Construction de compétences lexicales en e‑tandem : une étude pour l’apprentissage de l’allemand

Abstract

Working in tandem by exchanging electronic messages with a native speaker promotes the development of language production skills in the foreign language. Three spheres are involved: motivating the learner through an amicable, free and cooperative exchange; acquisition of authentic lexical units; the personal construction of lexical knowledge and skills. The aim of this article is to show the results of an experiment organized during the 2002/2003 and 2003/2004 school years with students of the language center at the Université Lumière in Lyon (France). We will explain different lexical learning strategies that can be utilized, and we will mention those that were effectively used by our students for the comprehension of the tandem partner’s message and for the production of an answer in the target language. We did find that the e-tandem method has limitations, which require closer guidance of the learners by the language teacher.

Keywords

• motivation
• learning strategies
• tandem learning vocabulary acquisition