STRESSING VOCABULARY IN THE ALGERIAN EFL CLASS USING THE LEXICAL NOTEBOOK AS A VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGY

Kheira Arab

DOI Number
-
First page
329
Last page
346

Abstract


It is a fact that Algerian EFL pupils face difficulties in learning English as a foreign language. This is clearly mirrored by their poor outcome during the official exams, particularly at the ‘Baccalaureate Exam’ where English is often identified as one of the major teaching subjects causing pupils’ failure. From our modest experience as an EFL teacher at the secondary education, we noticed that our EFL pupils usually face difficulties in the four language skills, i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing, and we noticed that the main cause behind such difficulties was, in most cases, the limited vocabulary knowledge of the pupils. In this respect, the current paper assumes that there is a causal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and the overall level of Algerian EFL pupils. Accordingly, it tries to demonstrate the importance of vocabulary instruction in our EFL class relying on a quasi-experimental research which involved the use of a pre-test/post-test design. The experiment aimed to reveal the usefulness of the lexical notebook as a vocabulary learning strategy and the positive impact of vocabulary acquisition that may result, on the writing skill. Besides, two sets of questionnaire were used to scrutinize the causes behind the weak level of Algerian EFL pupils from teachers’ as well as pupils’ perspective and to analyze the quality of vocabulary instruction in the Algerian EFL class.

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References


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