Can dictionary skills be taught? The effectiveness of lexicographic training for primary-school-level Polish learners of English

Abstract

In the present paper we examine the question of whether dictionary reference skills can be taught effectively in the classroom. To this end, we test the reference skills of a group of Polish primary-school students attending English classes twice: prior to and following a 12-session specially-designed training program. Despite the subjects high confidence in their reference skills reported in the accompanying questionnaire, they performed rather poorly on the pre-test. Following a training program, the performance improves substantially and significantly more than in a matched control group. We conclude that a dictionary skills training program may be effective in teaching language learners at this level to use dictionaries more effectively, though different skills benefit to different degrees.