“Mircea cel Batran” Naval Academy Scientific Bulletin, Volume XIX – 2016 – Issue 1 Published by “Mircea cel Batran” Naval Academy Press, Constanta, Romania // The journal is indexed in: PROQUEST / DOAJ / DRJI / JOURNAL INDEX / I2OR / SCIENCE LIBRARY INDEX / Google Scholar / Crossref / Academic Keys / ROAD Open Access / OAJI / Academic Resources / Scientific Indexing Services / SCIPIO 445 DOI: 10.21279/1454-864X-16-I1-075 © 2015. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. FOCUS ON THE USE OF A MARITIME ENGLISH VISUAL DICTIONARY IN ESP CLASSES Delia LUNGU 1 Laura CIZER 2 1 Associate Professor, PhD. Department of Navigation and Maritime and River Transport, Faculty of Navigation and Management, “Mircea cel Batran” Naval Academy, Constanta, Romania 2 Lecturer, PhD. Department of Electrical Engineering and Naval Electronics, Faculty of Marine Engineering, “Mircea cel Batra”n Naval Academy, Constanta, Romania, lauracizer@yahoo.co.uk Abstract: Whether in paper or online formats, dictionaries are more than just collections of words, and used properly, they could lead towards the development of learners’ autonomy. Once students are taught how to use them effectively, there are hundreds of hours of self-guided study. Dictionaries can constitute an ideal way of enriching students’ vocabulary due to the fact that they generate an extremely varied collection of communicative activities, ranging from basic dictionary use to vocabulary and reading skills. This paper aims to put forward 10 dictionary activities tapping an in-house material (the Online Maritime English Visual Dictionary) as an effective means of boosting students’ specialist vocabulary. Keywords: online dictionary, Maritime English, language skills, materials development INTRODUCTION Why using a visual dictionary? The visual online dictionary is an interactive dictionary with pictures offering an innovative approach for learning the meanings of words. It is an all-in-one reference book in which the picture of a word can be quickly located. It provides an easy and accessible way of learning words, turning it thus into an ideal tool both for teachers and students. Nowadays, dictionary software is also available in PDAs format that can be easily downloaded on computers. Not only on computers can dictionary software be downloaded, but also on mobiles, thus making them accessible anywhere and at any point of an hour. There are numerous advantages of online dictionaries in general, and of visual dictionaries in particular. Firstly, they provide complete search regarding definitions, pronunciation, spelling, thesaurus entries and etymology results for any word. The online dictionary can be browsed alphabetically or by the terms related to the word to find the exact meanings and synonyms of the word. Secondly, they are very user-friendly and convenient to use. By simply entering the word in the search box, one will be automatically directed to the word they are looking up. It is not even necessary to type in the entire word, the very first letters will do the rest and all words beginning with those specific letters will be displayed and thus, the researcher will be able to choose the word they are looking for. This can be extremely useful especially when one has doubts about the spelling of a certain word. Having a picture displayed next to the searched word will automatically eliminate any ambiguity as to the meaning of that specific word. METHOD The dictionary-based activities devised by the authors of this paper are as follows: 1. Icebreaker (I): What is your priority? 2. Icebreaker (II): Finish off the sentence 3. Developing dictionary skills 4. How do you spell that? 5. Explain that word! 6. Maritime wordsearches 7. Fishing for syllables 8. True or False? 9. Question grid 10. Phonemic contest The format that each activity follows includes: (1) a brief description that gives a general idea of the activity itself, (2) the level the activity is suitable for, (3) an indication of the time the activity requires, (4) its aim, (5) type of activity (pair or group work, group size), (6) preparation (any material that should be previously prepared), (7) procedure (how to carry out the activity), and (8) remarks (difficulties or other points of general interest that may occasionally occur are pointed out under this heading). The dictionary can be found at this (temporary) address [1]. 1. Icebreaker (I): What is your priority?