ESP and Technical Vocabulary: How Efficient are Definition Matching Exercises? - Archive ouverte HAL
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

ESP and Technical Vocabulary: How Efficient are Definition Matching Exercises?

Résumé

Analogous to languages in general where the significance of vocabulary for passive and active language use is undisputable (Hirsch & Coxhead, 2009), we propose to consider specialised vocabulary an essential element of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Although several types of specialised vocabulary exist (Coxhead, 2013), we shall only focus on technical vocabulary, which is “specific to a particular topic, field, or discipline” (Nation, 2001, p. 316). For teaching technical vocabulary, especially the one whose use rarely or never expands the discipline to which it belongs (op. cit.), requires considerable effort from ESP practitioners, it is often neglected. Nevertheless, we support the idea that the teaching of technical vocabulary should be integrated into ESP courses (Nation, 2001). The presentation attempts to examine the efficiency of definition matching exercises in the teaching-learning of technical vocabulary through the example of English for psychology. This type of exercise, present in most ESP coursebooks, belongs to the learning from meaning-focused input strand (Nation, 2003). The purpose of this presentation is fourfold. First, it aims to test whether such exercises are beneficial to the teaching-learning of technical vocabulary. Second, it intends to explore the effect of definition matching exercises on acquiring productive vocabulary and receptive vocabulary (Woodrow, 2018). Third, it seeks to investigate what type of input, listening or reading, offers a more considerable advantage in terms of technical vocabulary acquisition. These input types allow for the work on two distinct forms of the word, pronunciation and spelling (Cook, 2008) and stimulate different cognitive processes, representing diverse cognitive load (Carroll, 2008). Finally, it analyses how students perceive the effectiveness of such exercises. To attain this objective, we integrated matching exercises into two teaching modules; after each module, we administered questionnaires to our students (more than 200 in total) to assess whether they successfully acquired new technical vocabulary and to survey how they perceived the effectiveness of the matching exercises. The content questions were both multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions, which allowed us to compare the effect of the matching exercises on acquiring productive and receptive vocabulary. Moreover, we used two variations of the matching exercises: one contained only written definitions, and the second presented the definitions in an audio format. Such a design helped us understand the most beneficial type of input to acquire technical vocabulary.
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Dates et versions

hal-04239420 , version 1 (12-10-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04239420 , version 1

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Evgueniya Lyu. ESP and Technical Vocabulary: How Efficient are Definition Matching Exercises?. Language for Specific Purposes: Trends and Perspectives, Université du Monténégro, Sep 2021, Budva, Montenegro. ⟨hal-04239420⟩
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