The effectiveness of dictionary examples in decoding: The case of Kuwaiti learners of English

Abstract

This study tries to shed light on the role of dictionary examples in the comprehension of word meanings. An experimental procedure has been devised whereby two groups of students with English as major subject at Kuwait University were asked to provide the Arabic equivalents for ten English headwords. The first group was given a list of entries for these words copied from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) while the second group had to read the same list but without illustrative examples. Results indicate that the students' decoding performance was negatively affected by the presence of illustrative examples in the dictionary entry.