Atc students perception of using online dictionaries in the context of reading english academic materials

STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES o0o - GRADUATION THESIS MAJOR: ENGLISH FOR BANKING AND FINANCE ATC Students' Perception of Using Online Dictionaries in the Context of Reading English Academic Materials STUDENT: PHAM HUE LINH STUDENT ID: 20A7510110 CLASS: K20ATCB INSTRUCTOR: Mr Ngo Tung Anh HANOI, MAY 20, 2021 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 17014125821621000000 Statement of Originality I, Pham Hue Linh, hereby confirm that the research paper presented below is entirely my own work, and that I have given due acknowledgement to every research findings by preceding researchers mentioned in my paper as required by Faculty of Foreign Languages I understand that the paper I submitted may be reproduced and/ or communicated for the purposes of detecting plagiarism Signed Date: 22nd May, 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT To my granny, whose presence, resilience and kindness did not vanish even after her death It is indeed cruel for me to learn about how deep I can feel for someone this way, granny I’m really glad that you are free now, though I cannot say that I not envy you I’ll carry on somehow, emphasizing on somehow Speak louder than you, act bolder than you, but hopefully I’ll treat people as gentle as you You know, I would never mind making you birthday treats in the future, but I would love it much more if I could see you enjoy them I knew you loved me I love you too Bye-bye, granny I miss you too much I would like to send my sincere gratitude and apologies to Mr Tùng Anh, my instructor I am certain that I made it as one of the most unresponsive, passive thesis writing students Thanks for spending your time correcting my mess of a work, sir I would love to hear more of your stories when you were studying back then I’ll bring you my cookies as token of my appreciation My girls, my precious, priceless fireflies The wings to my boundless sky, the stars to my endless night First of all, I need to thank Phưn and Mei Cliché, I know, but without their help I wouldn’t have finished my thesis for sure, or even stayed alive this long for that matter This cursed year has not been easy on us at all Let’s just try to stay alive and then vent out to our hearts’ content later Suffering in solidarity squad, let’s go Lil Beast, Foxy, and Angel, thank you for all the things you did in your own way to make sure my heart wouldn’t go too cold Lots of gratitude to my friends from the Academy, high school’s classmates and friends I’ve luckily made along the way I truly appreciate your efforts to cheer me up amidst my family crisis and help me with my research survey Hope you guys like cookies and sweet treats Will send you customized thank you texts later I would like to convey my appreciation and gratitude to our dearest lecturers who I have had a chance to talk to personally from the Academy as well, Ms Giang especially You Page | ii have instilled in me inspiration and a sense of direction and dedication, which I dare say is the most valuable thing you can offer us besides your knowledge and experiences Hope you still have more room for my cookies too Thank you, grandpa, for the delicious meals And for granting me some mercy and peace of mind by letting me distancing myself from your you-know-who Uncle, I cherish you and wish you lasting happiness Babies, Búp, Nghé and Sóc, big sis is really sorry she could not more for you in the past I wish for you to grow up normally, healthily, happily and never have a taste of what I’ve had Grandest thanks to Queen Alex, previous researchers whose hard works I inherited, my godmother Lana, big sis Diệu Linh with her book recommendation, Chanmina and all the other sad and mad girl music on my device, Webtoon, and games for helping this girl out with her thesis or acting as her painkiller Finally, words to my greatest, tragically mental, cruelly beautiful, egoistic, resentful, sorrowful creditor, which, by the way, is my collective self, past to present then future I hope you’re happy I finished your darn graduation thesis and achieved your years long dream After this I’m doing that dumb thing people call Journey to find oneself I’m sick of loathing my own heartbeat I want this to be the last time I sold myself cheap for a mirage of an accomplished, worthwhile life This isn’t living This is eternal torture in the guise of “doing my best” at the expense of my own health and wellbeing Please learn to love yourself, because love, with all due respect, I would drown myself again rather than watch you be ruined like this It probably won’t be easy at all, but so what? Our happiness, peace of mind, health, and the preservation of our struggles to survive, the friendships we earned and our love for things in this life deserve another chance Sorry for dumping the hardest task on you But hey, Huệ, you managed to finish college while having crippling mental conditions Atta girl Let’s go for a Master’s degree, bake tons of cakes and cookies, read more and pursue your dream career later For now, please rest The world can wait I love you forever, not maybe Page | iii Table of Contents Statement of Originality i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF CHARTS .vi ABSTRACT vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Background of the study 1.3 Objectives of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Scope and limitations of the study 1.5.1 Scope of the study 1.5.2 Limitations of the study 1.6 Definition of terms CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Literature review 2.2 Theoretical and Conceptual framework CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Locale of the study 3.1.1 Banking Academy of Vietnam 3.1.2 Faculty of Foreign Languages 3.2 Research design 10 3.3 Data gathering procedure 10 3.4 Population and Sample description 11 3.4.1 Population 11 3.4.2 Sample and the Sampling