Students Buy an Electronic Dictionary

It looks as though here in Japan, for several reasons, our university and college students at least are using their ED's in the same way as they used PDs, and that they are not taking advantage of either the portability or the extra speed that they (or a doting relative) paid for. For this kind of student, or for this pattern of use, it seems that an ED is not a wise investment. However, for a more autonomous student who wants to translate or study on the move, or who wants to learn from aural input, it may be a shrewd purchase.

Thanks largely to communications technology, we are about to see a revolution in the development of aids to autonomous learning. This will enable students to immerse themselves in the target language in a virtual language laboratory, wherever they are physically. This revolution is the topic of our next paper.