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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