The present study aims to investigate how English major students use dictionaries. A questionnaire survey was used with 110 first to third year English major students at Naresuan University. The results show that the majority of informants favoured bilingual dictionaries (English-Thai) over monolingual (English-English) ones. Reading and writing were the activities in which learners usually used dictionaries. Most students (88%) preferred electronic dictionaries: pocket electronic dictionaries and online dictionaries, to paper dictionaries. Looking for word meaning was the main purpose of consulting dictionaries. Other information such as parts of speech of words, pronunciation, and spelling was less important. The study also reveals that idioms and etymologies were almost never used. Most participants (70 %) agreed that teaching dictionary use should be incorporated into English lessons at primary school because they believed that their English grades and abilities would be improved if they can use dictionaries effectively.