I think both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries have their own place in language learning and whichever dictionary lets learning happen effectively can be used in class.
I would let students use a bilingual dictionary when I want students to understand the meaning of a not very common word (mostly common nouns). It’s much easier to let them refer a bilingual dictionary (if the teacher doesn’t speak the students’ L1) than waste a lot of time trying to explain the meaning in English especially with lower level students. Later the teacher gets a chance to let the students write the word when English meaning is given to test their understanding.
In most other situations I would prefer a monolingual (English-English) Dictionary because it has much more than just definitions (e.g. word class, pronunciation, common collocations). It also lets students to see/use the language they are learning more and get familiar with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment