Investigating E-Dictionaries on Speaking Ability among University Students in Malaysia

This study investigates the use of e-dictionaries among students at a Malaysian university. By investigating this aspect of Information Communication Technology (ICT), the opinions of future educators are included and analyzed. The major findings indicate how e-dictionaries caused useful effects to student’s ability in spoken form. The researchers applied quantitative method by questionnaires that were answered by 30 respondents chosen based on convenience sampling. Most of the data obtained were collected online and consist of academic articles and journals. This study mainly aimed at identifying how often, in what manner, and what types of electronic dictionaries that respondents used to practice and improve their pronunciation. It can be shown from the findings that the respondents of the research frequently made use of e-dictionaries for practicing their pronunciation, learner’s dictionaries was the most favoured one. Overall, the perceptions of the students using electronic dictionaries in EFL learning are generally positive. By using e-dictionaries, learners are able to learn English language in a more convenient and meaningful term.


Introduction
To determine success in English language learning, all students need to enrich themselves with an extensive variety of knowledge of words, excellent ability in lexical, broad knowledge on vocabulary of English along with its pronunciation. EFL (English as a foreign language) learners are required to have understanding on pronunciation of a particular word when having studied a new word [1]. So, it is pivotally important for it has a very crucial role in communication, where the occurrence of mispronunciation potentially causes breakdowns during the conversation. Hence, proper pronunciation of English words is important to improve learners English speaking skills.
As essential self-education tools, dictionaries are available in various types in terms of their language basis and design [2]. Among the vast assortment of methods in pronunciation learning, either deliberate or incidental, the implementation of dictionaries in Foreign Language learning will consistently appear as a helpful method and useful instrument in the hands of the learners to help them find the definition of any words quickly and directly. The tool has dependable references and information about vocabularies significant for language learning. At present, the large-scale use of smart phones around the globes has created a widespread implementation of electronic dictionaries (e-dictionaries) in English learning area. There are a great number of conveniences offered by e-dictionaries (including features of pronunciation) that become an essential component of the students' learning process. The utilization of e-dictionaries is quite simple as the learner can access any word's meaning and its correct pronunciation relatively quicly.
Considering the fact that it is essential to use electronic dictionaries in English learning, research into the use of them caught the researcher attention and the researcher would like to explore students' experiences, attitudes and perceptions toward the use of e-dictionaries and their effects in enhancing learners' pronunciation of new vocabulary in English Language learning.
In English language learning, there are many ways and tools which can be used. Dictionary is one of the most commonly and broadly used tools by teachers and learners. These days, there are various forms of dictionaries, among which that are in broad use are electronic dictionaries or what people call them as e-dictionaries. As instruments, they can be made useful in English classes, however, it can be seen as time wasting and disruptive to English lessons. Generally, it is believed by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) student at the university in Malaysia that by using an electronic dictionary, students can learn a foreign language conveniently as the meaning of words as well as pronunciation can be found easily.
This study will be able to gauge the perspective of EFL students when it comes to e-dictionary being tool for learning English. This is important because they play a crucial role for other students to use e-dictionary as their tool in learning English or not. This will help researchers, curriculum designers and educators to come up with a more comprehensive way to integrate e-dictionary into the learning system. This study will help when they are conducting a need analysis on how to include e-dictionary in the learning system. It will also help researchers in increasing the amount of research in this field and enriching research in the field of pedagogy and integrating technology into teaching.

Students Attitudes towards Dictionary Use
Most of the literature portrayed that students have confidence towards e-dictionary usage. For instance, Lenders revealed that most language learners believe that e-dictionaries are not only appropriate but also useful [3]. It is also discovered that there is a tendency among the students to use their e-dictionaries more frequently when they are aware of the relation between their use of the dictionaries and the improvement of their academic life and their career in future. The researcher recommended that to be effective in vocabulary learning, the use of e-dictionaries should be accompanied by using authentic texts and tasks that require language use. Furthermore, Bower and McMillan discovered that there is an increase in the percentage of Japanese students using e-dictionaries [4]. It is also revealed that these dictionaries are found to be helpful by the students and they are enthusiastic to have the dictionaries with them during the English classes. Based on a study, it is estimated that there is 97% percent of students using e-dictionaries at Kanda University, which indicates their positive attitudes towards the use of the tool.

