Dictionaries and Language Teaching

A Virtual Issue

Introduction

Perhaps the most prominent use of dictionaries has been to aid in the difficult process of language learning and teaching. To familiarize the language teaching community with research on the use of dictionaries in language learning and teaching, I present to you a virtual thematic issue devoted to this theme.

Dictionaries are mostly about words, and so vocabulary acquisition is a major topic in lexicography. This is in line with the recent lexical turn in language teaching, which takes on board the commonsensical assumption that vocabulary knowledge is the most essential component of knowing a language. The studies presented below show that looking up words in a dictionary is a very effective way of expanding your lexical repertoire, both in the context of typical classroom activities and text reading. Quite a few studies focus on learning collocation: an aspect of vocabulary knowledge that is difficult, elusive, and seriously neglected until quite recently. Another important aspect where dictionaries can help is writing in the foreign language, and this theme is also heavily represented in the selection of readings below, as is the issue of the role of Li in SLA.

I hope that the present virtual issue will be of interest to researchers in (second) language acquisition, as well as to language teachers.

(LEW, R. https://academic.oup.com/ijl/pages/dictionariesand language teaching. Access in 12/29/2018)