Running Head: VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS Determining the Appropriateness of Teaching Materials: A Compleat Lexical Tutor Vocabulary Frequency

Analysis

Literature Review Vocabulary acquisition and what it means to know a word is a much-debated topic in the field of second language acquisition. Everything from whether or not vocabulary instruction should be explicit or implicit, to how many words a learner must know in order to be successful at a given level, has been researched, written about, and argued over. The current research that informs this paper in general suggests that students should focus on acquiring and retaining knowledge of the 2,000 most frequent words in English, referred to as the K1 and K2 lists. However, that mindset is beginning to change as more research is conducted with regard to most effective methods of vocabulary learning, and what a leaner must comprehend and be able to do in order to prove they know a word. According to Schmitt and Schmitt (2012), frequency has long-informed the principled selection of vocabulary in L2 teaching pedagogy (Schmitt & Schmitt, 1). Words are categorized by how frequently they occur within a text or within the discourse, and in general, it was assumed that with a working knowledge of the 2,000 most frequently used words, learners of the language would be able to understand a vast majority of the input they were exposed to in the target language. This tradition (Schmitt and Schmitt, 3) has been promoted because of being widely cited in teacher guidebooks and research publications (Schmitt and Schmitt, 3). Operating under the assumption that the 2000K word list prepares you to comprehend nearly 90% of the target language input, however, is a mistake. In their plenary speech from Alberta TESL

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS 2011, Schmitt and Schmitt explain the importance of learning and knowing words off the 2000K word list. He looks at reasons why mid- and low-frequency words are equally important for student learning, and offers insight into ways to change the thinking surrounding ways of knowing vocabulary. Schmitts argument is that learners of a language, especially when they are studying a foreign language for academic purposes, need significantly more vocabulary in order to be successful during their dayto-day interactions using the language. Looking at research from Hazenburg and Hulstijn, Schmitt reiterates their conclusion, that it took around a minimum of 10,000 base words to obtain adequate coverage (Hazenburg and Hulstijn 1996, as quoted in Schmitt and Schmitt, 2012). Prior to this claim that knowledge of a much higher number of word families is necessary for successful communicative ability, Laufer (1992) suggested some controversy regarding the issue of vocabulary size impacting language success, stating correlations between the two factors do not imply a causal relationship between them (Laufer, 129) but she also adds the results she did come to suggest that the minimal number of words constituting the lexical threshold is 3,000 (Laufer, 129; emphasis added). Laufer makes another point which more specifically supports the text Im looking into; she claims that in the reading of academic texts the reader relies heavily on the technical vocabulary of the particular discipline the text deals with, and such knowledge may compensate for general vocabulary below 3,000 word families. (Laufer 130). I am curious what level of vocabulary mastery students must meet in order to successfully comprehend a majority of the text assigned to them in a highintermediate reading class at INTO CSU.

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS Rationale I am going to be teaching IN204 at INTO CSUs academic English program over the next several weeks, and I am extremely curious about the appropriateness of the required text I will be teaching. I have never taught reading to international students before, so there is a lot I dont know about their ability levels, comprehension levels, and motivation levels. I have worked with high-intermediate learners in grammar classes and listening/speaking classes, so I am at least rudimentarily familiar with their proficiency level, as it is determined by INTO CSU. Knowing what I do, 200 level reading is too early (i.e. the students proficiency level is too low) for the university to expect them to be able to read an entire full-length novel of unmodified text. At the 200 level in reading, the curriculum specifies several texts which are taught in rotation term by term. The Giver is one of them, as is The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The book I will be teaching this upcoming term is Holes, and conveniently for my purposes, I have read all three of these texts. Both The Giver and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe are fairly difficult texts in terms of ideas and plot points; everything is a metaphor for something else, and a lot of difficult analogies are drawn. Regardless of vocabulary level, I doubt that the types of students at that level whom Ive worked with have the ability to comprehend those texts. However, Holes is a slightly easier text, plot-wise, because it isnt quite as symbolic as the other two. Because I will have to use it with new students beginning next week, I would like to find out how much vocabulary knowledge theyll need in order to be successful in reading it for the purposes of promoting fluency and vocabulary acquisition.

