ANSWER:  Certainly. Especially if these learners have not had any previous using-the-dictionary training by their teachers. And even if they have, the activities discussed here help them practise more.

There are many elementary level monolingual dictionaries in the market, published by some of the major ELT publishing companies. As early as 1986, a major ELT publisher "broke ground" so to speak and first published a monolingual dictionary for intermediate learners, which, in addition to the introductory Guide to the Dictionary,  included a Workbook with information and exercises which helped the users in depth. Since then, almost all monolingual dictionaries include a Workbook for the user.

Teachers interested in training their learners to use a monolingual dictionary can start by using one Workbook activity at a time as part of their overall Lesson Plan. Workbooks usually indicate which activities are easier to use and which are more demanding, or they present the actvities in a graded order.

While using the dictionary Workbook activities, teachers can also try some pre-dictionary skills activities. Before they do, however, they need to have covered the Guide to the specific dictionary and to have explained the most basic lexis used when referring to a dictionary, such as "entry", "guide word", etc. 

N.B.: Using-the-Dictionary activities in class require that learners have the same edition of a dictionary and that each learner have  their own dictionary.

I. Locating Entries Faster: Using the Guide Words

 Step 1: Ask your learners to open their dictionaries at a specific page. All

            learners should be looking at the same page so the activity can be

            effective and so you can communicate faster with each learner

            individually.

Step 2: Tell your learners to look at the two words printed on the top left and

top right of each page. For example, for this activity, we are using an     elementary dictionary of one of the major ELT publishers. The specific pages we are using have as guide words  "church" and "clever".  Explain to your learners that we call these words "guide words" because they show the first word and the last word printed on these two pages.

  The entries listed between "church" and "clever" (in our example), are

  listed in alphabetical order. So, our learners would find words such as

  "churchyard", "cinema", "city", "clap", "classroom", "clean" and "clear"

   among others, between the two guide words.

Step 3:  For further practice, choose a number of different words. Call each

             one out and ask your learners to locate them in their dicitonary and to

             call out the guide word on the page(s). For example: for the word,

             "king"; the guide words in our dictionary are "kid" and "know".

Step 4:  Then, ask your learners to choose at random 4 - 5  entries listed

              between the two guide words on the specific pages, such as "knee",

              "knife", "kill", "king" and "kiss" (using the example in Step 3), and ask

              them to write them in strict alphabetical order.

Step 5:   Let the learners look at the specific dictionary pages and see how

the words they have chosen have been listed and realize by themselves that not only do we need to observe the strict alphabetical order of words, but also the exact position of the letters of the alphabet within each word. Thus, locating an entry becomes much easier  as it requires three simple steps:

1.    Locating in the dictionary the approximate position of the first

       letter of the word, e.g., "g" for "gentleman".  Most recently

       published dicitonaries use a ruster on the right side of the

       dictionary, which shows the position of the letters of the

       alphabet.

    2.    Once the specific letter is located, leafing through and looking at

       the guide words on the top left and right of the pages till we find

       the ones which would act as "coasters"  for the word we are

       looking for. In this case, "gasoline" and "get".

3.    Moving down the entries, observing the alphabetical order of

       each one, we will locate "gentleman". Even when we are not

       sure of the spelling of a word, the strict alphabetical order

       observed helps us locate an entry.

Remember, dictionaries open doors to a world full of treasures. We will continue with more activities for learners of  all ages and levels.

Suzanne and Lilika