USING ON-LINE DICTIONARIES FOR STUDENTS' AUTONOMOUS LEARNING

Various types of dictionaries - specialized, monolingual, bilingual, etc. provide a wide scope of information - grammatical, phonetic, historical, etymological, cultural etc. New technologies made the access to dictionaries and their content much easier. ICT also make new learning styles such as blended learning, autonomous learning possible. Theoretical and empirical studies show the usability of these new approaches to language learning. The use of on-line dictionaries in learning foreign languages in autonomous mode corroborates the effectiveness of new approaches in learning and teaching. To use dictionaries students have to develop dictionary skills, such as knowing what the guide word is, how to find words, what information could be found. When people think of dictionary they think first of all of words, but modern dictionaries provide systems of exercises to use words in the context, to develop reading, speaking and listening skills. Besides they are instrumental in preparing for international exams like PET, FCE, CAE (advanced), CPE (proficiency) and others. What is important for student's autonomous studies, tasks provided in dictionaries have key answers and could be self-checked. Using dictionaries for LSP will introduce students to terminological dictionaries and data-base. The autonomous learning has to be instructed and monitored by a teacher to make the learning more effective, the aims have to be set and achieved results reported. The autonomous study with dictionaries could be switched at some stages to collaborative learning by assigning students some project works. Students can profit from various dictionaries in achieving different learning aims. They are effective tools and could be used to complement any course, to diversify learning and bring new perspectives into teaching. The publication was prepared with the support of the "RUDN University Program 5-100".