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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background and Motivation

In Taiwan, English is taught and learned as a foreign language. Most young

EFL learners in Taiwan share an understanding that the more the vocabulary one has,

the better one’s reading comprehension is. They complain that they have such a

limited vocabulary that they cannot fully comprehend the context. Another problem

for most EFL learners in high school in Taiwan is the difficulty in memorizing new

words and the tendency to easily forget words learned. Therefore, helping EFL

learners to improve reading comprehension and to learn vocabulary more efficiently

are important tasks for EFL teachers in Taiwan.

Dictionary consultation while reading raises controversial issues. The findings

of related studies did not seem to reach the agreement that dictionary consultation

benefited text comprehension. Block (1992) even presented the viewpoint that

looking up unknown words while reading would hinder the comprehension of the

context, for the reader’s attention was drawn away from the present reading text and

the process of comprehending the text would be discontinued. His viewpoint

seemed to be different from the common understanding of most EFL high school

learners in Taiwan. In Taiwan, a large percentage of the English textbooks,

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magazines and newspapers intended for high school learners usually provide

vocabulary glosses. Therefore, it is necessary to study whether dictionary

consultation facilitates text comprehension. The present study aims to explore

whether dictionary consultation helps high school EFL learners in Taiwan to enhance

their reading comprehension.

When language learners encounter unknown words in reading, they are taught

either to infer the meaning from the context or to consult the dictionary. Both

approaches are regarded as effective ways to help the language learners to guess or to

find out the meaning of unfamiliar words. However, foreigner language learners

sometimes have troubles inferring the meaning of words from the context. They

may infer the incorrect meaning of the unknown words or there may not be enough

clues in the context for them to infer the meanings. Consequently, whether reading

serves as an effective approach for the language learners to acquire vocabulary is an

important issue. When language learners are performing the reading task, whether

they are at the same time picking up the words, namely, acquiring words, is also of

concern. This study will explore the language learners’ vocabulary retention ability

while reading.

The invention of the electronic and online dictionaries seems to gradually

replace the conventional paper-printed dictionary because of their convenience and

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handiness. When Taiwanese students encounter an unknown word in an English text,

they tend to use electronic dictionaries more frequently than the conventional paper

printed dictionary. The great advantage of the electronic dictionary or the online

dictionary over the conventional paper dictionary is obvious: speed. The speed

allows the readers to be distracted only briefly from the processing information of the

text and makes the readers more willing to consult unknown words. Nonetheless, in

addition to the convenience and handiness, it is uncertain whether reading

comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning will be enhanced as well.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The study aims to find out the effect of dictionary consultation on language

learners’ reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. Three reading conditions,

online dictionary, paper dictionary and no dictionary offered, were created in the study.

Subjects in the three different reading conditions had to read two articles of differing

difficulty levels. This is due to the different conclusions drawn by foreign educators

who had previously conducted studies concerning the effectiveness of dictionary

consultation on reading comprehension. First, I would like to find out whether

dictionary consultation would assist EFL learners in comprehending the text and

whether the online dictionary, due to its easy accessibility, would enhance the text

comprehension more than the paper-printed dictionary. Second, I am concerned

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whether taking the reading task will help incidental vocabulary learning and whether

the online dictionary consultation would trigger higher frequency of look-up behavior

than the paper-printed dictionary, which would in turn enhance vocabulary learning.

After exploring these issues, the research would find out some methods of helping the

English learners enhance their comprehension ability and more effectively learn

vocabulary.

1.3 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One, the introduction, consists

of the motivation, background, purpose, and organization of the thesis. Chapter Two

reviews related previous research on dictionary consultation while reading in

enhancing EFL students’ comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning while

performing a reading task from which the research questions of the present study arise.

Chapter Three describes research methodology, including a depiction of the

participants, research materials, and research procedures. Chapter Four presents the

results of the study and data analysis. Chapter Five discusses the major findings of

this study, and presents limitations, pedagogical implications, and recommendations

for further research.

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