E Dictionaries Help Students Improving Speaking Ability
Electronic dictionaries have been found to be a useful instrument to practice and improve pronunciation [5]. "An electronic dictionary has the capacity of providing a very quick access from an key entry to the symbols used in the applicable transcription of phonology, and at the touch of a button, to create model of a word's pronunciation in the sound mode" [6]. As a result, the pronunciation of any word can actually be observed, listened to, and modeled by English learners within a matter of seconds when working with modern electronic and online dictionaries.
Furthermore, the majority of dictionaries provide pronunciation based on the two most widely used pronunciation varieties, they are from BBC with Standard British Pronunciation and General American with Standard American Pronunciation. Hence, EFL students can listen to the pronunciation of words and phrases in the various way of how they speak (or wish to speak) themselves, and an opportunity will be offered to make a notice towards the substantial difference between BBC and GA accents. Another notable feature deserving attention is the capability of recording our own word pronunciation and making a comparison to the standard pronunciation of dictionary. Unfortunately, this kind of feature is commonly available only on electronic dictionaries with CD-ROM/DVD-ROM editions.
A number of research on pronunciation specifically in e-dictionaries have been conducted with the majority of the results demonstrating how EFL learners are not very enthusiastic towards e-dictionaries usage for pronunciation checking. It is also found by lfallaj that e-dictionaries are among the media providing help for learners in pronunciation area up to almost 60% of the subjects that are said that the students use electronic dictionaries to help them with pronunciation [7]. Kent stated that 50% of the respondents in his research believed that the electronic dictionaries' feature they found to be the most useful was audio pronunciation [8]. However, respondents taking part in other research demonstrated that audio pronunciation is only used in a low degree [9].
Weschler and Pitts also indicated in their experiment that there was no great enthusiasm of the subjects in listening to the electronic dictionary's pronunciation [10]. The majority of the respondents believed that this function is "somewhat important" or "not important and only a few of them considered this feature as very important,". Besides, it is just a small number of the respondents who had willingness to repeat the words have been acquired.
Likewise, the research conducted by Dashtestani indicates that EFL students have very low frequency in both of listening to the words' pronunciations and checking the dictionary entry for phonetics [11].
One more study conducted by Alhaisoni indicates that a great number of the students refer to dictionaries for spelling and mainly meaning, but give less attention to other important information, such as pronunciation [12]. Lastly, Dwaik stated that only 20% of learners use the e-dictionaries in the speaking context (pronunciation as an integral element of the speaking ability). This shows an unusual situation as pronunciation may cause difficulties for subjects participating in the research, and electronic dictionaries would obviously prove to be instrumental in this regard [13].
To conclude, it is noticeable that there is a greater concern among the EFL learners towards other aspects of e-dictionaries rather than addressing features of pronunciation. There is a huge number of dictionaries available for EFL learners these days. There should be devotion to rapidly developing e-dictionaries in this digital era of technological development. It is sensible to believe that the electronic dictionaries' features are reliable in facilitating teaching and learning of pronunciation, which will result in improvement of pronunciation.

The Effect of E-Dictionary on Students
It has been revealed in a number of studies that the e-dictionary usage is highly effective, mainly in the area of vocabulary learning. One of the study is held by Bahri and Mahadi who investigated the use of Google Translate as an instrument to provide aid to international students in Malaysia in developing their knowledge and skills in studying the Language of Malay [14]. There was sixteen overseas students taking part in the study, who later insisted that Google Translate was very helpful in vocabulary learning, writing improvement, and reading in Malay Language.
It is also found by Fageeh in a study about the effects of using online dictionaries on developing the skills of vocabulary building and developing positive attitudes of EFL students towards the learning of vocabulary [15]. The study used a design of pretest posttest control group that was combined with a qualitative questionnaire to investigate the learners' attitudes. It was indicated by the study that online dictionaries usage posed positive effects on the skill improvement of vocabulary learning an learners' attitudes enhancement towards vocabulary learning. Nisbet and Austin also revealed that Application Programs on mobile phones are effective tools for increasing vocabulary learning among adult learners in English as a second language program [16].
A review of general findings about the changes in electronic dictionaries usage among Japanese EFL university students was conducted by Loucky on his study [17]. He made a comparison towards the use of e-dictionaries between the first year students and graduate students regarding the degree of use. It was then concluded that e-dictionaries usage could improve language learning. The researcher also put the main focus on training of how to use e-dictionaries effectively, which could increase the positive effects in the dictionaries usage. The researcher invites more research to be conducted in the area of e-dictionaries with the main goal of increasing awareness among students towards the potentials of this form of dictionaries.

