do good foundsome (e.g.,

Language Education LanguageEducation

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How

handheld

effectively electronic

do good Ianguage learnersuse dictionaries:A qualitative approach TbshikoKOYAMA (lsakaOhtani bbeiversity OsarnuIEAKEUCHI KtinsaiU77iversity

7)lre use ofhandheld electronic dictionaries present study is an attempt to clarij6,ofective EP) learning in context. language Jdpanese EEL For this (heretV7er for puT;pose, we examined EEL learneLylook-upbehaviorwith ED through the think-aloud technique, and foundsome strategies forcu7ieient use ofED,particularlybyanalyzing look-up behavion Five posrgraduate students ofa graduate school took part in the study as good langitage iearners(;iierecij7er GL.Lsy.7b coimpare their look-upbehaviorwith that offaLse beginners FIBs,}, eollege students atsoparticipated 71Eie experiment was conducted with (;herecij7er one participant at a time on an appointment bcLyis. Alb time constraint and no limiton the number words to be looked up were set in the experiment. traizscribingtheir oj'target 417er verbal deseriptiopzs, some strategiesfor 7'7teanalysis ofthe efactive ED use were extracted thepossibility the ED dutas"ggested that ls.fi{nctions hadprovicled not only GLLs qualitative but also EBs )vith sca27biclingfor Also, the resuits revealed EFL learning. that (}LLs were '

.17ve

goodED

zasers.

1.I"troduction Dict{onariesare vast treasure troves of information, and

generallyconsidered to be aR indispensable tool forfbreign languagelearning Jackson,2e02;Wingate,2e02).[[Ihe (e.g., types of dictionaries i.nJapan, howeveg have changed considerably during the lasttwo decades(Tbno, 2006).In fact,thenumber ofED users has been rapidly expanding, and some empirical studies conducted how the difference in ED and printeddictionaries PD) (hereafter has affected EFL Iearners' look-up behavior,retention of leoked-up werd$, and reading comprehension

of

texts

Koyama (e.g.,

are

& Takeuchi, 2003; 2004a; 2004b, 2005; 2007; Osaki

& Nakayarna, 2004; Shizuka,2003), Koyama and Takeuchi have conducted a series of empirical studies, and the experimental data in thejr studies revealed that ED promoted learners' took-upfrequencymore than PD did.in additien, the ED could reduce the time for FL reading. In spite of theseadvantages, itappears that this higherlook-upfrequencydoes not necessarily nor retention of looked-npwords. guaranteebetterreading corrrprehension Then, how cou]d we leadthese advantages ofED to better comprehension or retention? In the fieldofsecondfforeign tanguageacquisition research, a largenumber of empirical learners(GLLs)have beenconducted. studies on the learningstrategies of good language This is becttusetheir strategies might help us understand the learTiingprocess of secondlforeign language (Griffiths, 2008; Takeuchi,2003a,2003b).Tono (200l) claimed that thisapproach was applicable to the study of dictionaryusers. He reported on a series of

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empirical

studies

on dictionary users,

and

showed

how

research

into dictionary use could

dictionarydesign. One of his studies focused on the characteristics of goed dictionary users. On the basisof the detailedanalysis by means of observatjons and a learner' he clarified the relationship between profilequestionnaire, laiiguageproficiencyand dictionary skills, Wingate (2004) reported on an introspective study of intermediate learnersof German using dictionaries for reading comprehension. She asserted, based on her findings,that the panicipantslacked basic strategies which were crucial for successfu1 dictionaryconsultation. Nyikos and Fan (2007) reported that and look-up macro-strategies may unsuccessfu1 be retated to the language also proficiencyof students" (p.265) by citing some related studies, Yamanishi (2005) conducted a protocolanalysis to examine individualdiffbrencesin dictionaryuse by Japanesehigh school students. He found some tendencies in their look-upbehavioramong three different intermediate, and basicwriters), and divided preficiencygroups (advanced, them intoseven categories. He suggested that the strategy found in hisstudy could be used fbr guidanceon how to use dictionaries in the Englishcomposition class fbrJapaneseEFL contrlbute

