Indonesian Students’ Voices on Utilizing U-Dictionary in English-Medium Instruction Classroom

Fluency in reading is crucial for students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in today's society. Digital media like e-books and audio books are essential for reading methods in this age of technology advancement. Because of this, resources like the U-Dictionary are necessary for learning English. The first goal of this study is to describe how students feel about using U-dictionary, and the second is to outline the benefits and drawbacks of using U-dictionary to improve reading comprehension. This study employed a descriptive research design and a qualitative methodology. Six students in the Islamic Studies Department of an Islamic institution in Central Java, Indonesia, participated in the study during the 2024–2025 academic year. They were fifth students of the International Class Program that used English as a medium of instruction in teaching the learning process. Interviews and documentation were used as data gathering methods. Data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing or verification were all done using data analysis techniques. According to the findings, most students utilize U-Dictionary to translate words, pronunciation, and synonyms instantaneously. Additionally, because it offers a wide range of capabilities and is user-friendly and effective at determining the meaning of words or even paragraphs while reading, it is a wonderful tool for improving reading comprehension skills. Students struggle with a variety of reading passage comprehension issues, including lengthy texts, foreign vocabulary, pronunciation, and complex sentence patterns. Finding new words and pronunciations in reading texts and improving reading comprehension are two challenges that U-dictionary helps readers face. The benefits include a user-friendly interface, offline capabilities, practice speaking vocabulary words, and a variety of learning resources. However, utilizing U-dictionary has drawbacks, such as limited free features, ads, insufficient offline capability, and an excessive dependency on instant and internet-limited access.