student will have reached the right word and the right meaning of the word (Pedro, 2010). Another strategy to ensure she gets the right word and be completely certain is the use of the bilingual dictionary to look up the meaning of that word. One of the problems that face the students in the higher level of learning is the spelling of the words that are said by the word of mouth. My student will be also needed at some point to check the meaning of a word that is spoken up and not the words that are written down. The challenge here is that some words will sound the same but their spellings are very different. An example includes the words that have letter “K” as their first letter yet the letter is very silent like Knife, Knowledge and Knight. They sound as if “N” is the first letter and so it is important for the student to first check out in the section of letter “N” and then latter to the section of letter “K” Finally it is important for the student to read through the passage and for all of the words that are asked she try to guess the meaning in simple terms according to the way she personally understands the passage. Effectiveness of the strategy used to teach Successful teaching entails involvement of new ideas and skills. This is because with the changes in technology, it means new methods of learning are emerging each day. A good example is the computer technology. This is whereby so many search engines are available in the internet for research. It is very important for the students to be self sufficient by equipping them with skills for searching materials from the internet. By doing so, they will have the liberty to do their own research and gain more knowledge on their own. The use of the dictionary is part of the skills that can not be separable from teaching English. This is because a student will always need to use the dictionary for checking the meaning of words, the pronunciation or even the grammar aspects of the word. Every tech is supposed to carry out an evaluation to check the effectiveness of the strategy she or he uses to teach the students. During the evaluation to identify the effectiveness of the teaching strategy used for the student a variety of findings were discovered. First the student was able to learn the use of the dictionary using the alphabetical section whereby for every word given to her, she was able to straight peruse through the dictionary very first to the point of the first letter. She was also able to follow up very fast to get trace the word following the other letters without missing out. Her rate was excellent in that area because for all of the words given to her for the evaluation which some were almost the same she was able to get them. The only challenge as the speed because she was not very much used to checking new words in the dictionary but with time she will improve on that (John, 2009). What matters is that she was able to learn how to use the first alphabetical letter and check out the word in the dictionary. She was challenges by the issue of nominalization. The use of nominalization refers to the use of a verb, an adverb or adjective for the head of the noun phrase but without a morphological transformation. It involved production of a noun from a statement in a speech by adding derivational affixes. This is whereby the writer tries to derive word like “restrictions” from the word restrict to show how an issue or aspect has been limited. A word like “unconstitutional” can be used in a passage to describe the fact that the laws enacted in the first for a period of time are not right according to the constitution (Cora, 2007). The reason as to why she had a problem with this kind of affixes in some of these words was due to the fact that after checking she was not able to see them. In the dictionary some of the names that are nominalised are never found in the dictionary unless the adjective or adverbs where they are derived from are checked (Cora, 2007). This will however be sorted out with time as she advances in her English course and specially the grammar art of the learning. One of the reasons as to why this was a challenge was due to the fact that some of these words with the addition of affixes do not appear in the dictionary directly but the student must check the objective word like constitutional and within the other phrases and words derived from the word she will trace the meaning of that word (John, 2009). If the word is not available in the dictionary then the student will have to get the meaning of the affix like “UN” which means a contradiction of the subjective word for example, Unconstitutional means the opposite of constitutional. Lesson learnt from the exercise and its application The use of the dictionary in learning is of paramount importance for every student no matter the level of studies. It is therefore necessary for every teacher to encourage all the students to have a dictionary. It is very evident that there are many challenges that are faced by the English second language students. To overcome them, the students must be encouraged to use the dictionary regularly. The entire class should be given assignments besides the class work which entails the use of the dictionary. During the lessons, the teacher can also give the students assignments which they will undertake involving the use of the dictionary like checking out the meaning. For every section of the reading, the teacher can have a list of new words extracted from the passage for the students to checkout the meanings from their dictionary. They can also be asked to compare the layout of the words as they appear in different dictionaries. All these exercises will be helpful to the students in familiarizing and also gaining more skills on the use of dictionaries. Appendices Development (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/development)  [uncountable] change, growth, or improvement over a period of time development of: We encourage our staff in their development of new skills. development of something into something: the gradual development of her ideas into an advanced theory Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development 1. a. the growth of a child as time passes, as it changes and learns to do new things child development Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development 2. b. economics the process of improving the economy of a country or region by increasing the amount of business activity the government’s regional development policy Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development  2 [uncountable] the process of creating a new product or method His work is mainly in software development. Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development 1. a. [countable] a new product or method developments in medical science Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development  3 [countable] a new event that changes a situation Have there been any further developments in the case? Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development  4 [uncountable] the process of putting new buildings on land The land was sold for development. Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development 1. a. [countable] a group of buildings that have been built together on a piece of land a new development on the edge of town Thesaurus entry for this meaning of development Reference Anthony, P. 2002.english dictionaries for foreign learners: a history. Oxford: Oxford University Press Barbara, M. (2005). Learning and teaching English grammar, K-12. London: Routledge Cora, L. (2007). Learning and teaching English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cowie, A.P. (1999). Focus on the Dictionary User’, in Dictionaries for Foreign Learners: A History. 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Teaching and learning English: a guide to recent research and its application. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Read More