Hacia un análisis comparativo del léxico disponible en el centro de interés "Educación" en lengua materna y lengua extranjera del profesorado de español en formación inicial en Portugal

Abstract

A growing line of research has recently been consolidating around lexical availability in pre-service teachers, both in their mother tongue and in foreign languages. However, studies remain scarce, particularly in Portugal. To contribute to this field, we present the results of a comparative analysis of the lexical availability of 18 second-year students enrolled in the Master's Degree in Spanish Teacher Training at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto (n=9) and the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon (n=9). In line with previous studies carried out in the same geographical context and following the standard methodology in lexical-availability research, data were elicited in Portuguese (native language) and Spanish (foreign language) using five pedagogical-didactic semantic prompts. For comparability with previous work, this paper adopts a mixed-methods perspective but analyses only the prompt "Education" (both in Portuguese and in Spanish). The results reveal quantitative differences in the vocabulary produced by the two groups in both languages, as well as points of convergence at a qualitative level and a high lexical availability index for the semantic prompt analysed. Although limited in scope, these findings highlight the importance of initial teacher education in shaping the specialised lexical repertoire of the pre-service teachers surveyed.