USING LDOCE5 AND COBUILD6 FOR MEANING DETERMINATION AND SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION: WHAT DO LEARNERS PREFER?

This article reports on the results of a small-scale study which investigated the use of LDOCE5 and COBUILD6 for meaning determination and sentence construction by Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners. Nine participants were asked to do a meaning determination task and a sentence construction task with and without the use of the two dictionaries. They were also asked to do a questionnaire after the completion of every item of each task to report on how the dictionary/dictionaries helped them complete the tasks and the difficulties they encountered in their search for the required information. The results show that many learners rely on both dictionaries rather than either one to solve their language problems and that neither dictionary is regarded as significantly more useful than the other. It is suggested that ESL teachers encourage students to use multiple resources in their learning and design dictionary skills training programs which target learners' actual consultation problems.