to the improvement

of

C`successfu1

learners. FL learners, includingGLLs, by adopting qualitative techniques which can reveat an invisible innerprecessofthe human mind. This isbecauSe dictienaryconsultatien isconsidered to involvequitea complicated "Ibno, cogr}itive Nation,2001; 200i),and thus, cencunrent yerbal reports have process (e.g., been regarded particularly as an effective method to analyze cogriitive processesof learners inspecific tasks (Ericssen & Simon, 1993;Hatman, 2001; Schramm, 20e8).Based on these theoretical and methodological EFL Iearners' IQok-upbehavior with the ED perspectives, through the think-aioud technique are examined to find some strategies forethcient use of the ED, particularly by analyzing GLLs' look-upbehavior. All

studies

describedabove

analyzed

a

look-up process

of

2.The Study 2.1 Purposes

The purposesof the present study were: 1)to anaiyze the GLLs' look-upbehavior,and compare itwith that of FBs; 2) to elassify the GLLs' look-upsintocategories; and 3) to find some strategies foreiiEective ED use. 2.2 Participants Tiwo groups of participants who had a different educational backgroundin EFL were se!ected for the study. One group (GLLs)consisted of fivepostgraduate students who had completed their rriaster's degree in EFL education and research or in SLA studies. They just have already had seme English teaching experience when they toek part in the experiment. In addition, all ofthem had secured comparatively high marks in TOEIC@ or TOEFL@ tests, and had overseas studying experience. Their ages ranged from 25 to 40. The other group (FBs)was made up of fivecollege students, Although they were studying English in the



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their English proficiency}evelwas rather lo"L and were beginners (FBs)based on the firstauthor's teaching experience.

consjdered

college,

proficiencylevels in advance,

the same

45-item cloze testadministered

rlb

to be false

investigatetheir

was

aiso

used.

Tal)le

of each group. According to a given to the participants non-paramenic statistical analysis], the Engllshproficiency levelof the participantsin the GLL group was significantly higher than that in FB group (Mann-Whitney U .OOO, p -.84). < r The result of an interviewheld one week beforethe experiment reyealed that each panicipantin the presentstudy had hisfherown ED fbrdailyuse.

l

shows

the

results

of

the test

=-

=

.O09;

11able1. Breakdown

of

Participants

Cloze [fbstScores

Group

n

GLLFB

55

M

so

30.0017.80 2.550 3.271 marks: (Fuli

45)

2.3DictioHaryand Materia}Used A CASIO XD-H91OO (ahand-heldelectronic dictienary) was used in the present study. This ED contains several dictionaries2, and has sorne usefu1 functions such as history" "Word

and

"Jump

to multiple

dictionaries."

Ilakingproficiencylevelsof both groups intoaccount, the text used in the study was careful!y selected from an article designedforcollege students (SeeAppendix 1).This text was 220 words long,and didnot contajn syntactica]]y difficult sentences. ItsFleschReading Ease was 61.3 and Flesch-KincadeGrade Level was 7.7,bothof which are regarded as comparatively easy fbrstudents with high profi ¢ iency level.However, some unfamiliar words and phraseseven tG the participants ofthe GLL group were includedinthe text. 2.4 Procedure Several

studies

indicated that,in the introspectivemethod

ofthinking-aloud,

researchers

report proceduresbeforehandto precisemethodoiogical obtain Pressley & Affleifbach, accurate verbal reports (e.g., 1995; Wingate,2004).Pressley and Afiflerbach(1995) assert that, isessential that every effort be made to portrayexactly how participating were readers infbrmed about what they were to do, even ifthat isonly to of the range of re-explanations that were used by the experimenter in proyideEm indicat,ion reaction to participant difficulties"(p.121). Thus, in the present study, careful attention was beforethe actual think-aloud paid bothto the instmctionsforthepanicipantsand to practices task. For example, the think-aloud task was demonstratedby the researcher before the experiment. The participants were instructed to verbalize their thoughts white performinga task,nat to describeor explain what they were doing,They were also to]d to perfbrm thetask need

to provideparticipants with

"it

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and

in Japanese,since the experiment of

the think-aloud task was

dailyEnglishstudy

at

made,

home

be conducted

should

they

were

asked

intheir L1. Afterthe fu11explanation to practicethinking-aloud duringtheir

until the experiment.

