The purpose of this study is to present the results of an etnographic research in the area of Applied Linguistics, which investigates, with the support of Exploratory Practice (Allwright & Bailey, 1991), issues related to the use of bilingual dictionaries and pre-reading activities in the acquisition of unknown vocabulary in a foreign language. The theoretical background for the analysis was based on Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Coracini, 1995; Carter & McCarthy, 1988; Kleiman, 1989 and Kato, 1985. The corpus includes English as a foreign language lessons in a class of seven basic level adult students from a big company in Rio de Janeiro. Four lessons with different reading activities and proposed by the teacherresearcher were recorded and trascribed. Questionnaires and interviews were answered by the students. The results of this research show that the bilingual dictionary is used and considered, by the students, in different ways in this context; the pre- reading activity is considered as an important complement in the language classroom, activating students´ linguistic and world knowledge, during the reading process. The teacher-researcher´s reflection about her pedagogic and discursive practice in the classroom led her to confirm and to reformulate some of her beliefs towards reading activities, as well as to identify other factors that influence her classes, such as students´ individual conceptions and their previous experiences in relation to the foreign language learning process.