خلاصة:
Bilingual dictionary use in L2 writing test performance has recently been the subject of debate. Opinions differ according to how the trait is understood and whether the system favors the process-oriented or product-oriented views towards the assessment and writing skill. Given the need for more empirical support، this study is aimed at investigating the availability of bilingual dictionary use، frequency of use and type of bilingual dictionary (Persian-to-English and/or English-to-Persian) in L2 writing tests. To these ends، 60 Iranian EFL learners، in a counterbalancing procedure، were asked to write 2 timed essays in 2 test conditions: with and without a dictionary. The frequency of use in this study was defined in terms of number of look-ups in the bilingual dictionaries. The t-test between writing mean scores in the 2 test conditions revealed that using a bilingual dictionary made a significant difference in the writing test scores. The results of ANOVA also showed that frequency of dictionary use made a significant difference، but the high frequency of use was not found to be positive. Furthermore، the type of bilingual dictionary was found to be a significant variable، with the highest writing mean score for those who used English-t Persian dictionaries in writing the essays. Finally، pedagogical implications for L2 learners and teachers are presented.
ملخص الجهاز:
Given the need for more empirical support, this study is aimed at investigating the availability of bilingual dictionary use, frequency of use and type of bilingual dictionary (Persian-to-English and/or English-to-Persian) in L2 writing tests.
Given the above issues, this study is designed to clarify the role of using bilingual dictionaries, frequency of dictionary use and type of bilingual dictionary in L2 writing performance of Iranian EFL learners.
The results indicated that use of the dictionary made no significant difference to final scores, irrespective of the type of writing test (i.
Finally, East (2007) addressed the frequency of dictionary use in the writing performance of students studying German in New Zealand.
3. Objectives This study is intended to investigate whether the use of bilingual dictionaries has a differential effect on the L2 writing performance of EFL learners in Iran.
Additional purpose of this study is to explore the effect of type of bilingual dictionaries (L1-to-L2, L2-to-L1 or both) and frequency of dictionary use on the L2 writing performance.
The following three null hypotheses are addressed in this study: H01: Using bilingual dictionaries makes no significant difference in test takers’ L2 writing scores.
All the participants were studying English as a foreign language in the language center for more than nine months and had already studied New Interchange Series (Richards, Hull & Proctor, 2005), where they learned how to write essays in English.
05, indicating that low or high frequency of bilingual dictionary use made a significant difference in the writing test scores.
According to the results in Table 5, frequency of dictionary use had a significant effect on writing test scores.