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS Compleat Lexical Tutor Frequency Analysis When I initially ran my new corpus that is, the text file of the novel Holes through the VocabProfiler, I chose to look at the number of word types that coincide with the Academic Word List (AWL). I was shocked to see that less than one percent of the words in Holes appear on the academic word list, but then I realized that it really isnt an academic text. Its an American novel geared toward older youth and preadolescents, so in fact it does make sense that it wouldnt have many hits on the AWL. Using LexTutor I established that 0.58% of the word families in Holes appear on the academic word list, including apparently, assigned, challenge, circumstances, evidence, expand, focusing, investigation, justification, ratios, team, and violation. These words seem aptly included on the AWL, because in most cases I can think of several academic collocations they bring to mind, as well as situations in a variety of fields where I can imagine them being used. However, I was pretty surprised to see team on the academic word list; I can think of a few academic uses of team, but it seems to me that it would appear much more frequently in texts that Non-Native Speaker (NNS) students would be expected to read, and would therefore be on either the K1 or K2 word list. In terms of frequencies, between the K1 and K2 word lists, (the highest frequency words up to 2,000) 88.83% of the vocabulary words in Holes are accounted for. This is sufficient with regard to the research that argues students need closer to 90% of the words to assume true comprehension, but when we take into consideration Schmitt and Schmitts claim that actually learners may need as much as 95-98% of the most frequent word families in order to have full comprehension of a text, it is my initial belief that Holes is too advanced for students at the 200 level at INTO CSU. INTO determines

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS that students be placed in 200 level classes when they either pass the 100 level class for that specific language skill, or when they take the challenge exam essentially a pretest option of the final exam for a class. If they pass out of the 100 level class by exceling on that class challenge exam (by earning an 80% or higher score) then they get placed into the 200 level class. INTO deems 200-level students to be at a highintermediate proficiency level. At that level, this particular institution focuses on vocabulary instruction related to the K, K2, and academic word lists, but when I have given vocabulary assessments to students at that level, many of them have done poorly. This indicates that they have not necessarily mastered those 2,000 most frequent words, and more than 10 % of the words in Holes are lower frequency than that. A few examples from the 3K word list include confess, deserve, failure, kidding, movie, stomach, throat, and tongue (I would have expected body parts to be much more frequent words), and even translate! On the 4K word list, I found abandon, distract, girlfriend, and innocent. I was surprised that some of these words were needed at this level, but I am beginning to see how a 2K word list mastery doesnt necessarily lend itself to comprehension of any given text. Knowledge of the words on each subsequently less frequent set of 1,000 words means that knowing vocabulary from the K3 and K4 word lists increases comprehensibility to 93% then 94% respectively, followed by 95% comprehensibility at the K8 word list, and 96% comprehensibility from the K11 to K20 word lists. A few word families from each of these lists include, comprehend and stranded (K7), barefoot, precipice, and writhe (K11), and burlap and callous (K20). These words are really infrequent in every day speech, and I can see why theyre in the higher frequency bands. When curriculum supervisors at INTO evaluated Holes as a potential text to include in the curriculum for the high-intermediate reading class, they

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS likely made the decision that those higher-frequency words were not so important to comprehending the text that they made Holes an unsuitable choice. It is prudent to analyze a text for its word families in order to ensure that the best text is chosen to fit students abilities and proficiency level.

Compleat Lexical Tutor Collocations I chose to search collocations for some of the low frequency words I found, but using ones that occurred a minimum of three times. For example, with the word advise, I found that it collocated each time with the 1st person personal pronoun I on the left, and the 2nd person personal pronoun you on the right. Concordance line 1532 reads I advise you not to open your suitcase, concordance line 1533 reads I advise you not to say anything. The third concordance line with advise takes the past tense: Id advise you to make sure I dont hear it again. I also searched collocations for the verb bet, and it collocated strongly with the first person personal pronoun I as well. The concordance lines read I bet she, I bet she, I bet we, and I bet you. It is used as a transitive verb in each case, where it requires that the speaker/user is guessing or betting on something that will happen. Next I looked at the collocations for the progressive verb drinking. In 3 of the 6 tokens where drinking appeared, it collocated with nouns describing liquid; for instance, drinking a cup of coffee, drinking from a bottle of whiskey, and drinking the last drop [presumably of some type of liquid]. In two of the other cases, it collocates with a conjunction, so. I am drinking so you will, which

