The dictionary in examinations at a South African university: a linguistic or a pedagogic intervention?

Nkomo, Dion

Title: The dictionary in examinations at a South African university: a linguistic or a pedagogic intervention?
Creator: Nkomo, Dion
Date: 2017
Type: text
Type: article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67559
Identifier: vital:29111
Identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.5788/27-1-1406
Description: Publisher version
Description: This paper interrogates students' use of dictionaries for examination purposes at Rhodes University in South Africa. The practice, which is provided for by the university's language policy, is widely seen as a linguistic intervention particularly aimed at assisting English additional language students, the majority of whom speak African languages, with purely linguistic information. Such a view is misconceived as it ignores the fact that the practice predates the present institutional language policy which was adopted in 2006. Although it was difficult to establish the real motivation prior to the language policy, this study indicates that both English mother-tongue and English additional language students use the dictionary in examinations for assistance that may be considered to be broadly pedagogic rather than purely linguistic. This then invites academics to reconsider the manner in which they teach and assess, cognisant of the pedagogic value of the dictionary which transcends linguistic assistance.
Format: 32 pages, pdf
Publisher: Lexikos
Language: English
Relation: Lexikos, Nkomo, D. (2017) The dictionary in examinations at a South African university: a Linguistic or a pedagogic intervention?. Lexikos, 27, 346-377.http://dx.doi.org/10.5788/27-1-1406, Lexikos volume 27 number 1 346 377 2017 2224-0039
Rights: Copyright held by the authors
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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RU DST/NRF SARChI for Intellectualisation of African Languages, Multilingualism and Education

Nkomo, Dion (Prof)

RU School of Languages and Literatures

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