Turkish-English Dictionaries in the Class
There is nothing I hate more than those little red and yellow dictionaries that students bring to class. The only thing more counterproductive and disruptive in the Turkish classroom is your students’ cell phones. I have tried a number of approaches over the years and I find the best approach is to ban them outright.
Why are dictionaries such a problem? Well, I think the biggest issue is that Turkish and English simply do not translate into each other well. There are approximately 104,481 words in the Turkish language compared to over 600,000 in English. Type a simply search query into Zargan. You will find that the number of possible translations is often 10 or more. How then, can a pocket dictionary possible provide the correct translation?
Also, it’s very normal for Turkish words and English words to function differently. For example, if I look up the word “s?k?lmak” the dictionary will produce “to be bored.” However, in Turkish, it literally means, “being squeezed.” Turks also use it for when they are uneasy or annoyed. If you talk about the headscarf issue in class many students will tell you that they are bored. What they mean is that they are uncomfortable. Another example is “kabul etmek” which means accept, but in Turkish it’s possible to say things like “I don’t accept you” if you disagree with someone’s opinion. Using it that way in English would be wrong, so, in reality, the words don’t really translate.
As anyone who has taught in Turkey for any period of time knows, Turkish learners often make the most ridiculous sentences after using a dictionary. This may not be as much of a problem for learners whose language is closely related to English, but it is a major source of communication breakdown in Turkey. Another factor is that students will believe the dictionary over you because they value book knowledge so highly. If a student produces a sentence using translations from a dictionary and you tell them it’s not correct, they will be very skeptical. Turkish learners are always shocked when you tell them the dictionary is often wrong. To nip this problem in the bud, it’s better to just ban Turklish-English dictionary use in your classroom from day one.
Turkish learners need to be encouraged to think in English right from the beginning. Because literal translation is such a problem among Turkish learners, it’s best to discourage this type of thinking in the classroom. Also, you can get your students to start relying on each other for help and asking questions in English, both important skills and behaviors that need to be developed in a good class anyway. If they don’t know a word, push your students to ask others in the class for help in English. As teachers, we need to create learners of English because our students simply aren’t aware of how to learn a language. We have to develop that skill in them and one way to do that is to remove their reliance on literal translation.
Another important point to consider is that, if the Turkish student is looking in his or her dictionary, they aren’t listening to you. When I used to allow dictionaries, this was a constant source of irritation. I’d be trying to elicit or explain new words and some people would have their heads buried in their dictionaries. In the time it took the student to look up one or two words we had already done five to seven. Inevitably, once you start the activity the student will not understand the new words or recognize their pronunciation. They will start bothering either you or other students, most likely in Turkish, for help, which is a waste of time for you and them, not to mention frustrating.
In the ESL classroom, we are always trying to develop skill sets in English. Two incredibly important ones are listening to explanations and understanding meaning from context. If your students are looking in their dictionaries all the time rather than listening to you and trying to understand the meanings of words from a speech or text, then they are not developing these extremely important skills. If your students don’t understand a new word after you have explained it, it’s probably an indication that you have failed to explain it, not that they failed to understand. Ask yourself, did I explain it simply and clearly, did I provide contextualized examples, did I CCQ it well enough? I always remind my students that they should always make note of any new words they don’t understand. They can then ask me for help with these new words, use an English-English Internet dictionary, or google search it for examples on the break or after class.
Another benefit of banning Turkish-English dictionaries is that it encourages them to actually buy an English-English learner’s dictionary. Believe you me, if you tell your students to buy one, but allow Turkish-English dictionaries, they will never bring it to class. I often will take a field trip with students one day to go buy learner dictionaries together. It’s also a good idea to persuade your school to by a set of learner dictionaries for you to use in the class from time to time. This way you can ensure that everyone has one and that nobody has a need for a Turkish-English dictionary.
In the end, Turkish-English dictionaries undermine everything you are trying to do in the class. They reinforce the habit of translation, which is not just a problem on a word-to-word level, but on a conceptual level as well. The students need to get in the habit of using English as English rather than as a cipher for Turkish. Turkish-English dictionaries also undermine the development of listening skills and understanding meaning from context skills. Finally, they are often disruptive, as students aren’t paying attention and will later bother you or others for information that was already taught.
For a lesson that helps convince your students of the importance of this rule, try this lesson.
What are your opinions? Do you allow Turkish-English dictionaries in your classroom? If you do, do you ever find them beneficial?
