Funded Projects

When A. S. Hornby first conceived and compiled the Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary (1942), the dictionary was supposed to be an integral part of EFL teaching and learning and students were to learn how to use the dictionary to support their learning from the English teacher. However, since the development of ESL lexicography and ESL/EFL teaching methodologies have evolved on separate paths in the past few decades, the relationship between the two has become less dynamic and supportive. Such a fractured relationship has seriously impacted EFL students who mostly depend on teachers to impart knowledge and instil the practice of using dictionaries to support their learning. Dictionary use researchers have long advocated a need to bridge the gap between the English language teacher and the pedagogical dictionary. However, if English teachers want to understand and keep abreast of the development of EFL learners’ dictionaries with respect to how these dictionaries can support their students’ learning of English, they need to be informed and/or trained since these dictionaries have grown in number and include new features to support English language learning. This project suggests producing online training material for autonomous learning on ‘Dictionary literacy for dictionary use teaching’. The aim is to empower English language teachers with apt pedagogical lexicographical knowledge and teaching methodology to design dictionary use teaching and learning activities suitable for their students who are at various language proficiency levels, and subject to different learning environments.