CHALLENGES AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS DICTIONARIES IN BOTSWANA JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Abstract

Dictionaries are important repositories of language and provide important details of a language such as meaning, spelling, pronunciation, morphology, usage, and grammar. This study investigates attitudes of learners in Botswana junior secondary schools towards dictionaries and dictionary formats to determine the challenges they face in using dictionaries. The study uses a survey to elicit information from students and teachers from two schools. The study reveals that a dictionary is an important learning tool for most students. Electronic dictionaries in particular are useful because they are quick and easy to use while book dictionaries are preferred because they are easy to understand. The greatest difficulty encountered by students is failure to understand the definition of words and failure to select the right meaning where a word has multiple meanings. The study also reveals that although teachers do not offer dictionary education to students, they recommend a dictionary when the need arises, such as when students have spelling problems, or when they need to check the definition of a vocabulary item.