Buchbesprechungen Rezensionsartikel 249 38 (2009) daher noch einmal nachdrücklich die Wichtigkeit der Erkenntnisse aus der Zweitspracherwerbsforschung für die Wahl realistischer Lernziele deutlich. Früher Fremdsprachenunterricht gerät sonst als ineffizient in die öffentliche Kritik. Bei Beachtung der natürlichen Erwerbsreihenfolge bei der Auswahl der Lehrinhalte könnte so der Englischunterricht in der Grundschule seine Weichenfunktion für späteres Fremdsprachenlernen in effektiverer Weise wahrnehmen. Die vorliegende leserfreundliche Arbeit markiert hiermit einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Erforschung des frühen Fremdsprachenunterrichts. R OOS gelingt es in einem mittlerweile stärker erforschten Bereich offene Fragestellungen aufzuzeigen und diese systematisch zu bearbeiten. Die theoretische Einordnung der Arbeit erfolgt in einer sorgfältigen Zusammenschau bestehender Studien und Theorien. Durch die konsequente Anwendung von Erkenntnissen aus der Zweitspracherwerbsforschung auf die Unterrichtspraxis schafft R OOS einen Analyserahmen, vor dessen Hintergrund bestimmt werden kann, welche fremdsprachlichen Leistungen Schülerinnen und Schülern nach dem ersten Lernjahr erbringen können. Bezog man sich bei der Erstellung von Lehrwerken im Hinblick auf darin verankerte Lernziele bisher auf Erfahrungswerte von Lehrern des frühen Englischunterrichts, so liefert die Arbeit von R OOS nun Belege dafür, dass man mit dem Einbezug von zweitspracherwerbstheoretischen Erkenntnissen zu einer realistischeren Einschätzung erreichbarer Lernziele gelangen kann. Braunschweig K ATHRIN L IPSKI -B UCHHOLZ Diana L EA , Jennifer B RADBERY , Richard P OOLE , Helen W ARREN (eds.): Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus. A Dictionary of Synonyms. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008, XVI + 1008 Seiten, 1 CD-ROM [£ 22.00] The Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus (OLT) is a word-field oriented (onomasiological) reference work for non-native learners which incorporates much of the organizational structure of a dictionary. Many of the short-comings of both topic-centered and alphabetical approaches to the macrostructure have been successfully overcome by means of the accompanying CD-ROM. Overall Aim and Macrostructure. The user of the OLT is pictured not just as someone who is looking for the proper word to use from among a list of expressions similar in meaning, but is explicitly understood as a non-native language learner. It is because of this that the OLT includes more than just word-field lists. Each entry is treated much as in a learner’s dictionary, viz. with information about pronunciation and pronunciation variants (where relevant - and the CD-ROM provides an auditory rendition of each word in an RP and a GenAm pronunciation); most spelling variants; grammatical and stylistic / usage information; definitions and example sentences; notes on word contrasts; opposites; and cross-references to other entries. Furthermore, in addition to the explanatory introduction, the OLT contains a section (“Thesaurus Trainer” - with a key) intended to help the novice work with this thesaurus effectively. It also includes a set of “Study Pages” and “Topic Maps and Exercises” - both also with a key. There is a separate section with a list of the pertinent entries for each of the 30 topics. Inside the front cover the user finds an overview and explanation of the microstructure of the entries. Following the index there is a list of irregular verbs, abbreviations and grammatical labels, as well as a table of phonetic symbols. Accessibility. The market for thesauruses is one that has long been fought over largely in terms of accessibility. The idea of an onomasiological reference work is fundamentally attractive, but ever since Roger’s original thesaurus (1852) lexicographers, editors, and publishers have been struggling over the “best” approach. The following short overview is intended to help place the OLT in this context. 250 Buchbesprechungen Rezensionsartikel 1 See M AWSON , C.O.S. (ed.): Roget’s International Thesaurus. N.Y.: Thomas Crowell 1922. 2 E.g. L EWIS , N.: New Roget’s Thesaurus in Dictionary Form, rev. ed. N.Y.: Putnam-Berkley 1961. 3 L ONGMAN L ANGUAGE A CTIVATOR . Harlow: Longman 1993. 4 D UTCH , R.A. (ed.): Roget’s Thesaurus. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1962. 38 (2009) The original Roget began with a division of the vocabulary of English into six major classes with numerous sections and a total of 990 headwords or topics. In such a thesaurus an index provides a guide to the topic(s) where the user can find a word whose field-mates are being looked for. We find, for example, references to lose in three senses (misplace, be defeated, and lose), nine references to collocational expressions with lose, the noun loser (with references to entries for two meanings), and a number of references to losing and to loss. Yet over the years users have found the semantic structure less than intuitive and this approach, therefore, cumbersome. Revised thesauruses with dictionary structures. The first major step away from the original structure was to adopt an alphabetical approach in the central part of the thesaurus thus dispensing with the index. This is well known from forays as early as M AWSON ’s 1911 revamping of the Roget. 