The Dictionary Skills Instruction on the Experimental Group

After the pre-test, the researcher started to give the experimental group instructions on the ten basic dictionary skills during each class time for about 20 minutes. The instruction lasted about 3 weeks in the beginning of the second semester. The ten dictionary skills assessed and instructed in the current study were as follows:

(1) Understanding short forms, labels, and grammar codes of the dictionary, (Scholfied’s Procedure 6)

(2) Getting familiarized with the distribution of letters, (Scholfied’s Procedure 3)

(3) Making use of guide words on the right and left tops of the dictionary, (Scholfied’s Procedure 3)

(4) Removing its regular inflection first, (Scholfied’s Procedure 2) (5) Scanning a dictionary page, (Scholfied’s Procedure 4)

(6) Distinguishing a homograph, that is, a word spelled the same as another word but has a different part of speech, and therefore explained in a separate entry, (Scholfied’s Procedure 5)

(7) Trying to scan nearby entries for it may be a spelling variant or to seek in the addendum for it may be a geographical names or a new word, (Scholfied’s Procedure 4)

(8) Trying to remove its affixes, (Scholfied’s Procedure 4)

(9) Considering its possibility of being compounds or idioms, and try looking up each

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element (Scholfied’s Procedure 4)

(10) Practicing working with the menus or other short definitions to find the right meaning of long entries when deal with a polysemous. (Scholfied’s Procedure 5)

Among Scholfield’s seven procedures, adopted here as the basic stages to go through when using dictionaries for comprehension, the dictionary skills instruction in the current study focused on ten of the numerous skills required in Scholfield’s Procedure 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The content of instruction was based on “Longman Dictionary Skills Handbook” by Longman.(Janet McAlpin, 1988), which was intended as classroom texts to use (Stark, 1990).

The consultation errors made by students in test A also received more attention in the dictionary skills instruction.

In the following subsections, the description of the course and instruction content was presented. Additional materials of the instruction are in Appendix K. Before the instruction of the ten skills is a warm-up discussion section, in which students discuss their feelings and opinions of their look-ups in test A. The instructor also had students thumb through the dictionary and discuss what's contained in a dictionary

3.3.4.1 Understand Short Forms, Labels, and Grammar Codes of the Dictionary

(1) Have students look for the list of abbreviations used in the dictionary which appears on the first few pages. Have students look up a word of the new word of Lesson 4, and then discuss the entry and the labels within the entry.

(2) Have students notice language varieties or registers and frequencies of words.

(3) Introduce students to the common labels of nouns, [C], [U], [singular] and [plural].

Tell students that most nouns are countable, and if they are always countable there is no code (Take the new words of Lesson 4 in Book 4 as examples). Some nouns are uncountable,

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and some can be both. The dictionary tells if a noun is always [U] or if it is sometimes [U]

and sometimes [C]. If a countable noun is commonly used in its singular or plural form the dictionary tells like this:

noodle n [plural]

earring n [often plural.]

eve n [usually singular]

fortnight n [usually. singular.]

(4) As for verbs, introduce students to the common labels of verbs such as [I] and [T].

Tell students that verbs which need not be followed by an object or complement are called intransitive and are coded [I] and verbs which must be followed by one or more objects are called transitive and are coded [T].

(5) Show students the flash cards of these short forms, grammar codes, and labels.

Have students compete with their classmates to see who can recognize these labels first.

(6) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

3.3.4.2 Get Familiarized with the Distribution of Letters (Alphabetical Order)

(1) Introduce students to the concept of headword. Tell them not just turn the pages forward and backward, without any sense of direction.

(2) Introduce the location of acronyms and multi-word units (compound words)

(3) Let students know that to find words in a dictionary, it is important to know the alphabet well. Students will need to be able to judge quickly whether any word comes before or after another one. This is called alphabetical order. If the first letters of two words are the same, look at the next letters to decide the correct order.

(4) When teaching the new words in the English textbook, use the flash cards of the new words and ask students to rearrange them according to their order of appearance in the dictionary.

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(5) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(6) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)

3.3.4.3 Make Use of Guide Words on the Right and Left Tops of the Dictionary

(1) Let students know that the speed of look-ups can be enhanced if they know how to make use of the guide words. Explain that words are printed in large bold type at the upper top left-hand and right-hand corner of any page to help students quickly find a word in a dictionary. The left shows students which is the first word on that page, the right shows them which is the last word to be found on that page.

