Learner’s dictionaries and mother tongue teaching

Abstract

A dictionary represents a privileged source of learning about a language, but its use is not widespread in school environment. This is due mainly to the fact that Lexicography is not included in the training of Brazilian teachers, turning the dictionary into an unknown object, despite its large importance as a teaching tool. It should be underscored that an abridged dictionary is not synonymous with a learner’s dictionary, given that there are specific works for teaching purposes. It is duty of a teacher to choose a dictionary that suits his/her teaching projects, because dictionaries differ from each other. The relationships between the type of dictionary and its adequacy to teaching levels and projects, as well as the output from its use, determine a new field of study that makes its way into Linguistics – the so-called learner’s or Pedagogical Lexicography – whose principles and development underlie the aims of this paper.