Explain how to use the designatedED, teclmique and thethink-aleud

Practiceverbalizing

theirthoughts with the researcher

, Get used

to the ED

practicethinkjng-aloud

and

,k

One

1,･ l/t

later

month

, Warm-up

task with the ED

and

get feedbackfrom the researcher

, Experiment Think-aloud task with the ED inJapanese Figure 1.Procedure

of

the Experiment

The procedureof the experiment issummarized in Figure 1.First,approxirnately one were month befbrethe experiment, all the participants providedwith the designatedED with a user's manual, so that-theycould sufficiently get used to using them. The e)rperiment was Before going on the actual at a tirneon an appointment basis. participan,t task, each participant was given a part of a short essay, and was assigned a warm-up task with the desigriated ED. At that time, they received feedback from the furstauthex Each was, then,given the text and petfbrmed the thjnk-a]oud task with the ED. Neither participant this a time constraint nor limiton the number oftarget words to be looked up was set during session. Sincethe participants were just told to verbalize their thouglitswhiie reading the text, none ofthem were fbrcedto consult the ED. A decisionefwhether to use itor not, therefore, conducted

was

wjth

with one

to each

panicipant. were All the verbal descriptions of each participant a cardioid microphone duringthe session. A DV

completely

also set up near

up

the

as a participants

visual

back-up

recorded camera

portableMD recorder built-in microphone was

oll a with

(SeeFigure 2).



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Figure 2. Schematic Depiction efthe

The

Experiment

descriptions of theircognitive processeswhile looking up the ED were carefully transcr{bed.The visual back-ttpwas also checked qnd used depending on the situation. First, all the transcriptionsof the participants were coded intoeach segrnent. This was introducedbased en the model of verbalization by procedure of the segmentation Ericssonand Simon (1993). They added the followingassumptions of their verbalization model to theanatysis made by McNeill (1975): 1) units of articuiatien will correspond to integrated cogtiitive structures; and 2) pausesand hesitationswill bg good predictors of shifts in processingofcognitive structures, When a segment was fragmentarysuch as and the segrnent was attached to another segment in order to remove ambiguity (Seean examp]e inFigure3). Afterthe completion of segmentation, some of the segments were jointly encoded into on thebasisof the participants' each protocol-unit behavior:look-up behavior(Look-up) and the other. was definedhere as a sequence ofconsulting behavior.Itstarted when a noticed a word unknown or unfami]iar to himlher in one sentence, and ended participattt when the participant comprehended the tat;getsentence after consulting the ED. One in other words, consists of several segmerrts cencerning look-up protocol-unit of"Look-up", behavior of the participants. indicatesthe segments which did not includethe verbal descriptions related to thepanicipants' look-up behavior. verbal

"We]1"

CLOh...,"

"Look-up"

"Others"




and

[Pause]

1. Both parentshave 18-inch that run from theirchest to theirback... "scars"

2.

3.

0h...no... that her parents from theirchest to their

"Scars"...this

means

have back...

"scars"

4. ...18-inch

"scars"

are

aloud [Reading

a sentence

while [Thinking

reading]

inthe text.l

left...

5.WelL. up in the dictionary [Looking 6. me confirrn itsmeaning in GENIUS] name GEIVIus (the ofthe dictionary).., 7. Yes,that'swhat I thought...i the screen ofthe ED] [Watching 8., Then... "scar"

"Scar"...let

`tKIZU"..

to read [Continue

the next sentencel

N

Enceding intoProtocol-unit

that run from their chest to their parents have 18--inch back...Oh...ne... 12-2. means thather parentshave from theirchest to theirback... 12-3. ..,18-inch are left... 12-4. Well..."Scaf'...let me confirm itsmeaning inGEAUCIS,.. 12-5. that'swhat I thought.