process 11 3.5 Research instrument 12 Page | iv 3.6 Statistical treatment 13 3.6.1 Closed questions/ Quantitative data 13 3.6.2 Open questions/ Qualitative data 14 3.6.3 Semi-opened questions 14 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 15 4.1 Participants 15 4.2 ATC student’s habit and perspective while employing e-dictionaries in reading English academic materials 16 4.2.1 Devices of choice 16 4.2.2 ATC students’ habit and purposes when employing online dictionary websites in reading academic themed material in English 18 4.2.3 ATC students’ dictionary websites of choice and the reasons behind their pick 23 4.2.4 Online dictionaries’ drawbacks and favorable features of an electronic dictionary 27 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 31 5.1 Conclusion 31 5.2 Recommendation 32 References Appendix: Survey Questionnaire Page | v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations ATC E-dictionaries Full phrases/ Meaning Banking Academy of Vietnam’s Faculty of Foreign Languages Electronic dictionaries, used in this paper as a synonym of online dictionaries Hi-tech High technology K-12 Kindergarten to grade 12 in an education program BAV Banking Academy of Vietnam LIST OF CHARTS Name of chart Page Chart 1: Year of study 15 Chart 2: Devices of choice to visit online dictionary sites 16 Chart 3: When I come across a new word while reading English academic material Chart 4: ATC students' purposes/habits when utilizing online dictionaries while reading English academic content 18 21 Chart 5: Preferred Online Dictionaries 24 Chart 6: Drawbacks of e-dictionaries 28 Chart 7: Important Features in a Favorable Online Dictionary 29 Page | vi ABSTRACT Student’s Name: Pham Hue Linh Student’s Numbers: 20A7510110 Class: K20ATCB Advisor: Mr Ngo Tung Anh Name of research paper: ATC Students' Perception of Using Online Dictionaries in the Context of Reading English Academic Materials Key words: online dictionaries, ATC students, preferred dictionary sites, purposes and habits, English academic reading Summary: With the seamless integration of information technology into our lives, drastic changes were bound to happen to the way we live, rest, work and study With an internet connected mobile device at their disposal, students can now gain access to a national library worth of language learning materials with ease, anytime and anywhere they want However, search engine is not the only new-age product assisting language learners in this day and age As a matter of fact, many other handy tools have been designed to serve this purpose as well, online dictionaries for example Understanding how ATC students are making use of their time with dictionary websites while processing English academic contents may contribute to our Faculty of Foreign Languages’ understanding of its students’ English learning styles and preferences With that goal in mind, this exploratory research had been carried out with a sample of 50 ATC students and data, both quantitative and qualitative, had been collected through an online survey The participants had filled out a questionnaire which asked about their habits, purposes when utilizing online dictionaries, their dictionary picks and the reasons why they favor those sites, and even what they view as favorable and undesirable features a digital dictionary can possess The results show that ATC students rely on dictionary websites to a certain extent while working on academic materials, but they Page | vii are also mindful of online dictionaries’ shortcoming in providing context-fitting word definition and some are even actively practicing inferring word meaning from context before consulting a dictionary Furthermore, they are interested in a variety of information that online dictionaries can provide, not just exploiting the basic functions like word definition or the use of word Finally, the rare features owned by some dictionary websites and characteristics of a good e-dictionary shared by the participants in this study shall prove as valuable information for next generation ATC students and English learners in general Page | viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Through time, having a good command of English has been an indispensable skill to own for Vietnamese students, evidently shown through how English is the most spoken language in 2021 (The most spoken languages worldwide, 2021) and English having been listed as one of the compulsory subjects to be taught in the general education program of Vietnam since 1982, during Vietnam’s economic reform (Hoang, 2018) Therefore, it is rather safe to assume that much thought and attention should be focused on how to assist students better in learning English In this era of technological advancement, many tools were invented for that purpose One of them is online dictionaries Studies revolving dictionary use dating back to nearly decades ago have been implying dictionaries are of great help for students to look up the new words they did not know and therefore gradually increase their vocabulary count and reading comprehension (Hulstijn, Holander, & Greidenus, 1996; Knight, 1994; Luppescu & Day, 1993) However, many would stand with the idea that online dictionaries have taken a considerable lead in the word reference race, being learners’ preferred method to search for word meanings (Lan, 2005; Al-Jarf, 1999) The aim of this research is to examine our current assumptions of students’ point of view, ATC students’ opinion in this case, on how online dictionaries have assisted their English reading, which publisher’s dictionaries are trusted by them or whether there is still room for improvement, technologically speaking or content-wise 1.2 Background of the study Since its beginning in the middle of the 20th century, the Third Industrial Revolution had brought about inventions capable of changing the way we many things Thanks to the memorable Digital era, our ordinary people can enjoy wonders like the Internet,