The difficulty of learning spcialized vocabulary at school: a focus on opaque verbs ; La difficulté d’apprentissage du vocabulaire de spécialité à l’école : le cas des verbes opaques

International audience ; Considering academic results at the start of secondary school, learning vocabulary at school is a major challenge for mastering a language (MEN, 2018). Specialized texts present at the school curriculum (history, geography, science.) contain "difficult" (Plane, 2004), opaque (polysemous) words that entail reading comprehension difficulties. Among them, verbs are "victims of a great dearth" (Picoche, 1999) and "the investigation of their constructions is very underdeveloped" (Nonnon, 2012).As a result, we investigated opaque verbs found in some history and science textbooks (middle school level), intended for pupils aged 9 to 11. We have selected 20 (cf. 'renverser' or 'lever' in history, 'entraîner' or 'développer' in science) whose access to meaning requires the use of various strategies and we submitted our selection to young students to check the opacity.Our aim is to raise teachers' awareness of the specific uses of these opaque verbs in specialized texts. Above all, it's a question of getting students to understand "how these polysemous words circulate between their different contexts of use." (Crinon, 2011). The study will show the importance of specific classroom work on these polysemous verbs and all the benefits that students can derive from it in building their lexical competence (Sardier, 2020). ; Au vu des résultats scolaires à l’entrée au collège, l’apprentissage du vocabulaire à l’école constitue un enjeu majeur pour la maitrise de la langue (MEN, 2018). Les textes de spécialité qui font partie du curriculum scolaire (histoire, géographie, sciences…) contiennent des mots « difficiles » (Plane, 2004), opaques (polysémiques) qui sont la cause de difficultés de compréhension en lecture. Parmi eux, les verbes sont « victimes d’une grande disette » (Picoche, 1999) et « l’investigation de leurs constructions est très peu développée » (Nonnon, 2012).C’est pourquoi nous nous intéressons aux verbes opaques recueillis dans une vingtaine de textes en histoire et en sciences (niveau ...