12-1. Both

"scars"

"Scars"...this

`tscars"

"scars"

"KrzU"...Yes,

ours) (Translation

Figure 3.An Example

of

Encoding Process

which is a partof the verbal Figure 3 shows a processof encoding a protocol-unit report of Participant A in the GLL group (GLL-A-12). This five-segmentprotocol-unit indicates that Participant A wasi lookingup a word ("scaf') in the ED while thinking of its meaning relevamt to the context. In encoding, one fburthof the whole segments were randomly The inter-coder selected and checked by another researcher te confirm consistency. agreement was approximately 809t6,which is considered to be sufficient]y high. look-upbehaviorin the GLL group were then The encoded protoco]-unit.s concerning classified intosome groups according to the KJ method3 (Kawakita, 1967, 1970, 1986) to find the strategies fbr effective dictionaryconsultation. Here, again, another researcher was confirmed the consistency of classification. The inter-coder agreement 869,6.4

2. 5 Results 2. 5. 1 Analysis

of

Segme"ts

aBd

Pretocol-llnits

2 and 3 report the number of the in each group. For instance, the number participants rlbbles

segments of

and

the protocol-units of the

the pretocol-units related

to

look-up

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behaviorofParticipant A inthe GLL group was seven, which was composed while ParticipantD in the FB group produced 30 protocol-units made up 1 Protocol-units" in each table indicatesthe ratio of the "Segments

of

59

segments,

of

98

segments.

segments

to the

protocol-units.. 1labte2. Number

Look-ups

of

Each Participant in GLL Group

of

Segments

Participant

Leok-ups

OthersLook-upsOthersSegmentsMrotocol-units (Look-ups)

59l57

GLL-AGLL-B

Protocol--units

GLL-CGLL-DGLL-E 50

2032

717

21643

8527

813l359

8.49.26.36.2

3I199 7.4 992

Average Elible 3.Number

ef

24.4

Lookrups

of

12.8

Each Participantin FB Group

Segments Participant FB-A

Look-ups

12117266

7.5

9.6

Protocol-･units Look-upsOthersSegrnents[Protocol-units (Look-ups)

Others

819158

34se243036417123

3.63.4

FB-BFB-C 2.83.33.1 FB-DFB-E Average

98113 114.0

62

34.8

3.2

5.4

Compared vvith the number of protocol-units related to Eook-up behaviorin FB group, those in GLL group are considerably small U 1.000,p< ,O16). On the (Mann-Whitney twice as other hand, the number of segments per unit in the GLL group is approximately largeas thoseofthe FB group.This means that the panicipantsinthe GLL group spent more time to look up and comprehend the targetwords. This difference can be seen in Excerpts1 and 2. =::

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Excerpt 1 28-1, "...using

tobes..."I don't know

I-o-b-e-s...Whoops! No 28-2.

28-3. 28-4.

headword

this

meaning.

is in RE4DEns

dictionary)... 0h, is not necessary? Letme delete Here comes. lobe)"or aren't any idiomsand phrases. Anyway, they use ofthe donor.... `si

Let

too.

see...

me

(thename

of

the

`s'...

"M7mu71tlBU(ear

`fKUKiBUKURO

bag)".,.but, there (air

"}obe"

ours) (Translation

Excerpt 2 22-l.22-2. OK. What do The Plums ...Letme

see...oh,

use?

lobesofthe

`'...using

three lobescame

out

as entries

Iung from livingdonors" name (the

in GENICLS

ofthe

dictionary). 22-3.22-4. The first means (earIobe)"...Oh, giveme a break! The second is HOGE7V (anuneducated spel{ing)... what's this? This is not a suitable meaning,.. 22-5.22-6. The thirdone is IKU7ISUALtl }:4TU (bore)"...mmm, it's difHcult,.. But, wait a minute.,. I'm checking the meaning of"lebes ofthe lung".The lung deesn'thave any ear lobes,right? in the first means 22-7: Then, here isJapanese entry of which a dissection term. 22-8.22-9. Mmm,.,thisisa technical term, isn'tit?A part of the lung? itself All right. They use of their lungs,I don'tknow "!obe"

