THE USE OF DICTIONARIES OF THAI EFL LEARNERS IN ENGLISH READING TEXTS

This research study aimed at investigating the tools Thai EFL learners applied while reading texts in English. The tools investigated consisted of the following print dictionaries: English-Thai, Thai-English, and English-English; the electronic ones included on-line resources or translation application/programs and the talking dictionary. The research participants consisted of 135 English major students drawn from three Thai public universities. Based on their score of a reading proficiency test, the participants were classified into the three proficiency levels: high, intermediate and low. The findings of this study revealed that overall the participants preferred to use both electronic dictionaries and print dictionaries. Regarding print dictionaries, it seemed that the intermediate proficiency group and the low proficiency group preferred to use the two-language dictionaries at a higher degree and the one-language dictionaries at a lower degree than the high proficiency group. As suggested by the results of this study, the choice of dictionaries might affect learners’ exposure to the target language. Therefore, the instruction or training in how to choose a suitable dictionary should be taken into account in the English language learning. Article visualizations