Acquiring Proficiency in Using Naval English Terminology: Strategizing the Process of Teaching and Learning Esp Vocabulary for the Naval Academy Military Students

Abstract

The present paper reports on the findings of the research project entitled "Contextualizing Naval Lexical Content: A Research into the Ways and Means of Facilitating the Acquisition of Specialized Terminology by Naval Students", conducted at "Mircea cel Batran" Naval Academy, Constanta, between 2015 and 2016. The project aimed at identifying a series of efficient teaching strategies, means and materials which could be proven through piloting to enhance our naval students' retention, internalization and generative use of specialized vocabulary in work-related communication. The main phases of the research project included designing a set of surveying instruments in order to explore the present teaching and learning situation with its strengths, weaknesses and needs, followed by the production and piloting of a collection of teaching materials and finally the interpretation of the teacher and student feedback data in view to future material design. The research hypothesis was that the process of acquiring specialized vocabulary and developing general communicative competences might be optimized through an explicit and deliberate connection made between the lexical content and the assigned learning tasks, on the one hand, and the linguistic requirements of the occupational context, on the other. The underlying research assumption on which this project was based was that any ESP course needs to reflect the learners' profile and linguistic needs as much as possible. The more these needs are met and reflected in the choice of materials and procedures, the more successful the teaching and learning process is. In addition, it was anticipated and verified in the piloting stage, that the more aware of explicit learning strategies the learners were, the more efficient they were in their leaning efforts.