LEXICAL RICHNESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY IN TEACHER TRAINING EXPLORATORY STUDY

Abstract

Teaching a foreign language requires a holistic approach that involves teaching the instrumental language, its literature and its culture. Besides, it is important to highlight the role of education and values when it comes to teach English as a foreign language. During the second decade of the 21^st century many natural disasters have taken place worldwide and teachers should be prepared to deal with them in the English classroom. This preparedness involves scientific knowledge together with linguistic knowledge.

This exploratory study has the objective to set a first approach to the preparedness of pre-service teachers to deal with the aforementioned issues through the analysis of the lexical richness of the texts they have written on environmental issues and natural disasters. The limitations of the study are bounded to the low number of samples, but it allows to explore new ways of improving language skills and environment literacy in pre-service teachers which might help to provide future citizens with commitment on environmental issues.