Vocabulary activities in the English for psychological studies classroom: a student-centred approach

To improve their English language proficiency, students in Psychology need a solid knowledge of specific vocabulary, as they consider lexical lapses as big frustrations. The purpose of this research is to present some important aspects of vocabulary teaching, as well as introduce teachers of ESP to practical vocabulary activities (Folse 2011). In particular, we will refer to single words, set phrases, variable phrases, phrasal verbs, and idioms (all referring to the semantic field of psychology) that require learners to retrieve the forms and meanings of the new words in addition to the identification and development of a personalized repertoire of specific preferred strategies for vocabulary learning. The approach based on the concept of studentcentredness seems to be the main basic principle of English language teaching, followed by the concept of flexibility, i.e. taking into account the fact that there is no standard student in Higher Education (Martin and Ellis 2012). We found the literature on the concept of student-centredness rather controversial, but mainly focusing on coaching the student towards the development of attitudes, skills and behaviours as a learner, decision maker, and community participant, with success measured in terms of learner outcomes. (Bliss 2006, Melander 2002).