1 In thesauruses in a purely dictionary form 2 the two approaches are integrated by listing all the entries in one single alphabetical list, where some are treated as semasiological entries with the expected word-field information and the others essentially as indexical entries. The word loser in L EWIS , for example, is an index-type entry and contains a reference to the word-field ATTEMPT , but is also marked n. i.e. as a noun and has two brief synonyms given, viz. “also-ran, underdog” (loser, q.v.). This entry is then followed by the word-field entry LOSS - N., which includes a list of 28 synonyms, a sub-entry “lost person, thing, or animal: stray, waif”, then the verb lose as well as be (or become) lost. Finally there are cross-references to ten synonymously related and three antonymous groupings. Note, however, that many items given in Roget, e.g. also-ran and underdog, are not entries - neither indexical nor onomasiological ones. The L ONGMAN L ANGUAGE A CTIVATOR (LLA) 3 builds on Roget’s original motivation for his thesaurus, which was to increase his powers of expression (D UTCH : vii) 4 . To this LLA adds the aim, stated in the forward, to help the non-native speaker use words “correctly and idiomatically” (LLA: F24). It is conceived of as a user-friendly thesaurus whose purposes are to help advanced level learners to produce language. This it does at the relatively high cost of lessening accessibility. There is no index, but only alphabetical entries to some 1052 “key words” with cross-references. Within the alphabetical entries there are also lists of further words with references to the key words where they are listed. As a result many of the entries are simply not directly accessible. Furthermore, the LLA very purposefully omits concrete nouns because they “present fewer, less serious problems of correct use for students” (LLA: F8). This means that our sample item lose is well represented (five major semantic sub-groupings and thirty-four multi-word expressions (collocations and phrasal verbs) while loser and loss do not show up anywhere. The new O XFORD L EARNER ’ S T HESAURUS (OLT) is organized, as its subtitle, A Dictionary of Synonyms, suggests, alphabetically, however, in a modified form. Only the “topics,” i.e. the larger semantic fields, of which there are approximately 2000, are listed in this fashion in the body of the thesaurus. In its onomasiological section the OLT uses a set of thirty topics to divide its entries into areas such as the arts, conflict, describing events, health, law and justice, etc. But in order to access all the approximately 17,000 entries, it is necessary to turn to the eighty-two page index. The verb lose and the nouns loss and loser can be found there with references to the alphabetical part. The references in the index indicate semantically different word fields (four for lose, two each for loser and loss) as well as to collocations, phrasal verbs, and fixed expressions (lose heart, lose hope; lose your temper; lose out, at a loss, loss-making). But this only works if the words we are looking for Buchbesprechungen Rezensionsartikel 251 5 D ELBRIDGE , A. [et al.] (eds.): M ACQUARIE . A USTRALIA ’ S N ATIONAL D ICTIONARY , 3 rd edition. Macquarie : Macquarie University 1997. 6 M ERRIAM -W EBSTER ’ S C OLLEGIATE D ICTIONARY , 10 th edition. Springfield: Merriam-Webster 2001. 38 (2009) are head-words in an entry. In the case of loser we find runner-up, also-ran, failure, incompetent, has-been, no-hoper, underachiever, disappointment, and disaster, but the item underdog, for instance, is missing. Usefulness. The reduced number of words in the OLT is typical of learners’ resources, but this is compensated for by avoiding the distinct disadvantage of (traditional) thesauruses for the inexperienced learner, namely the fact that they do not give definitions or examples of contextual usage. In order to increase its usefulness the OLT offers an eight-page “Thesaurus Trainer” (plus key) and a thirty-page section with study pages and topic maps and exercises (also with a key). The exercises have a relatively great amount of diversity, but clearly those which require the user to check actual entries in the OLT are the most useful. All the same, some of the exercises may cause confusion. In exercise B on arts and entertainment (p. 873), for instance, learners are asked to find ten pairs of synonyms in a list of twenty words. The word score (in the sense of a musical score) is supposed to be paired with lyrics (see key, p. 914): but not only are the two not synonymous (nor are many of the further pairs of “synonyms”), finding the necessary information is difficult as well: the entry under score includes only game and test scores without a cross-reference to musical scores. Here only the index, which gives both is adequate. It is this lack of cross-references which makes the exercise potentially confusing. Another example of potential confusion is when the appropriate synonym group for “sharp flavour” is supposed to be picked out in the thesaurus (part of the “Thesaurus Trainer” on p. ix). According to the key the correct answer is the entry “sharp: BITTER 1 (a sharp taste)” (913). What is misleading here is the association of sharp with bitter. This seems to be a meaning restricted to the UK - at least it is not given in the M ACQUARIE for Australia 5 nor in M ERRIAM -W EBSTER ’ S C OLLEGIATE D ICTIONARY for the U.S.A. 6 (cf. sharp, q.v.) - but there is no indication of this. The CD-ROM is the great plus point of the OLT; it not only makes the accessing of words