The use of e-dictionary to read e-text by intermediate and advanced learners of Chinese

Abstract

This study focuses on the pedagogical outcomes connected with the use of an e-dictionary by intermediate and advanced learners of Chinese to aid in reading an expository Chinese e-text. Twenty intermediate and advanced participants read an e-text twice aided by an e-dictionary and wrote recalls of the text in English. In addition to low frequency words, intermediate students frequently looked up high and middle frequency words, whereas advanced participants did not have much difficulty with either high or middle frequency words. The e-dictionary helped intermediate participants consolidate word meaning, learn new words and close the vocabulary knowledge gap between them and advanced learners; in contrast, the e-dictionary afforded less reading development for the advanced group. As for reading comprehension, the e-dictionary enhanced reading comprehension of intermediate participants to a level comparable to advanced students. The low comprehension of advanced participants might partly have been caused by their unfamiliarity with the inductive discourse structure of the text. Clearly, intermediate students benefited more than advanced learners from using the e-dictionary, which provides translations in the first language.