The Effect of the “Click-on” and “Key-in” CALL Dictionaries on Vocabulary Acquisition, Reading Comprehension and Look-up Behaviors

• Main Authors: Pi-Chun Lin, 林碧君
• Other Authors: Mei-Ling Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/37691131286911086501

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 應用英語所 === 90 === The Effect of the “Click-on” and “Key-in” CALL Dictionaries on Vocabulary Acquisition, Reading Comprehension and Look-up Behaviors ABSTRACT This study investigates the effect of two different input modes, “click-on” and “key-in”, in CALL dictionaries on vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension for EFL learners, and furthermore to explore the look-up behaviors, including time for the reading task, different words looked up and frequency of look-ups. Sixty-two EFL learners at the university level participated. The participants who were divided into two groups were instructed to read a text and were allowed to look up unknown words with one of the on-line dictionaries provided by the computer program─“click-on” dictionary and “key-in” dictionary”. After reading the text, they were requested to take a comprehension test and an unexpected vocabulary test. In addition, a tracker in the computer program recorded these students’ test results, frequency of look-ups, different words looked up and reading time. According to the result, we found that the different input modes did not affect reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition and different words queried in the context of reading an article with no time limit, but they did influence time for the reading task and frequency of the look-ups. To be more specific, the “click-on” group looked up words significantly more frequently than the “key-in” group, and the “click-on” group also read faster than the “key-in” group. The results provide the empirical evidence on the effect of these two representative input modes of the on-line dictionaries on language learning and further offer some suggestions to language teachers and computer programmers.