Methods
This is a quantitative study and the instrument used to conduct this study is a questionnaire. The questionnaire of the same title as this study contain of 3 sections: the frequency of e-dictionary use by college students; e-dictionaries help speaking ability; effects of e dictionary on speaking. For the first section, it contains 2 closed-ended questionnaires and 1 open-ended question. The first and third questions were questionnaires in closed-ended form that are in a several forms, such as checkboxes. Each type of question do not give allowance to the respondent to leave unequaled or unforeseen respond, instead, they are directed to pick up some answers from a list of options created in advance.
The second was open-ended question as respondent could type feedback in their own words. On the other hand, the second and third section uses the closed-ended questions, like checkboxes, where respondent could choose from the options 'Always', 'Often' 'Sometimes', 'Rarely', 'Never' and 'Do not use e-dictionary', depending on the frequency with each question. Furthermore, Section 2 contains 3 questions and section 3 contains 2 questions.

Participants
The instrument was distributed to 30 under graduated learners studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Malaysian university residing in Malaysia at time of the distribution of the questionnaire. The method of sampling used was convenience sampling and snowball sampling, as the questionnaire was first shared out to acquaintances and then shared the questionnaire to their contacts fitting the criteria.

Data Collection Procedure
The questionnaire was first sent out through Google Forms on the 26 th of May 2020. Over the course of two months, 30 respondents answered the questionnaire, and the questionnaire stopped receiving responses on the 5 th of June 2020. The identities of the respondents were anonymous due to get honesty and avoid the impact or fear based on the results of their answers.

Data Analysis Procedure
First, the data from the first section is processed through a statistical process to find out the mean, standard deviation, and variance. The second and foremost, the data was transferred into pie charts and tables, due to the usage of the checkboxes options. In the third sections, data was then given interpretation based on these charts. As can be seen from the above chart, 25 out of 30 respondents (81%) answered that they always use E-dictionary in learning a language. The remaining 4 respondents (19%) do not always use E-dictionary in learning a language and 1 respondent has chosen two options at once both "Yes" and "No".

The Frequency of E-Dictionary Use
According from the result (See appendices), 25 out of 30 respondents answered that they always use E-dictionary in learning a language. 8 out of 25 said it helped them to find the meaning of difficult word, 12 respondents stated that because e-dictionary was easy to use and 1 respondent said it was convenient. The remaining 4 respondents do not always use E-dictionary in learning a language. Thus, 1 respondent has chosen two options at once both "Yes" and "No".

Figure 2. Percentage of How Often the Respondents use E-Dictionary
There was a slight difference in the amount indicated by respondents who choose "Once in two weeks" and "Two-three times per week", and respondents who choose "Every day" and "once in a month", 12 out of 30 respondents use e-dictionaries once in two weeks to practice or improve pronunciation. In two-three times per week, 11 respondents use e-dictionaries to practice or improve pronunciation. The chart also shows that 4 respondents have use e-dictionary every day, while 3 respondents practice or improve their pronunciation by using e-dictionaries only once in a month.  The majority of the 11 respondents have chosen monolingual dictionary for native speaker for pronunciation practice. There are 26% (8 respondents) had chosen bilingual translation dictionary. 7 respondents (23%) use monolingual learner's dictionary for pronunciation practice. 3 respondents use other dictionaries and 2 respondents do not use e-dictionary.

E-Dictionaries Help Speaking Ability
As can be seen from chart 4, a total of 11 respondents (37%) always check the pronunciation of the words by using an electronic/online dictionary while a total of 8 respondents (27%) often check the word pronunciation when using e-dictionary. 23% of the (7) respondents sometimes check the word pronunciation. 3 respondents (10%) had answered rarely check the pronunciation when using e-dictionary and 1 respondent do not use e-dictionary. Chart 6 shows the 11 respondents (37%) always make pronunciation repetition of the word after pressing the button of play and listen to the pronunciation of the word. 9 respondents (30%) had answered sometimes, 6 respondents (20%) often repeat and heard the word pronunciation. Both never and do not use e-dictionary shows (3%) 1 respondent each.    It can be seen from the chart above that E-dictionary always helped respondents to pronounce word correctly with 40% of the respondents choosing it. This is followed by the 'often' (34%) and 'sometimes' (20%). Both 'rarely' and 'do not use e-dictionary (3%) respectively.

