Vocabulary Acquisition through Thesaurus Modelling within ESP Course for Engineering Students

Abstract

The paper is intended to reveal positive experience of applying a newly-elaborated thesaurus modelling technology which represents an effective tool of engineering pedagogy process involving comprehensive learning of the professional vocabulary. The participants of the research were second-year engineering students of the mineral resources specializations in St. Petersburg Mining University. Conventional-based way of learning English professional terminology and vocabulary acquisition through thesaurus modelling within ESP course were used in control and experimental groups accordingly during the academic year of 2022-2023 which entails writing assignments accomplishment and final essay assessment. The gathered data were manually put into the SPSS software and analyzed statistically with the chi-square test output with identification of p-value.The purpose of the study was to determine what impact thesaurus modelling technology has on the mastering of such general competences as communication, project development and implementation, teamwork and leadership, critical thinking, self-regulation while teaching professional vocabulary to engineering students within ESP course. The results of the final essay assessment as well as the results of the general competences questionnaire proved to be statistically effective and revealed uneven distribution. The interpretation of the results showed that although communication skills and self-regulation capacity have been mastered almost equally by students of both groups, other general competences as project development and implementation, teamwork and leadership have been developed by the experimental group much more profoundly than the control group.