ENS344M Vocabulary Acquisition:

Research and Theory

Week 1
Introduction and Chapter 1
The goals of vocabulary learning
Ásrún Jóhannsdóttir, adjunct
 What is vocabulary acquisition? Some Questions to
think about for the next few weeks
• What is vocabulary?
• What types of vocabulary are there?
• When is a word learned?
• What is the process?
• How do we acquire language?
• Is it just teaching people words?
• How do we increase vocabulary?
• How do we assess vocabulary?
• Does the same method suit everyone?
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 Terminology
• Intentional
– Intensive, deliberate studying to increase vocabulary size
• Incidental
– “Accidentally” acquiring vocabulary while focusing on
different tasks
• Breadth - size
– How many words do you know?
• Depth - scale
– How well do you know the words you know?
– Can you use them?

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 The Four Strands
• Comprehensible meaning-focused input
– Learning through information. – listening and reading
• Meaning-focused output
– Using information for writing and speaking
• Language-focused learning
– Deliberate teaching and learning
• The fluency development strand
– Deepening knowledge of previously known objects.
• How much time for each strand? In class, total course

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 The goals of vocabulary learning
• How many words?
– Frequency:
• how often words occur
– Range:
• across how many different texts does the word occur
in.

• Frequency and range are important when

building Frequency and Academic Word lists.
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 Counting words
“This is a vocabulary research manual whose primary goal is ...”
– Tokens:
• all running words including repeated words
– Types:
• all running words counted once.
– Lemmas:
• headword + inflected forms.
– Walk-ing, hunt-ed
– Word families:
• headword + inflected forms + derived forms, affixes.
they are similar in form
their meanings

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 How many words ...?
• ... In a language?
• ... Does a native speaker know?
• ... Do you need to use another language?
– English:
• 3000-4000 = 95% coverage (12-15000 types)
• 6000-9000 = 98% coverage (20- 38000 types)

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 For minimal understanding

• 95% of words must be known

• I.e. one in every twenty words is unknown.

• Alternatively, one unknown word in every other line

• Knowing 3000 word families

• Academic texts require more.

• 2000+ AWL = 86-91% coverage (Milton).

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 For adequate understanding
• 98-99% coverage for thorough understanding and
pleasurable reading

• I.e. one in every fifty or hundred words is unknown.

• Alternatively, one unknown word in every fifth or

tenth line

• Knowing 5000 – 10000 word families?

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 Text coverage
Word families Approximate written Approximate spoken
coverage % coverage %
1st 1000 78-81 81-84
2nd 1000 8-9 5-6
3rd 1000 3-5 2-3
4th-5th 1000 3 1.5-3
6th-9th 1000 2 0.75-1
10th – 14th 1000 <1 0.5
Proper nouns 2-4 1-1.5
14000 + 1-3 1

Source: Nation, 2006

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How much do we need to know to
understand?

Material 95% coverage 98% coverage Proper nouns

Novels 4000 word families 9000 word families 1-2%

Newspapers 4000 word families 8000 word families 5-6%

Children‘s movies 4000 word families 6000 word families 1.5%

Spoken English 3000 word families 7000 word families 1.3%

(Nation, 2013 p. 16)

95% coverage – one in every 20 words unknown – one in every other line
98% þekking – one in every 50 words unknown– one every fifth line..
(Nation, 2006, 2013; Schmitt & Schmitt, 2012)

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 Frequency
• High-frequency words – 2000-3000?
• Mid-frequency words – 3000-9000
• Low-frequecy words – 9000+

Academic words – 570 words

Technical words

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 Examples of word types
“Sustained-yield management ought to be long-term government policy in
indigenous forest zoned for production. The adoption of such a policy
would represent a breaktrough – the boundary between a pioneering,
extractive phase and an era in which the timber industry adjusted to living
with the forests in perpetuity. A forest sustained is a forest in which
harvesting and mortality combined do not exceed regeneration. Naturally
enough, faster-growing forests produce more timber, which is why
attention would tend to swing from podocarps to beech forests regardless
of the state of the podocarp resource. The colonists cannot be blamed for
plunging in without thought to whether the resource had limits. They
brought from Britain little experience or understanding of how to maintain
forest structure and timber supply for all time. Under German ...”

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Why lists and frequency research?
• A need to standardize the process?
– Knowledge to aid teachers
– To aid students
– To assess progress
• Helpful information
– Different needs require different methods
– Different types require different methods
• What to teach and what to learn?

“The
“The most
most frequent
frequent words
words inin aa language
language tend
tend (but
(but only
only
tend)
tend) to
to be
be learned
learned earlier
earlier than
than less
less frequent
frequent words.”
words.”
(Milton,
(Milton, 2009)
2009)
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 Guess the missing words

Raindrops the size of xxxxx xxxxxx on the xxxxx

windows for days on end, the lake rose, the
flower beds turned into xxxxx xxxxx and Hagrid’s
xxxxx xxxxx to the size of garden xxxxx. Oliver
Wood’s xxxxx for xxxxx training xxxxx however
was not xxxxx which was why Harry was to be
found late one xxxxx Saturday afternoon a few
days before Halloween returning to Gryffindor
tower xxxxx to the skin and xxxxx with xxxxx…

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 95%

Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the

castle windows for days on end, the lake rose, the
flower beds turned into muddy streams and
Hagrid’s pumpkins swelled to the size of garden
sheds. Oliver Wood’s enthusiasm for regular
training sessions however was not dampened
which was why Harry was to be found late one
stormy Saturday afternoon a few days before
Halloween returning to Gryffindor tower xxxxx to
the skin and xxxxx with mud…
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 Vocabulary testing
• Vocabulary Levels Test – comparing two versions
– Norbert Schmitt
• https://www.norbertschmitt.co.uk/vocabulary-resources
– Paul Nation web resources
• http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation
(scroll down the page to access the multiple tests he offers)
• Lextutor
– Estimating students’/learners’ vocabulary size
• http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/

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 Training learners
1. Sources of information about word frequency and
lists of useful words
2. An understanding of the nature of word frequency
3. Practice in considering personal language needs
4. The importance of knowing roughly how many
words you know and what a reasonable learning
goal should be
5. Options for dealing with vocabulary
6. Ease or difficulty in learning a particular word
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 Reminder
• Online discussion 1 – deadline January 24

• Vocabulary test – deadline January 24

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 References
Milton, J. (2009). Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Bristol:
Multilingual Matters.
Milton, J. (2007). Lexical profiles, learning styles and the construct validity of lexical
size tests. In H. Daller, J. Milton & J. Treffers-Daller (Eds.), Modeling and Assessing
Vocabulary Knowledge (pp. 47-58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nation, I. S. P. (2013). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (2nd ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nation, I. S. P. (2006). How large a vocabulary is Needed for reading and listening?
Canadian Modern Language Review/ La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes,
63(1), 59-82.
Schmitt, N., & Schmitt, D. (2012). A reassessment of frequency and vocabulary size in
L2 vocabulary teaching. Language Teaching. doi: 10.1017/S0261444812000018
Schmitt, N. (2010). Researching Vocabulary. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

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