Retenção de itens lexicais em contexto de instrução de inglês como língua estrangeira

Abstract

This research consists of an investigation into the retention of lexical items in memory, both short and long-term, translated into the mother tongue and into a foreign language by the learner who has English as a medium of instruction in EFL classes. To that end, two classes of English as a foreign language in the pre-intermediate level, consisting of around 50 Brazilian students, were exposed to texts in English, where the experimental group was in contact with translation, used by the teacher and found in glossaries provided during the reading. The control group did not use translation in the classroom. It was assumed that translation is often not seen as a pedagogical resource that brings long-term benefits, as it is speculated that by using such a resource in reading texts, the retention of translated vocabulary is much lower if compared to non-translated. Methodologically, this study is characterized by being quasi-quantitative and quasi-experimental and based mainly on lexical teaching proposals (HULSTIJN, 1992; SCHMITT, 2000) in vocabulary recognition and retention test models (NATION, 2007); the use of translation in foreign language learning (RICHARDS; RODGERS, 1993: RIDD, 2000), the communicative approach (WILKINS, 1976) and use of a glossary as an aid to retention (LEFFA, 1991). We found that in text 01 the proportion of recognized lexical items has a minimal difference both in the immediate and delayed post-test of the two groups, showing that the help of the glossary in the mother tongue did not provide a greater lexical retention for the participants who had this tool. In text 02, the experimental group presented a higher proportion of retention in the immediate post-test and lower in the delayed post-test, indicating that a lower number of lexical items was retained in the memory between classes (long-duration), where we conclude that the glossary was not a preponderant factor for greater retention. For the control group, text 01 showed no difference between the post-tests. But, when we compared the tests of text 02, we noticed that there was an increase in the proportion. Although we considered that all the target words had the same degree of difficulty, the results show that in the long term, both the control group and the experimental group obtained homogeneous results, maintaining the same proportion in the two tests of text 01. In text 02, there is a discrepancy between the proportions. While the control group showed a greater long-term retention, the experimental group showed a decline. The results show that there is a possibility that the target words were considered as having a greater degree of difficulty by the participants, or the evaluation instrument (delayed post-test) may not have been the most adequate for the text 02.