Projects
The Specification of Dictionary Skills in Higher Education
Hillary Nesi - University of Warwick
1. Introduction
This report is divided into three parts: (1) the first part lists the dictionary skills that might be taught at university level in order to use dictionary effectively, next (2) it reports the way these skills are actually being taught by informants at a range of universities in the UK and overseas, and finally (3) the last part informs the informant attitudes and beliefs relating to the teaching of dictionary skills.
The skills vary in difficulty and level of abstraction. As a result, the skills are not necessarily mentioned according to the level of difficulties. The skills are grouped within six categories. The first five groups represent the stages in the process of dictionary use, including the choice of which dictionary(-ies) for the consultation and ending with the application and recording of dictionary information. Skills that are independent of the consultation process are listed at stage six.
Stage one: Before study
1. Knowing what types of dictionary exist, and choosing which dictionary/ies to consult and/or buy
2. Knowing what kinds of information are found in dictionaries and other types of reference works.
Stage two: Before dictionary consultation
3. Deciding whether dictionary consultation is necessary
4. Deciding what to look up
5. Deciding on the appropriate form of the look-up item
6. Deciding which dictionary is most likely to satisfy the purpose of the consultation
7. Contextual guessing of the meaning of the look-up item
8. Identifying the word class of the look-up item
Stage three: Locating entry information
9. Understanding the structure of the dictionary
10. Understanding alphabetization and letter distribution
11. Understanding grapho-phonemic correspondence (and the lack of it)
12. Understanding the use of wildcards in electronic dictionary searches
13. Choosing amongst homonyms
14. Finding derived forms
15. Finding multi-word units
16. Understanding the cross-referencing system in print dictionaries, and hyperlinking in electronic dictionaries
Stage four: Interpreting the entry information
17. Distinguishing the component parts of the entry
18. Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information
19. Finding information about the spelling of words
20. Understanding typographical conventions and the use of symbols, numbered superscripts, punctuation
21. Interpreting IPA and pronunciation information
22. Interpreting etymological information
23. Interpreting morphological and syntactic information
24. Interpreting the definition or translation
25. Interpreting information about collocations
26. Interpreting information about idiomatic and figurative use
27. Deriving information from examples
28. Interpreting restrictive labels
29. Referring to additional dictionary information (in front matter, appendices, hypertext links)
30. Verifying and applying look-up information
Stage five: Recording entry information
31. Sifting entry information
32. Deciding how to record entry information
33. Compiling a vocabulary notebook or file of index cards
34. Using the notebook section of an electronic dictionary
Stage six: Understanding lexicographical issues
35. Knowing what people use dictionary for
36. Knowing lexicographical terminology
37. Understanding principles and process of dictionary compilation
38. Recognizing different defining and translating styles
39. Comparing entries
40. Dictionary criticism and evaluation
2. The specification of dictionary skills at university level*
The primary source of data for this report was the response to an e-mail query sent to five mailing lists:
1. sysfling (for academics who put an interest in Systemic Functional Linguistics),
2. baleap (for members of the British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes, EAP),
3. baalpg (for postgraduate researchers belonging to the British Association for Applied Linguistics),
4. lang-asst-trg (for those involved in the training of language assistants), and
5. ucml-teaching (for university lecturers in modern languages)
Responses were received from 35 lecturers, who taught one or more of the following subjects: Linguistics, Chinese, English (EFL, ESL, EAP, ESP), French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. Most of the informants were based at UK universities, but messages were coming from other countries as well, such as Australia, Brunei, Denmark, France, Israel, Japan and Russia. The author asked the informants regarding the specification of dictionary skills in university language syllabuses and/or course materials.
The informants were self-elected, therefore, no quantitative presentation involved in this paper. They are not treated as a representative sample of the entire population of language lecturers at university level. From the initial query, it demonstrated that some informants reported to have little or no dictionary user training, and in other cases, some informants cited the extensive discussion of skills specifications.
The secondary source of data for this report were other published syllabuses and lists of skills. The most notable of these are Gethin & Gunnemark's advice to undergraduate dictionary users (1996), Berwick & Horsfall's guide to the teaching of dictionary skills at secondary level (1996), the specifications in The National Literacy Strategy: Framework for Teaching (1998), even though it is intended for use in primary schools, and Stark's (1990) survey review of 40 dictionary workbooks. The author excluded dictionary workbooks or university-level language textbooks because further reports are required.
3. Attitudes and beliefs relating to the teaching of dictionary skills
3.1 Students enter university with poor dictionary skills
Many informants believed that their students had not received much dictionary skills instruction before admitting to a higher education. Typical comments say that the students don’t generally ever use monolingual dictionaries and they use bilingual ones badly.
3.2 There is insufficient dictionary skills training at university level
Most of the informants in this study reported that dictionary skills were delivered on professional courses in first year program, or in an isolated series of lectures rather than as a part of regular courses throughout a student’s university life. There was also an indication that dictionary skills were squeezed out of language courses, sometimes as a result of course re-organization. Most of the informants realized the importance to the development of dictionary skills, but the time allocation did not allow.
3.3 Some dictionary training tasks with staff and students
Several informants pointed out that students and teachers found dictionary skills exercises boring. However, there were also enthusiastic responses to dictionary skills training, and most of this happened when electronic dictionary was used. A great success was found in a pronunciation course involving both CD-ROM and print based activities (Guillot & Kenning, 1994). It seems the students really enjoyed the quite detailed research task, including the discoveries they make, and the easiness with an electronic dictionary close by.
3.4 The teaching of the dictionary skills was believed to be important
The informants in this report considered dictionary skills training as essential. However, the author assumes that it is because the informants were self-selecting. Moreover, three informants emphasized that while good dictionary skills are important for any learner, it is even more important for the distance learner.
*For further details about Section 2, you can check her full article yourself.
Bagaimana untuk merujuk artikel ini:
Nesi, H. (1999). The specification of dictionary reference skills in higher education. Dictionaries in language learning. Recommendations, national reports and thematic reports from the thematic network project in the area of languages, sub-project, 9, 53-67.
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