Authenticity in FLL as a vocabulary booster

Articolul reflectă procesul de dobândire a cunoștințelor de vocabular. Cercetări recente arată că predarea vocabularului este problematică, deoarece mulți profesori mai întâmpină dificultăți în predarea lui. Cercetarea încearcă să rezume aspecte importante ale proiectării activităților de predare-învățare a vocabularului, cum ar fi modele de prezentare a cuvintelor și câteva direcții despre cum să construiești strategii eficiente în timp ce se asimilezi un vocabular nou. Autencitatea cuvintelor este văzută ca un aspect care sporește motivația elevilor. Tema acestei lucrări este relevantă, deoarece predarea vocabularului va fi întotdeauna un aspect important al predării limbilor străine; și parte a unui act de comunicare de succes, lăsând în același timp un număr mare de întrebări referitor la studiul său pentru profesori și studenți.

The article aims to highlight the process of acquiring vocabulary knowledge. Recent research shows that teaching vocabulary is problematic, as many teachers are unsure of the best practices of teaching vocabulary. The research tries to summarize important aspects of designing activities while teaching-learning vocabulary like, models of words presentation and some guidelines on how to build effective strategies while acquiring new vocabulary. Authenticity of the words is seen as a fact that increases pupil’s motivation. The topic of this work is relevant, since teaching vocabulary will always be one of the main part of foreign language learning and teaching; and part of a successful communication act, while leaving a huge number of questions in its study for teachers and students.

Cuvinte cheie: vocabularul, autencitatea, motivația, modele, strategii, competențe.

Key words: vocabulary, authenticity, motivation, models, strategies, competences.

Introduaction

Vocabulary teaching and learning can be one of the most challenging aspects of the teaching learning process. Students have to deal with vocabulary activities at all levels, that is why the lexical knowledge of language learning has gained further development and interest among researchers. Good vocabulary achievement support students in mastering the other language competences. Both receptive and productive skills need good vocabulary knowledge as a pre-requisite in the communication process.

Theoretical Framework

Many methodologists and scientists paid special attention to this problem, for example, J. Harmer, S. Thornbury, Ur Penny, I.S.P. Nation, whose scientific works and research are the theoretical basis of the work.

Schmitt (2000) emphasizes that “lexical knowledge is central to communicative competence and to the acquisition of a second language” [5].

Nation (2001) further describes the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and language use as complementary: knowledge of vocabulary enables language use and, conversely, language use leads to an increase in vocabulary knowledge [2].

On the other side, unlike syntax and phonology, vocabulary does not have some specific, clear rules to follow in its acquisition. In other words, there are not some clear rules to guide us in words acquisition regarding the which vocabulary words should be learned first. In this regard, Oxford (1990) says that vocabulary is “by far the most sizeable and unmanageable component in the learning of any language, whether a foreign or one’s mother tongue, because of tens of thousands of different meanings” [7].

Different approaches of studying vocabulary in a foreign language have been developed over the years. Some of these approaches involve the of investigation of strategies learners use specifically for vocabulary acquisition, which is our focus of attention. There are different divisions of strategies in learning vocabulary, the most well-known strategy is step-by-step discovery the word meaning that starts with new word presentation, spelling, pronunciation and application. Besides this there are social, discovery and consolidation strategies. Different studies have revealed that metacognition strategies are most preferred by adult students that are able to be better autonomous learners, they are able to self-initiate the learning process, so these strategies suppose planning, monitoring, and evaluating learning experiences that learners need to develop additional efforts when acquire vocabulary (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990).

Furthermore, Nation (2001) has developed three general classes of strategies which are “planning”, “source” and “processes”. In “planning”, learners have to decide on where, how and to what extend that they should focus on their vocabulary items that they learn. “Sources” refers to items used in learning for instance like dictionaries, textbooks or other resources to help them acquire the second language vocabulary, and “Processes” include the establishing of words knowledge through noticing and generating strategies.