Effect of E-Dictionary on Speaking
As can be seen from the chart 7, 11 out of 30 respondents (37%) answered that E-dictionary always has helped them to speak more confidently. Similarly, 36% respondents answered for 'sometimes'. The remaining 6 respondents (20%) had chosen 'often'. Therefore, both 'rarely' and 'do not use E-dictionary' has chosen by 1 respondent respectively.

Discussion
The ultimate goal of the study was to conduct investigation into the e-dictionaries' effect upon speaking ability among students at a Malaysian university and to examine the prevalence of electronic dictionaries usage by students at the college and to identify the effects of e-dictionary on students in learning English. The study had yielded interesting result and shows varied opinions of the use of e-dictionary. Overall, it was found that e-dictionary is still a useful tool for pronunciation practice for EFL students in Malaysia by the data shows most of respondents (81%) always use e-dictionary and 19% respondents rarely use e-dictionary. This could be due to the fact that these respondents are still aware of the positive effects that e-dictionaries could bring to them.
In similar fashion, most of respondents stated that they always use e-dictionary, they have various reasons regarding to the use of e-dictionary. 25 out of 30 respondents answered that they always use E-dictionary in learning a language. 8 of them had chosen yes because e-dictionary helped them to find the meaning of difficult word, 12 of them stated that because e-dictionary was easy to use and 1 respondent said it was convenient. The remaining 4 respondents do not always use E-dictionary in learning a language because they like conventional dictionaries better than using e-dictionaries. They also stated that instead of using e-dictionaries, they just directly said the words they don't understand to say in English. Thus, 1 respondent has chosen two options at once both "Yes" and "No".
In terms of the frequency of e-dictionary use, a fair number of respondents (37%) said that they often use e-dictionary to pronunciation practice that is two-three times per week. There are also a number of respondents (13%) who are always everyday use e-dictionary regarding to pronunciation practice. Other respondents (40%) stated that they sometimes use e dictionary in term of pronunciation practice or for improving their pronunciation, they only use it for once in two weeks. The rest (10%) had chosen rarely practice or improve their pronunciation by using e-dictionary, that is only once in a month. Thus, if we combine the amount of respondent who had chosen always and often, it will be half of the total amount, and rest had chosen sometimes and rarely. Furthermore, e-dictionary still been a good tool that respondents use to improve their pronunciation or to practice it. The second section of the questionnaire used for this study required the respondents to examine the use of e-dictionaries in help speaking ability. A high number of respondents (36%) have chosen monolingual dictionary for native speaker for practice of pronunciation. The second highest number of e-dictionaries is followed by bilingual translation dictionary (26%). Other respondents (23%) use monolingual learner's dictionary for pronunciation practice. Few respondents use other dictionaries (10%) and the rest of them (6%) do not use e-dictionary for pronunciation practice. Even though the respondents had chosen different e-dictionary for their pronunciation practice, it clearly indicated that the majority of the learners use e-dictionary, and only few of them did not use e-dictionary for pronunciation practice. The majority of respondents regard monolingual dictionary for native speaker as a main source for practicing pronunciation. It is noticeable that monolingual dictionary for native speaker is highly popular in consistent way among the EFL learners even though it is initially designed for English native speakers. So they can learn the pronunciation of the word correctly.
The results of this study reveal that the respondents make use of monolingual dictionaries for native speaker in the first place to help them with their pronunciation. The dictionaries suit their needs and they are obviously designed for native speakers of English. Nevertheless, there should be an emphasis that the monolingual dictionaries created for native speaker are also adequate for foreign learners, and the students who are highly interested in the area of English phonetics and hope to attain English pronunciation of relatively advanced command could be possibly attracted and this specialized dictionaries of pronunciation. Hence, there should be careful adjustment in order to meet the foreign language students' needs.
It appears to be true that bilingual translation dictionaries are not as popular as monolingual dictionaries for native speaker. 26% of the respondents were interested in using the bilingual translation dictionaries to do pronunciation practice that happens because the translation of a word is also available for them. A relatively low number of respondents used monolingual learner's dictionaries to do pronunciation practice. Lastly, there were only 3 respondents making use of other (not specifically identified) electronic dictionaries to set up in their portable devices to enhance their pronunciation while the rest 2 of them did not use e-dictionary.
Thus, when it comes to the word pronunciation, the respondents were mostly (37%) always using an electronic or online dictionary as a tool to check the pronunciation of the words and 27% of respondents stated that they often check the word pronunciation when using e-dictionary while 23% respondents sometimes check the word pronunciation. 10% of respondents had answered rarely check the pronunciation when using e-dictionary and only 3% of respondent do not use e-dictionary which is only 1 respondent.
