Resumen de Pedagogical criteria for effective foreign language learning: a new dictionary model
Dídac Pujol, Joan Masnou Suriñach, Montse Corrius
This paper presents the pedagogical criteria used in the making of the Easy English Dictionary with a Catalan-English Vocabulary (EED), a new dictionary model for lower intermediate learners of English as a foreign language. The dictionary described renders an account of the philosophy and the results of a specific lexicographical project centred on English as the L2 and Catalan as the L1. The pedagogical criteria on which the EED is based are: structural criteria, linguistic criteria, cultural criteria and illustration criteria.
The paper examines the treatment that each of these four aspects has received in different types of dictionary and, after pointing out their weaknesses and limitations, proposes a new dictionary model that seeks to promote a more effective learning of foreign languages. The most innovative aspect of the EDD concerns its structure: the EED is a bilingualized dictionary-i.e. it combines the advantages of both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, but unlike in classical, immediate bilingualized dictionaries, in the new-deferred-dictionary model the L1 translation does not minimize the L2 definition. The EED also takes advantage of the L1 language and culture, something which the vast majority of dictionaries for L2 learning do not do: the new model uses L2 words similar to L1 ones as well as cultural referents familiar to the L2 learner. Finally, the new dictionary model presented in this paper considers illustrations as an important means of contextualization and linguistic production.