"MtMl7ZBU

".gHIKAKU

"]obe"

"7;4

"fL4IYOU'

"lobe",

`tHAIYO(1"

well,

but anyway,

they

use

"HAIYOU;'

them. ours) (Translation

the FB groups was Ieekingup appeared in the dictionary GENIus, and which was the appropriate Ll equivalent to the context, seemed to be an all the unfamiliar word to most of Japanese leamers. In spite of this unfamiliar{ty, in the GLL group, includingParticipantE in this example, made a successfu1 participants that GLLs might consultation. Based on these findings, we can conjecture spend time in deriyinginfbrrnation from the context inwhich the targetwords are used. In the case ofthe FB group, the number oflook-ups in the units was not identical with that oftheir actual look-ups.As shown in Excerpt 3 below, Participant C in the FB group looked up two words in one sentence in the dictionarywithout pausing.Her behavioris deemed to result froma lackof vocabulary. It should be noted herethat thispanicipantjust when words inthe text,and did rushed and consulted a dictionary she encountered unknown to search not deeplythink ofthe word meaning relevant to the context. In short, she repeated

`"lobe:'

In Excerpts1 and 2, each participant in the GLL in the dictionary. Some L1 equivalents to

and

`tlobe"

"JL4JYOcr',



an

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appropriate

Ll

equivalent

that could

replace

each

unknown

L2

or unfamiliar

word

in the

This tendency was observed in almost all the pretocol-units concerning look-upsofthe FB group,and ithasbeenalso noted inother related studies (e.g., Neubach & "Ibno, Cohen, 1988; 2001; Wingate,2004). reading

text.

Excerpt 3 3-1. Although..."KEREDOMO"... 3-2. 3-3. dictionary... "theireffort"...dictionary..."DORVOKU'

"failed"...

Oh,

"SblPR4rsLCRU'...

"failed",

then,

"SMPR4rsI7Z"..,

ours) (Translation

In cemparison

the GLL group,the successfu1 consultations rlhbles relatively low (See 4 and 5). This result with

the FB group were the findingsin Koyama and Takeuchi (2005), which

by the participants in was in accordance with

thatIearners'proficiencywas somewhat related to the use of retrieval strategies. As shown in [[bble l-5,however, the rate of FBs' successfu1 look-upsreached rnore than 809i6, despitethe factthat the appropriate Ll equivalent did not necessarily appear at the beginningof the entry in the presentstudy. Besides, theirverbal datareveal that none of the participants in the FB group gave up their look-ups halfWay through. These results show that the participants in the FB group, regardless locatethe Ll equivalents oftheir low EFL proficiencMceuld usuajly successfully claimed

in the dictionary in the presentstudy.

Tbble 4.Rate

ofSuccessful

Look-ups in GLL Group Successfiii Look-ups

ParticipantLook-ups GLL-AGLLBGLL-CGLL-DGLL-E 7178527

Thbte 5.Rate

7178527

ofSllccessful

Loek-ups in FB Grellp

ParticipantLook-ups

SuccessfulLook-ups

FB--AFB-BFB-CFB-DFB-E 3450243036

2842212531

SuccessRates

(%)

1OO1OO100loe100

SuccessRates

(9t6)

8284888386

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wjth that in Wingate (2004), This findingseems to be inconsistent which reported more than harfof the whole consultations were faijed,unless appropriate Ll equivalents were listedfirst inthe entry. Also,according to Schelfield many dictionary users generally (1982), giveup toQ soen ifthey cannot find LZ equivalents at the beginningof the entry, This is considered to be a noticeable tendency among low proficiency learners,as frequent consultations to find appropriate Ll equivalents are a troublesome work fbr them. One forthe discrepancybetween the presentstudy and that ofWingate isthe possibleexpSanation difference ofthe dictionary type: the dictionary used inthe presentstudy was an ED; and that tlie in Wingate was a traditionalPD. As has describedin Koyama and Takeuchi (2007), superior search functions(e.g., Real-timesearch, Jizmp to multiple dictionaries) of an ED might enhance the panicipants' look-upftequencyeven in the FB group,and, as the result, they could find the appropriate Ll equivalents without givingup. Therefore, itmay be might be somewhat advantageous presumed that the use of an ED in reading comprehension even forleamerswhose Englishproficiencyisrelatively low.

