VOCABULARY INPUT IN ESL TEXTBOOKS: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS

Muthyala Udaya

Abstract


Although textbooks are a major source in language learning, few research studies explored to what extent vocabulary input in ESL textbooks supports English language learning. The present study compares the vocabulary input of two English textbooks prescribed for Indian university undergraduate students. A corpus is constructed using online software based on the words in the textbooks. Comparison of frequency against different corpora reveals the differences in the order of words. The results are discussed both from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. The analysis reveals that many words in the textbooks occasionally occur in common everyday language use and vocabulary selection in these textbooks demonstrates great variation in the number and selection of vocabulary. Therefore, the study confirms that the communication needs of learners are afforded greater weight than frequency criteria.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


corpus, ESL, frequency, textbook, vocabulary, wordlist

Full Text:

PDF

References


Aitchinson, J. (2012). Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Branford, W. (1967). The Elements of English. London. Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Bright, J. A. and McGregor. G. P. (1970). Teaching English as a Second Language. London: Longman. BNC-British National Corpus.

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching languages to Young learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carter, R. (1998). Vocabulary: Applied Linguistic Perspectives. London: Routledge.

CANCODE - The Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English

CIC- Cambridge-International-Corpus

Engels, L. K. (1968). The Fallacy of Word Counts. IRAL 6(3). PP.213-32.

Hatch, E., & Brown. S. (1995). Vocabulary, Semantics, and Language Education. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Honeyfield, John G. (1987). Word Frequency and the Importance of Context in Vocabulary Learning. In Methodology in TESOL: A Book of Readings (eds) Michael H. Long and Jack C. Richards. New York: Newbury House/Harper and Row. PP. 318-24.

Kučera, H. and Francis. W. N. (1967). Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English. USA: Brown University Press.

Laufer, B. (1991). Knowing a word: What is so difficult about it? English Teachers’ Journal 42: 82-88.

McCarthy, M. (1990). Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nation, I. S. P. (1990). Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. New York: Newbury House Publishers.

Nation, I. S. P. (2006). How large a Vocabulary is needed for Reading and Listening? Canadian Modern Language Review, 63(1). PP. 59–82.

Nation, I. S. P., & Beglar, D. (2007). A vocabulary size test. The Language Teacher, 31(7). PP. 9–13.

Nation, I. S. P. (2008). Teaching vocabulary: Strategies and techniques. Boston, MA: Heinle Cengage Learning.

Nation, I. S. P. (2013). Learning Vocabulary in another Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Read, J. (2000). Assessing Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Read, J. (2004). Research in Teaching Vocabulary, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24. PP.146-61.

Richards, J. (1976). The Role of Vocabulary Teaching. TESOL Quarterly 10 (1): PP.77-89.

Tyler, A. (2012). Cognitive linguistics and Second language learning: Theoretical Basics and Experimental evidence. London: Routledge.

Udaya, M. (2005). Learning English vocabulary at the primary level- A frequency count of the vocabulary input in the textbooks of Andhrapradesh. Language in India. 5(10)

Verghese, C. Paul. (1989). Teaching English as a Second Language. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.

Wallace, C. (1992). Critical Literacy Awareness in the EFL Classroom. In N. Fairclough (Ed.), Critical Language Awareness (pp. 59-92). London: Longman.

Waring, R., & Takaki, M. (2003). At what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader. Reading in a Foreign Language, 15(2), PP.130–163.

West, M. (1953). A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman

Zahar, R., Cobb, T., & Spada, N. (2001). Acquiring Vocabulary through Reading: Effects of Frequency and Contextual Richness. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(4), 541–572.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v8i6.4117

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2022 Muthyala Udaya

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2015-2023. European Journal of Education Studies (ISSN 2501 - 1111) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All authors who send their manuscripts to this journal and whose articles are published on this journal retain full copyright of their articles. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).