easier; it also allows users to hide or open some types of material (collocations, for example). Working with a split screen makes it possible to access two different parts of an entry (or two different entries) at the same time. Supplementary material is also available, including further example sentences and further short exercises. Users can type in their own notes or translations in their native language. They can even create their own topics. Material can be cut and pasted, and much of it can be printed out in PDF-format. The CD-ROM provides an Internet link, but since the user ends up with pages identical to those in the printed version, the advantage of the link is somewhat questionable. There are, however, some added features on the CD itself which are potentially interesting, for example crossword puzzles, which can be solved best by using the OLT. A weak point here is that finding the solution is easiest if the user merely counts the letters needed and chooses the solution in this way rather than on the basis of meaning distinctions between the items. The following examples, in which the meaning distinctions are not particularly salient, illustrate how this looks, cf. “a person who buys goods or uses services” (= consumer, 8 letters) vs. “a person who actually uses a product rather than one who makes it or sells it …” (= enduser, 7) vs. “a person who buys goods from a shop” (= shopper, 7) vs. “a person who buys sth, especially sth expensive” (= buyer, 5) vs. “(formal, esp written) a person who buys sth, especially sth expensive” (= purchaser, 9). Another game format is to find matching pairs using face-down cards as in a memory game. This is relatively longwinded for the results it brings, namely recognizing that, for example, bestseller and hit (when 252 Buchbesprechungen Rezensionsartikel 1 Siehe auch Michael L EGUTKE : „Projekt Airport - Revisited: Von der Aufgabe zum Szenario“. In: Almut K ÜPPERS / Jürgen Q UETZ (Hrsg.): Motivation Revisited. Festschrift für Gert Solmecke. Berlin: LIT Verlag 2006, 71-80. 2 Gulbahar H. B ECKETT / Tammy S LATER : „The Project Framework: A Tool for Language, Content, and Skills Integration“. In: English Language Teaching Journal 59.2 (2005), 108-116; Michael S CHART : Projektunterricht - subjektiv betrachtet. Eine qualitative Studie mit Lehrenden für Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Hohengehren: Schneider 2003. 38 (2009) finally found) form a (somewhat questionable) pair. A further format requires the player to find the words hidden in a 16-by-16-letter maze, which turns out to be a test less of word power than of visual-perceptual acuity. The games all run against a timer (which as far as I can see cannot be changed). Evaluation. The OLT is clearly a major advance in the field of reference books for the nonnative language learner. The CD-ROM overcomes many of the traditional difficulties of accessibility in thesauruses, and the exercises and games make a noble attempt at increasing the usability of the OLT. This learner’s thesaurus no doubt shows the way developments in this area should proceed. Bielefeld S TEPHAN G RAMLEY Sabine H OFFMANN : Fremdsprachenlernprozesse in der Projektarbeit. Tübingen: Narr 2008 (Giessener Beiträge zur Fremdsprachendidaktik), 296 Seiten [39,- €] Die alte didaktische Idee, fremdsprachliches Lernen in Projektform zu organisieren, hat in den letzten Jahren eine erstaunliche Renaissance erfahren. Zum einen ist das auf die rasanten Entwicklungen bei den digitalen Medien zurückzuführen, von denen starke Impulse für die Neugestaltung des Fremdsprachenunterrichts ausgingen. Zum anderen muss die erneute Zuwendung zum Projektunterricht in einem engen Zusammenhang mit dem seit den 90er Jahren stetig wachsenden Interesse an aufgabenorientierten und inhaltsorientierten Unterrichtsformen gesehen werden. 1 Die Folge ist eine fast unüberschaubare Zahl an Veröffentlichungen, die erfolgreiche Unterrichtsprojekte erzählend beschreiben und damit zur Nachahmung inspirieren. Ihnen steht ein ebenso anschaulicher Fundus an Arbeiten gegenüber, die sich theoretisch mit Projekten beschäftigen, diese typologisieren, idealtypische Abläufe konstruieren oder Lerneffekte prognostizieren. Beide Wege der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Projektunterricht haben zweifellos ihre Berechtigung, doch bleibt ein für das Verständnis dieser Unterrichtsform zentraler Aspekt durch diese Herangehensweisen unberührt: die Frage nämlich, was genau passiert, wenn Lernende allein oder gemeinsam mit anderen jene Freiräume zu füllen beginnen, die ihnen in Projekten gewährt werden. Es fehlt also der empirische Zugang zum Gegenstand „Projektunterricht“, die systematische Beobachtung der Vorgänge, die diese Unterrichtsform in unterschiedlichen Kontexten provoziert, und die Reflexion der unterschiedlichen Wahrnehmungen aller Beteiligten. Bislang finden sich sowohl im englischsprachigen als auch im deutschsprachigen Raum allenfalls erste Bemühungen, diese offensichtliche Lücke zu schließen. Dabei handelt es sich jedoch vor allem um Studien, die sich mit den subjektiven Theorien der Lehrenden zu den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Lernens in Projekten befassen und daher gleichsam nur die Schwelle zur unterrichtlichen Praxis erreichen 2 . Es ist deshalb ein großes Verdienst von Sabine H OFFMANN , dass sie mit ihrer Studie den nächsten Schritt unternimmt und sich in das Unterrichtsgeschehen selbst begibt. Über ein ganzes