Psycholinguistic study of personal approach of EFL students to learning English topical vocabulary

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.6-17.038

Daszkiewicz Michał,

PhD

University of Gdańsk, Poland

e-mail: pedmd@univ.gda.pl

The paper presents research carried out with 606 students from 18 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa concerning their approach to learning vocabulary related to clothes and sport. The basic premise relates to the concept of a masterpiece, i.e. a personalised arrangement of language components across and within topics. The results show respondents to value practices supporting their improvement in familiarity with words and expressions, correct uses of language and fluency, but strongly disregard language-learning behaviours aimed at their orientation in the structural aspects of topics (such as divisions into topical subcategories, combinations with other topics, etc.).

Keywords: personal approach to language, composing your own English, masterpiece, English vocabulary, second language learning.

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