A Study of Children‟s Characteristics in Written and Vocabulary

This paper examines children‟s characteristics in relation to their vocabulary acquisition process in the foreign language. The present study analyzes the vocabulary produced in written compositions students in primary education. The main semantic fields used by them are identified and analyzed taking into account their characteristics. The field of leisure and games was found to be the most recurrent, followed by the fields of school, home and family. Their lexical errors are also analyzed, showing that misspellings, omissions, borrowings and substitutions are the most frequent. The process of vocabulary acquisition and teaching takes a special character when young learners are the recipients of the instruction. The particular cognitive stage of children learning a foreign language influences their use and acquisition of vocabulary. Examination of the lexical errors produced by these young learners provides us with an insight into that vocabulary acquisition process and reveals what areas of the foreign language lexis do young learners have problems with when writing in English.