Tags: Dictionaries, L1, Turklish Language
Classroom Management, ELT Basics, Teaching Strategies | turklis1 | 
October 1, 2009 10:04 am
6 Comments
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Subscribe
By Darren Elliott, October 10, 2009 @ 10:08 pm
I think teachers the world over have similar complaints about translating dictionaries. The majority of the students here in Japan use electronic dictionaries, which incorporate a number of different dictionaries. I think part of the problem is the use of texts or materials at an inappropriate level. Most of the time I can keep the dictionaries closed in regular class time, but the students can get itchy fingers during intensive readings. They have a four point plan 1) Ask a classmate 2) Check an English dictionary 3) Ask me 4) Check a Japanese dictionary. I’m glad to say that they rarely get to point four *smugface*.
But I am not against a little L1 in the classroom if it helps things along. If the student is trying to LEARN the word, translation alone isn’t really helpful for the reasons you’ve listed. But if they need to know it to get past a bump in an activity, why spend ten minutes trying to contort yourself into ‘English’ shapes when a quick Turkish word will do it?
By turklis1, October 11, 2009 @ 11:58 am
Thanks for stopping by Darren
Electronic dictionaries are becoming popular here as well. These are also difficult for the students because of the sure number of results they often kick back, at least for Turkish. They often have 5 to 8 choices for a word.
I agree about the level of materials used. If necessary vocabulary isn’t pre-taught or if there are simply too many new words, students become frustrated and give up. Finding appropriate material and identifying potential problem areas for a particular class is one of the important jobs of a teacher I think.
I like your four point plan. I also am not against the use of occasional L1 in the classroom. I think you raise a valid point about time wasted. Sometimes it’s just not worth spending 5 minutes on getting students to understand a difficult word, especially if it’s holding up an activity. I’ll admit that I have translated a word for a student here or there just to speed things along. My ideas are not fixed on this issue quite yet.
On a similar note, often, one of my more important goals in class is to teach skills rather than a grammar point or vocabulary. For example, for receptive skills, I want the students to learn to understand words from context or understand the gist of something. For productive skills, I want them to be able to use the vocabulary they already have to describe something, or explain the word they want in English.
For these reasons, I’ll often refuse to translate during class, although they may approach me on a break. In real life situations like tests, business conferences, or bumping into a lost tourist, dictionaries are never at hand. I often purposefully don’t pre-teach words not important to understanding the main idea so that students will develop these skills. Honestly, I usually can’t translate a Turkish word without an attempted sentence anyway. The sheer number of possibilities is too many. I had too many problems in the past where I would translate a word and then the student would use it in his or her sentence, but they needed a completely different word.
Your point about LEARNING a word is important as well. I always tell my students to be patient. Even if you don’t fully understand a new word the first time, you’ll get it eventually. Google is a great resource for looking up multiple sentences to understand context better. Often in Turkish I’ll hear and new word and not understand it immediately, but, I hear it used a couple more times, and the meaning becomes clear.
By Darren Elliott, October 12, 2009 @ 2:55 am
Dictionaries are only useful if you know how to use them, and if you are using them too often something is wrong. I really recommend extensive reading, but you have to make it clear that the students should understand 98-99% of the page. If they have to check or guess more than a word or two per page, it’s too hard. There are so many graded readers out there these days, if your school can get a programme up and running.
Students get locked into intensive translation of English, and equate English with difficulty, with pain, and with sweaty dictionaries. It takes time, but they can be convinced that English can be fun, easy and needs only what they already know, plus one.
By Vickie Tisdale, May 3, 2010 @ 8:14 am
Turkey is now going to be overcome it’s many kind of lacking and there people are more conscious day by day.In this article there is narrating about a Turkish dictionary which will help the Turkish student from any other things like mobile phone.Such as writer said that in turkey there are approximately 104,481 words in the Turkish language compared to over 600,000 in English.So this yellow dictionary can help the people to get the right meaning of English from turkey.
By Jenny Magrath, April 3, 2011 @ 5:53 pm
Yes, they certainly like those red and yellow dictonairies. I am used to teaching TESOL in Australia and I always make sure that the students have a dictionary, higher levels need an English Dictionary, but unfortunately lower levels have electronic ones that drive you insane, but you can’t stop them. Back to Turkey. I can see that they are a problem and I agree that if they are looking up so many words, then the reading is far too complicated/hard, but because they have to complete, their course and pass!!!!!!! What do you do?
By turklis1, April 4, 2011 @ 2:10 am
Hi Jenny, teaching how to use a dictionary is a valuable skill for students I think. I’ve found with lower levels it’s simply too much of a distraction though and leads to more confusion than anything else. It’s breaking that mentality of word to word translations being assumed correct.
I think your point is a good one, but on most tests they don’t allow dictionaries anyway. So the most valuable skills you can teach a student are how to not freak out about not knowing a word, how to guess meaning from context, and how to arrive at answers using the information you do understand. Focusing parts of lessons on translation helps as well as students will start to realize they can’t translate sentences word by word.