Vocabulary size and vocabulary profiles of students

1
Session 2

• Vocabulary size and vocabulary profiles of
  students
• An indicator of proficiency level
• Word frequencies
• Which words are most frequently used in the
  English language?
• What kind of words should learners focus on?
• Word lists
• Computer applications for assessing and learning
  vocabulary

2
Warming Up
Number of words in the English language
Number of words a university-educated native English speaker knows
Number of words that you know
Vocabulary size needed for basic communication (i.e., to express what one wants to express, however simply)
Vocabulary size needed for reading (understanding any written text)
Can you think of a good way to measure peoples
vocab sizes?
3
New curriculum proposed by EDB
Key Stage (KS) Stage target (no. of word families) Cumulative target (no. of word families)
KS1 (Pri 3)
KS2 (Pri 6)
KS3 (Sec 3)
KS4 (Sec 6)
4
How many words do you know?(Measuring vocab size)

• Rough estimate of vocab size (by Goulden, Nation
  Read, 1990)
• see Schmitt, 2000, pp.7-8 for a more
  sophisticated version of this test
• Paul Nations Vocabulary Levels Test
• measures number of words that are known at
  various levels of frequency
• How can you interpret your score?

5
Number of words in the English language 1 to 2 million words Goulden, Nation Read (1990) estimated that Websters Third International Dictionary (published in 1961) contained around 267,000 entries and 54,000 word families. The latest edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, unabridged, published in 2000, is believed to contain over 472,000 entries.
Number of words a university-educated native English speaker knows 20,000 word families
Vocabulary size needed for basic communication (i.e., to express what one wants to express, however simply) 2,000 most frequent words Wests (1953) General Service List 95 coverage of informal spoken English (but only 80 coverage of written English)
Vocabulary size needed for reading (understanding any written text) Students need to know 95-98 of the words in a text in order to understand the text (5,000 words about 90 coverage, depending on the kind of text being read)
6
New curriculum proposed by EDB
Key Stage (KS) Stage target Cumulative target
KS1 (Pri 3) 1000 1000
KS2 (Pri 6) 1000 2000
KS3 (Sec 3) 1500 3500
KS4 (Sec 6) 1500 5000
7

Source Carroll, Davies Richman, 1971 (as cited
in Nation, 2001)
8
Recommended sequence for learners

• First 2,000 words
• 80 of text coverage
• First 2,000 words AWL
• 90 of text coverage of a text that a student
  would typically read
• First 2,000 words AWL Technical vocab
• 95 of text coverage of a text that a student
  would typically read
• First 2,000 words AWL Technical vocab most
  frequently used prefixes, roots and suffixes

9
Strategies for learning words of different
frequency levels
5,000 Word Level (general vocabulary)
Training at guessing words in context
Wide general reading novels, newspapers and magazines
Intensive reading of a variety of texts
Advanced English Vocabulary workbooks
University Word Level (specialised academic vocabulary)
Learn the words on the University Word List (Nation 1990) and Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000)
Intensive reading of university texts
10,000 Word Level (a wide, general vocabulary)
Activities similar to the 5,000 word level,
combined with learning prefixes and roots
10
What do you think are the ten most frequently
used words in English?
10 most frequently used words
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11
Frequency lists

• West (1953)s GSL (2000 words)
• How to make reading tests more comprehensible for
  learners
• Replacing difficult vocabulary with the GSL
  words, selected according to
• Frequency
• Universality
• Range
• Usefulness

12
Discussion (p. 9) Other than frequency, what
criteria can we use in selecting words for
learners?
13
Other than frequency???

• Relevance to Ss immediate and future needs
• Usefulness
• Frequently used (frequency)
• Used in a wide range of topics/domains (have a
  wide range)
• Related to the personal experience (relevance to
  learners)
• Combinability (collocation) and word formation
• Blondegirl/ Risingprices/Torrentialrain
• Words made up of some familiar word parts
  (prefixes, roots, suffixes)

14
Local SituationSources of input for the EMB
wordlists

• Words taken from
• General Service List (GSL)
• Most frequent words in British National Corpus
  (BNC)
• Academic Word List (AWL)
• Teacher representatives then further selected
  words based on their judgment according to
• themes recommended in the Governments Curriculum
  Guides
• vocabulary content of approved textbooks
• other guidelines set by the research team (e.g.
  whether words are used in Hong Kong, ease for
  learning, etc.)

15
Sources for vocabulary lists

• GSL
• Classic list of
• most frequent 2000 words
• GENERAL words
• BNC
• 100 million word collection
• from written and spoken texts
• AWL ACADEMIC words
• 570 words that occur frequently
• in academic texts across disciplines

16
(No Transcript)
17
Discussion

• What are the benefits of using word lists (such
  as GSL, AWL)?
• To design a curriculum
• To decide which texts to use with students
• To decide which words in a text would cause
  difficulty to students

18
Tom Cobbs Compleat Lexical Tutor
(http//www.lextutor.ca/)

• Test (to get receptive and productive tests of
  various word levels)
• List_Learn (to learn words at various levels with
  an online concordancer and dictionary to get
  lists of words from 1k to 20k level and AWL and
  UWL)
• Vocab Profiler (to see the vocab profile of ones
  writing / to predict readability of a text for
  learners)
• of words at 2000 word level
• of academic words
• of words from beyond the most frequent 2000
• type-token ratio
• Corpus-based Range checks whether a word is used
  more frequently in spoken or written English in
  the Brown Corpus. It also checks the range of a
  word in any of the 15 sub-corpora of the Brown
  Corpus, i.e. in which and how many of the 15
  sub-corpora a word can be found. The sub-corpora
  cover a wide range of domains such as press,
  academic, and fiction.
• Text-based Range allows you to upload up to 25
  texts of your own and check the range and
  frequency of a word in these 25 texts.

