From Meaning Construction to the Development of Learners' Lexical Competence: Toward a Didactic Framework for the School Dictionary

As a specialized reference work, the school dictionary is an essential educational resource for young learners. It helps children acquire a vocabulary repertoire made up of common and necessary words. They encounter these words in the varied and changing activities of school life. This repertoire strengthens their command of the cognitive dimension of language and provides a foundation for more specialized knowledge in later stages. Developing a core vocabulary repertoire is also central to language planning. It helps educators identify the areas of language that matter most to learners. Pedagogical lexicography must therefore move beyond arbitrary decisions. School dictionaries should be free of unnecessary jargon and hybrid linguistic usage. They should focus on functional vocabulary drawn from the learner's everyday environment. Their preparation must follow scientific criteria and a recognized linguistic framework. Entries should provide relevant phonetic, syntactic, and morphological information. Vocabulary selection must also follow a clear progression.