Vocabulary Skills and Online Dictionaries: A Study on EFL Learners’ Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge and Success in Searching Electronic Sources for Information

Abstract

Abstract-The study reported in this article examined Finnish EFL learners' ability to search for lexical items and information in online dictionaries and on websites. The study was conducted as part of a project investigating upper secondary school students' digital skills in relation to language learning. The motivation behind the study was that in Finland, the high-stakes school-leaving examinations, including foreign language tests, are currently being digitalized. The aim of the study was to uncover the relationship between word recognition skills and the learners' ability to find lexical items and information in a series of online vocabulary tasks when the choice of the digital sources was not controlled. The results showed, for example, that overall word recognition skills and recognition of low-frequency vocabulary correlated positively with success rates in finding individual words in online dictionaries and factually accurate information on webpages, but not with finding appropriate collocations. Moreover, to succeed in 50% of the look-ups required scoring a minimum of 60% in the vocabulary levels test.

Cohesion in Finnish EFL essays

“…Efficient consultations were particularly beneficial to finding semantically related lexis. In this respect, the results supported previous observations conducted among adult students and based on different methodologies (Bowen, & Thomas, 2020;Abdel Latif, 2021;Lyashevskaya et al, 2021) and aligned with earlier findings on translation tasks (Mutta et al, 2014) as well as on indirect writing tasks (Niitemaa, & Pietilä, 2018).…”

Training students to use online translators and dictionaries: The impact on second language writing scores

“…78.6% of students agreed or strongly agreed that they needed training on how to use such tools. In their description of online dictionary use, Niitemaa and Pietilä (2018) report that students' skills in using online dictionaries are "often inadequate" and, consequently, students can find using a dictionary to be "slow and tedious" (p. 454). The authors state that "dictionary skills should be included in foreign language curricula as an essential part of literacy" (p. 461).…”

Kahoot! Games Enhance Vocabulary Learning?

“…Nowadays, many teachers use computers and the internet in their classrooms, especially during the pandemic. It has been established that technology helps in teaching vocabulary (Ahmad et al, 2017;Katemba, 2019;Lai and Chun, 2017;Mahdi, 2018;Niitemaa, 2018;Taj, Ali, and Ahmad, 2017). The current study aims to compare the use of Kahoot!…”