(2) Open the dictionary to a certain page (p.46-47) without covering any parts of the page and ask students questions such as “what is the guide word on this page (p.46-47)?”

(3) Open the dictionary to a certain page (p.98-99) and cover the first headword of page 98 and the last headword on page 99, and ask students questions such as “what are the two missing headwords on these two pages?”

(4) Open the dictionary to a certain page and cover the two guide words, and ask students to judge what the guide words are. Have them write down and then check.

(5) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(6) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)

3.3.4.4 Scan a Dictionary Page

(1) Have students observe the dictionaries first. Ask students how many columns there are in their dictionaries.

(2) Ask students how many headwords are there on a certain page. For example, ask them how many headwords are there on page 920. This can make them look at the whole page within a glance, not just focus on a few words.

(3) Open the dictionary to a certain page and ask students which headwords on that page

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are of most often used words (high frequency)

(4) Open the dictionary to a certain page (p.500) and ask students how many headwords on that page are verbs and how many headwords on that page are nouns or adjectives, etc.

(5) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(6) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)

3.3.4.5 Distinguish a Homograph

(1) Have students look for a homograph word such as “water.” Ask them what the difference is between water¹ and water².

(2) Do some riddle guessing related to homographs. “What kind of bird does the construction work? Answer: the crane.”

(3) Review the homographs students have learned in the English classes before: cook, bear, can, stand, show, win…, etc.

(4) Explain to students that a homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another (homo=same, graph=write). Homographs differ from each other in meaning, origin, and sometimes pronunciation (Neufeldt 1991, 646).

(5) Remind students that homographs can not be treated as polysemous words. While a polysemous word contains different meanings within one entry, homographs are different and separate entries.

(6) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(7) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)

3.3.4.6 Remove Its Regular Inflection First

(1) Review what students have learned about noun plural inflections.

(2) Review what students have learned about verb tense inflections, including present participle, present tense (third person singular), past tense.

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(3) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

3.3.4.7 Try to Remove Its Affixes (Derivatives)

(1) Introduce students to the concept of word families. Word families are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs which are all related to the same root word: All of these words are in the dictionary. Most of them are listed as separate headwords in alphabetical order.

(2) Also introduce students to the concept of prefixes and suffixes by taking the words they have learned for example. Most prefixes are used to change meaning without changing word class. When suffixes are used they form particular word classes. For example, many adjectives can become adverbs by adding –ly. Some adverbs are headwords, but most are included under the adjective. This may result in non-location.

(3) Have students look at Table 4 of the dictionary at the back. There is a list of word parts which are used to build new words. These word parts are called affixes.

Understanding words can be easier if these common affixes can be recognized.

(4) Provide students more exercises such as practice separating the parts of words as follows: (from Longman Dictionary Skills Handbook)

prefixes root suffixes

indigestible underemployment

antiterrorism

(5) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(6) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)

3.3.4.8. Try to Scan Nearby Entries or to Seek in the Addendum

(1) Introduce students to some common spelling variants of British and American English, such as “programme,” “flour,” “theater,” and “flavour.” If a word was not found, check words with similar spellings. Scan through the page to see if the word is there.

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(2) Introduce students to the concept of language change and language variety.

(3) Have students look for the list of addendum for new words which appears on the last few pages.

(4) Have students look for the list of tables for geographical names included in the dictionary.

(5) Remind students that if a word can not be located immediately, it may be a spelling variant, a geographical name, or a new word.

(6) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

3.3.4.9. Consider Its Possibility of Being Compounds or Idioms

(1) Take jokes which contain ambiguous meaning for example. The ambiguities of these jokes usually result from the compound words or idioms within them.

(2) Review the compound words and idioms they have learned so far. Let students try looking them up in the dictionary.

(3) Tell students to treat compounds or idioms as one entry.

(4) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(5) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)

3.3.4.10. Working with the Menus or Other Short Definitions

(1) Tell students that if a headword has more than one meaning, the most common or the most general meaning is usually given first. Among these meanings, they should choose the most appropriate one according to the context.

(2) Ask students what the second meaning of ‘fly’ is according to LDOCE.

(3) Have students choose meanings to match the words below, and note each definition number in the brackets. (from Longman Dictionary Skills Handbook)

gloom ( )………. darkness

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gloom ( )………. sadness

(4) Provide more practices to let students find out other meanings of the words they have learned before.

(5) Discuss with students their lookup problems on this skill shown in test A.

(6) Give the designed handout to students. (Appendix K)