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS interestingly enough occurs twice in the novel. In the final concordance line, drinking is a noun modifier, drinking glasses, rather than a progressive verb. This reminds me that corpus-based activities can be an extremely beneficial way for students to look at authentic language use and attempt to deduce patterns and rules form the context of the words. For my fourth word family, I searched expect. Expect had three tokens, two of which collocated on the left with a negative marker, and the last of which collocated with the personal pronoun I. The first two concordance lines read, didnt expect them to, and he didnt expect to find anything anyway. The third concordance line reads, I expect you to do it without questioning my authority. I think of the verb expect in terms of academics, because it comes up a lot on my syllabi, and students always ask questions about it. I always find it difficult to provide a synonym for expect that Im satisfied with, and I wonder if searching for collocations would help students deduce the meaning from context. I chose to look at a word other than a verb for my fifth grouping of collocations; fingernails, which occurs four times in this text. Two of the four collocates are adjectives, her fingernails were painted dark red and her red fingernails. Another instance collocates with a verb: she examined her fingernails and said, and finally there is a collocation with a preposition, especially under his fingernails. In terms of comprehending the meaning of the text, I dont believe fingernails is a particularly important word. However, it does come up as a symbol, and one of the learning outcomes for students in this particular class and level is that they can identify key components of fiction such as symbols and themes.

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS Finally, I looked at the word hidden, which occurs four times in the text. no longer visible, hidden behind the glare of the sun which is a verb in the perfect aspect. Next I saw he had looked for a hidden camera in the shower, which is an adjectival use. In a similar use, the next concordance line reads, shes got hidden microphones and cameras, and finally, another verb use: tell me where youve hidden your loot. This is interesting, because when you start looking at words that should be (in my mind, when I first think of them off the top of my head,) straightforward, I would have taught my students hidden as a basic adjective. However, after looking at the concordance lines, I realize there are more complex ways to use that word, and I think that inherent complexity in and of itself can lead students to be more confused.

Ways to Modify the Target Text While some of the vocabulary in Holes occurs less frequently than the top 2,00 words in English, and much of the text may be difficult for students at this level to comprehend, the main purpose of the class is to increase reading fluency and build vocabulary. There is some debate as to whether extensive reading is an effective method for vocabulary acquisition, but presumably reading a text with vocabulary on the higher end of the range of words students know will push them to learn. If for some reason Holes is not working in the curriculum, or students are gaining any new vocabulary or any additional language fluency, then there are a few ways to modify the curriculum for intermediate reading that will allow students to be more successful. Full-length novels do not have to be taught to intermediate students at all, and INTO

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS teachers could use short stories, high-interest articles, or perhaps newspaper clippings about current and world news instead. Also, based on my own informal questions, I dont think students at INTO read much in their native languages novels for pleasure at any rate so asking them to read a novel in their L2 might be more difficult when it isnt an activity theyre used to, regardless of the language. If INTO curriculum developers do not want to change the curriculum that drastically, it would be prudent to choose a different, lower level novel (in terms of vocabulary inclusion and how much of the multiple word lists students need to know,) in place of Holes. I have mentioned that there are other texts implemented in intermediate reading here at INTO, and having not analyzed those texts specifically I cannot speak to their appropriateness. However, the final feasible suggestion is to scrutinize the text, preferably with the AWL and K1 and K2 word lists available for comparative purposes, so that the text can be modified and adapted to serve the needs of students who are utilizing them for language learning. Adapting the text to better suit the level of the students, while still maintaining enough challenging vocabulary to push them to improve, will make them feel more accomplished, and will make our classes more successful.

VOCABULARY FREQUENCY ANALYSIS References Laufer, B. (1992). How much lexis is necessary for reading comprehension? Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics, 126-132. http://www.savingthewahyanites.net/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/Laufer-1992HowMuchLexisIsNecessaryForReadingComprehension.pdf Schmitt, N. and Schmitt, D. (2012). A reassessment of frequency and vocabulary size in L2 teaching. Cambridge Journals, 1-20. Cambridge University Press. (Plenary Speech) Retrieved from https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/15168578/plenary-speech

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