2.5.2 Analysisof RetrieyalStrategiesof CLLs in the GLL group while [fable6 summarizes majer strategies used by the participants lookingup the dictionary.5 Figuresin the tab(e indicatethe number of their protocol-units. When a unit contained more than two retrieval strategies, itwas counted separately in the table.

Ibble 6. RetrieyalStrategiesforED

use

in the GLL Group

Strategies

Get informationfrom the context meanings.frem Gitessing

Protocol-unjts

where

the context

the word

6431649206415

occurred.

/ (;bnj7rming

meanings

Findthe dictionary entry. thecking pronunciation 1 Pa]ing attention to pronunciations Choose the right sub-entry. Relatethe meaning to the context and decideifitfits. (11hecking examptes ofusage Llsing"Exampteseareh"or"ldiomsearch"to!indjurther t:rofomtation tlsing herd history"er to multipte dZetionaries" Looking up in ntore than two dictiOnaries `t

343

"Jtimp

An example of categorizing in Excerpt 4. process of GLLs' retrieval strategies appears Participant A in Excexpt4 was guessingthe meaning of"bronchitis" from the context while reading, and estimated that itwas a narne of the disease. Therefore,he used "6uessing



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gettinginformationfrom the context. He, then, Iooked up the word and fbund the dictionaryentry. At that time, he repeated its the stressed syllable. This indicatesthe use of pronunciationfour times and confirmed attention to pronunciations" strategy. In this way, most ofthe protocol-units in the GLL group contained more thaii two strategjes as shown in Excexpt 4, and it means that GLLs inthe presentstudy concurrently used several strategies. the context" strategy befbreactual As shown in1fable6, the meaningsfrom look-upswas obviously used the most among the participants in GLL group. Note the strategies in bold and italic letters in the table. These retrieval strategies which were categorized in each protocol-unit based on theKJ method (Kawakita, I967, 1970, 1986) also eorresponded to the GLL strategies reported inTakeuchi(2003a). meanings

.from the

contexf'

strategy at the moment

after

C`Paying

"Guessing

Excqrpt 4 4--]. ...and New Year's Eve, Alyssa took to bed bronchitis.,." 4-2. Ah? Isthisa ndlne of the disease? .,.yes,I'm sure. "Last

4-3.4-4.4-5.4-6.4-7.4-8,4-9. This isa little difficult temn, isn't it? Well,Alyssamust have died from a disease... Allrighg GE7VIus! ...bronchitis...pronunciatjon... bronchitis.... It'scomplicated! ...bronchitis...The accent ison SHJ7VLL41VSARE7:E (So, she was diagnosedwith bronchitis)..." fTTA (...and was sent to the hospital)" `i'.

L`KllkAwsHIEN7()

"DE..BYOIIVM

ours) (Translation in Scholfield(1982) such as the

ltisinteresting that the conventional strategies dictionary entry" or the right sub-entry" were cenfirmed in the back-up DVCs, but could not be distinctively foundin the protocol-units of (}LLs(See the strategies not in bold letters of Table 6).A}1 the GLLs seemed to use these conventional strategies for look-ups, and to decide the words to be looked up jn their reading processes(See Excerpt5),Their behaviorisin contrast to thatofFBs which can be seen in Excerpts1 in 2.5.1. FBs in the L2 word in the presentstudy merety scanned the dictionaryentry to replace the unknown "Find

"Choose

text,and never guessedthe meanings

ofthe targetwords

fremthe cotrtext.6



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Excerpt 5

l5-1.I5-2.15-3. than fburweeks later," Well..."YOiMSYUJCt