96
the words were given alone
.
The test required filling the blanks with the right word
(See Appendix H)
.
4
.
3
.
3
.
Tests Validity
Two types of validity were investigated regarding reading comprehension and
vocabulary retention tests used in this study
.
The first one is ‘face validity’
.
According to Heaton (1975), a test is said to have face validity if it looks as if it really
reflects what it is supposed to measure based on the personal judgment of other
observers, testers, or colleagues
.
The second type of validity is ‘content validity’
.
Hughes (1989) said that a test has a content validity if its content constitutes a
representative sample of the language skills and structures that is meant to be tested
.
Prior to any administration, the reading comprehension and vocabulary
retention tests were read and assessed by my research supervisor, who is specialized
in applied linguistics, and she agreed that the tests had both face and content validity,
as they satisfactorily served the objectives of the study and sufficiently covered the
content that they were supposed to measure
.
4
.
3
.
4
.
Dictionaries
Two types of dictionaries were used by the students in this study
:
a paper
dictionary of the students’ own choice and the Cambridge Advanced learner’s
97
Dictionary on CD-ROM 3
rd
edition (CALD), published by Cambridge University
Press
.
The reason for allowing the students to use their own PDs was that good
dictionaries of the same title were very limited in number in the department of English
or in the university library
.
Thus, I had to ask the students to bring their own
dictionaries and recommended a few titles which I thought would better serve the
experiments’ tasks
.
Interestingly, having the subjects use their own dictionaries would make them
feel at ease using the dictionary that they were more familiar with, thereby eliminating
any unwanted variables related to the unfamiliarity with the dictionary layout and
organization of information, which might invalidate the results of the experiments
.
Since the PDs used in the study were brought by the subjects themselves, I assumed
that they were familiar with them
.
Presentation of Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary on CD-ROM
The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary on CD-ROM is an easy-to-use
electronic dictionary for advanced learners of English
.
It contains all the words,
phrases and examples found in the printed version of the dictionary, plus the
following additional features
:
98
Recordings of every word in British and American English - listen, record and
play back to practice pronunciation
.
Extra collocation information and thousands of example sentences
.
Cambridge SMART thesaurus which turns the dictionary into a thesaurus at
the click of a button
.
QUICKfind and SUPERwrite, which are mini pop-up versions of the
dictionary, giving the user instant definitions when reading or writing on-
screen
.
Interactive exercises including exam practice and real past papers for IELTS,
FCE, CAE, CPE and BEC
.
Helpful buttons to see extra information on Verb Endings, Word Building,
Usage Note and Common Learner’s Errors
.
The main elements of the dictionary window are explained below
.
(See Figure 8 on
next page for CALD main search window)
.
99
Figure 8
.
Main window in Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary on CD-ROM
100
Toolbar
.
The toolbar contains buttons to access different facilities in
the dictionary
.
Search box
.
Type a word you want to find in the dictionary and click
Find
.
All matching words are shown in the results panel
.
Results panel
.
After searching for a word, the first search result is
highlighted at the top of the Results tab
.
Click a word in the results
panel to see the dictionary entry in the main screen area
.
Main screen area
.
Dictionary entries are shown in the main screen
area
.
As shown in Figure 8 on previous page,
the students will simply have to type
in the word they want to find in the search box and then click Find
.
All matching
words and phrases will be displayed in the results panel
.
The dictionary entry for the
highlighted search result is shown in the main screen area
.
The subjects will then read
through the presented definitions and choose the word meaning most appropriate to
the context of the text being read
.
4
.
3
.
5
.
Monitoring Software
In dictionary use research, tests and experiments generally aim at investigating
the effects that dictionaries might have on L2 learning
.
However, using methods like
observation and protocols, researchers can only study actual dictionary use; that is,
Dostları ilə paylaş: |