19
Type and Token

• How many types are there in the following
  sentence?
• How many tokens (running words) are there in the
  following sentence?
• We need a vocabulary to talk about vocabulary.

20
Type-Token Ratio (also called Lexical Richness
or Lexical Density)

• How many types and tokens do you see here?
• Watch out! I said watch out!
• 4 types
• 6 tokens / running words
• Type-token ratio 4/6 (0.67)

21
Text written by a local HK 12-year

• I have a rubber, an old, small rubber. Although
  it is so small that I can not use it anymore, I
  still keep it carefully in my drawer as it is so
  important for me.
• That is a long, long time that I have my
  rubber. Four years ago, when I was still an
  eight-years-old child, my parents bought me a
  rubber as my birthday present. I put it into my
  pencil-box and brought it to school everyday.
• We had an interesting game in the past. We
  used our rubber to play with in the game. We
  pushed our rubber one by one and tried not to be
  pushed out at the desk by another rubber. We
  pushed and pulled our rubbers, soon our rubbers
  became older and smaller one day than one day.
• Source Arthur McNeills (2004)

22
VocabProfile of a students text
First 1000 words Second 1000 words Academic words (AWL) Off-list words (Less frequent words)
88 12 0 0

• 75 types /137 tokens 0.55

23
Examples from Hong Kong sample

• Repetition of key words (need for lexical
  substitution synonyms, superordinates /
  hyponyms, and pronoun substitution)
• The need for lexical enrichment (adjectives and
  adverbs)

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Substitutes for rubber

• It (pronoun)
• One (pronoun)
• Eraser (synonym)
• Item of stationery (superordinate)
• Tool? (superordinate)

25

• I have a rubber, an old, small one. Although it
  is so small that I can not use it anymore, I
  still keep it carefully in my drawer as it is so
  important for me.
• That is a long, long time that I have my
  favourite chosen possession. Four years ago, when
  I was still an eight-years-old child, my parents
  bought it for me as my birthday present. I put it
  into my pencil-box and brought it to school
  everyday.
• We had an interesting game in the past. We
  used our eraser to play with in the game. We
  pushed our stationery one by one and tried not to
  be pushed out at the desk by another opponent. We
  pushed and pulled our weapons, soon our rubbers
  became older and smaller one day than one day.

26
Text written by a local HK 16-year old under exam
conditions

• Many students strive for academic excellency,
  but what is the motivation behind their hardwork?
  In this essay, I am going to explore the
  different aspects of learning, and analyse the
  pros and cons of each motivating factor.
• The hunger for knowledge and wisdom can
  motivate students to learn. They hope to widen
  their horizons through reading, watching
  educational programs, travelling and other ways.
  To them, the world is a fascinating place, full
  of wonders and mysteries to unravel. Their love
  of learning motivates them to seek knowledge in
  all areas, from science and mathematics to arts.
• Source McNeills (2004)

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VocabProfile of a students text
First 1000 words Second 1000 words Academic words (AWL) Off-list words (Less frequent words)
73 6 10.5 10.5

• 69 types / 96 tokens 0.72

28
Lexical enrichment

• I was sweating. Ms Ip neared my table and put
  the exam paper in front of me. I closed my eyes
  and opened them a fraction of an inch. There, on
  top of the paper, was a 33. My heart sank. Then
  my teacher took away the paper and put another
  one in front of me. I took it and saw an 88 in
  the mark box. The first paper belonged to my
  neighbor, Sally.

29
Lexical enrichment

• I was sweating adv. Ms Ip neared my table
  adv and put the adj exam paper in front of
  me. I adv closed my eyes and adv opened them
  a fraction of an inch. There, on top of the
  adj paper, was a 33. My heart sank adv. Then
  my teacher adv took away the paper and put
  another one in front of me. I adv took it and
  saw an 88 in the mark box. ??? The first paper
  belonged to my neighbor, Sally.

30
Local research on vocabulary size and vocabulary
knowledge

• Littlewood Liu (1996)
• 40 first-year HKU/CUHK students
• knew around 3,500 words
• Barber (1999, as cited in Fan, 2001)
• found a positive correlation between students
  vocabulary knowledge and their HKCEE results
• Cobb Horst (2000) post session reading
• CityU students knew the most basic 2000 words
  also performed well at 3000-word level
• But low scores on UWL level
• Vocabulary growth over a period of 6 months No
• Fan (2001) post session reading
• Vocabulary scores positively correlate with
  language proficiency
• Students from Chinese-medium schools and those
  with E in HKAL need help with vocabulary