This indicates that a quite large of percentage of the respondents believes that e-dictionary or online dictionary will result in a more improvement of pronunciation skill. More often than not, it is identifiable that the respondents did not ignore any word's pronunciation when checking it on the e-dictionary. The respondents tend to do the checking to the pronunciation of a word when it is checked. The majority of them check it by listening to the word's pronunciation. Furthermore, the students are likely to repeat the correct pronunciation of the words. This could be due to the fact that e-dictionary does indeed provide a convenient way for respondents. 37% of respondents always make repetition to the pronunciation of the vocabulary when they press the button of play and listen to the proper pronunciation of the word. 30% of respondents had answered sometimes, 20% of respondents often repeat and heard the word pronunciation. Both never and do not use e-dictionary shows (3%) 1 respondent each.
It was found out that one of great advantages of utilizing e-dictionaries among the learners is that they can find the correct pronunciation in no time. This situation happens because participants could listen to the vocabulary items that are new for them multiple times on the e-dictionaries. It was supported by the result of the questionnaire measuring participants' perceptions towards the use of e-dictionaries. Moreover, it could also possibly because the majority of them made repetition to the word after listening to the audio of the e-dictionary. It can be taken a conclusion that the respondents make a greater degree of repetition towards the pronounced word. Doing pronunciation practices repeatedly can be very helpful to improve students' pronunciation and make proper and appropriate word pronunciation to enhance their speaking ability. For that reason, there should be encouragement for EFL learners to make repetition when encountering new or already familiar words. 40% of respondents had chosen that e-dictionary 'always' help them to pronounce word correctly. Followed by 'often' that was chosen by 34% of the respondents. It indicates that the electronic dictionaries correspond the highly used method of practicing pronunciation. While 20% of respondents stated that e-dictionary sometimes help them to pronounce many words correctly. And both 'rarely' and 'do not use e-dictionary only chosen by 3% of respondents respectively. 37% of respondents answered that E-dictionary always has helped them to speak more confidently. Similarly, 36% respondents answered for 'sometimes'. The remaining 20% of respondents had chosen 'often'. Therefore, both 'rarely' and 'do not use E-dictionary' has chosen by only 3% of respondent respectively. On the whole, it seems that the respondents have been helped to speak more confidently using e-dictionary. It should be noted by EFL learners that in learning a new vocabulary they must pay more attention to pronunciation, because it might be hard for them to do away with mispronunciation in the future if they learn pronunciation incorrectly. Likewise, when checking a completely new word for them, EFL learners are highly encouraged to make sure they are familiar enough with the appropriate word pronunciation. By learning the pronunciation of a word using e-dictionaries, students will certainly improve their speaking ability, besides being easy to translate and check pronunciation, e-dictionary is also an easy and convenient tool to use.
In a nutshell, respondents generally view the use of e-dictionary of EFL students in Malaysian university positively, and that may bring good effects. They use e-dictionary to practice and improve their pronunciation. Conversely, there are still a few respondents who did not use e-dictionary, in terms of help them with their speaking ability.

Conclusions
In this study, The Effects of E-Dictionaries on Speaking Ability Among Students at A Malaysian University was examined. As many as 30 respondents participated in this quantitative research through the use of questionnaire. The study investigated the effect of e-dictionary to their pronunciation and speaking ability. It was found that a majority of EFL learners have positive attitude toward e-dictionaries usage in learning English language in Malaysian university. It was found from this research that e-dictionary has helped the learners to practice the word pronunciation and they often repeat the pronunciation of the word. The pronunciation repetition of any words helped their mastery with pronunciation of unfamiliar vocabulary items that will lead to the improvement to their speaking skills. It is possible that the results would have been different if a wider range of questions were asked in the questionnaire or if a large number of respondents were involved. Future researcher should consider carrying out a similar study with the usage of students' opinions but provide the selected students with a short explanation of e-dictionaries beforehand. It could then be seen whether the students will still stand by their opinions after knowing more about the subject matter. Therefore, the results from this study have concluded that most of the EFL students at a Malaysian university involved had positive attitude towards the effects of using e-dictionary on speaking ability, but it is unknown whether a larger sample would have resulted in contrasting result.

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Investigating E-Dictionaries on Speaking Ability among University Students in Malaysia