AN EXAMINATION OF VOCABULARY PRESENTATION IN TEXTBOOK “NEW ENGLISH 9”

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY
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LE THI THU NGOC

AN EXAMINATION OF VOCABULARY
PRESENTATION IN TEXTBOOK “NEW ENGLISH 9”
Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
Code: 60 14 01 11
MASTER’ S THESIS IN EDUCATION

SUPERVISOR:
Le Van Canh, Prof

Nghe An, 2017


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ABSTRACT
Textbooks are important tools to develop the lexical competence of English
foreign language learners. However teachers and researchers have paid little
attention to the language input contained in textbooks, particularly as far as the
representation of lexical knowledge and knowledge dimensions in vocabulary
activities are concerned. This study examined two sets of nationally published new
textbooks TIENG ANH 9 (Books 1 and 2) provide the major lexical input for ESL
students in classrooms, which were being piloted and planned to be introduced
officially in 2018 in secondary schools in Vietnam. The research intended to

investigate how vocabularys is presented in the new textbooks and to clarify how
lexis is treated through analyzing exercises from the textbooks. Lexical Frequency
Profile and Lexical Variation were used to explore the lexical coverage of the
textbook title. Results have shown that the textbook users are exposed to a
reasonably adequate exposure of the low frequency words. The second objective
was to examine the vocabulary exercises in the textbooks with the aims of
identification of the dimensions involved in the vocabulary activities included in the
two textbooks and ascertaining whether there were differences in the distribution of
vocabulary knowledge dimensions in two textbooks of the same grade. Results
show that the distribution of vocabulary knowledge dimensions is a high degree of
similarity between both books. Nevertheless, differences could also be observed
between TA9 -1 and TA9-2 in the number of vocabulary activities . Although both
textbooks are used at the same level, the close analysis of their vocabulary activities
reveals differences, which may give rise to differences in learners’ lexical
acquisition and output.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis advisor
Assoc.Prof. Dr. Le Van Canh who I believe is the most wonderful supervisor, for his
valuable direction, keen insight, precious orientation, continuous support, expert
guidance, and patience throughout the study.Assoc.Prof.Le Van Canh provided me
with assistance at every stage of the process and invaluable feedback and guidance,
which turned this demanding process into a smooth and enjoyable one. He always
expressed his faith in me.
I am also grateful to my board of managers and colleagues in Thanh Hoa
Provincial Continuing Education Centre for their on-going support and
encouragement throughout the study. Without that, it would have been harder for

me to finish the project.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my former colleagues at
Dong Tien Secondary school for her continuous encouragement, cooperation and
help throughout the study.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to the members of the MA CHK23
Class of 2015 -2017 for their friendship and support throughout the whole process.
for her continuous encouragement and help throughout the study.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my family, without their love, help,
understanding, and encouragement it would have been impossible to complete the
program.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AWL

Academic Word List

BAVE

The Business Alliance for Vietnamese Education

DEC

Declarative knowledge

EFL

English as a Foreign Language

GSL

General Service List of English Words

LFP

Lexical Frequency Profile

LV

Lexical variation

L2

Second Language

OCR

Optical character recognition

MOET

Ministry of Education and Training

PRO

Procedural knowledge

STTR

Standardised type/token ratio

TA9-1

Tieng Anh 9 book 1

TA9-2

Tieng Anh 9 book 2

TA9

Tieng Anh 9 book 1+2

VP

Vocabulary Profile


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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1.

Vocabulary Size and Text Coverage of Written Discourse

Table 3.1.

An example of a word list table of Tiếng Anh 9 - Book 1( TA9-1)

Table 3.2.

Vocabulary knowledge dimensions (adapted from Jiménez Catalán

(2002:155)
Table 4.1.

The distribution of words in the textbooks Tiếng Anh 9 Book 1, Tiếng

Anh 9 Book 2 and Tiếng Anh 9 Books 1+2
Table 4.2.

Comparison of tokens in TA9-1 and TA9-2

Table 4.3

Comparison of token coverage in textbooks

Table 4.4.

Lexical variation of textbooks by three levels

Table 4.5.

Cumulative percentage of new word occurrence in TA9-1 and TA9-2

textbooks in term of occurring frequency produced by Range

Table 4.6.

Distribution of new words in TA9 in term of occurring frequency

produced by Range
Table 4.7.

Lexical variation of textbooks by three levels produced by Range

Table 4.8.

Frequency of vocabulary exercise types

Table 4.9.

Distribution of vocabulary activities per unit in TA9-1

Table 4.10.

Distribution of vocabulary activities per unit in TA9-2

Table 4.11.

Vocabulary knowledge dimensions in the vocabulary activities of

TA9-1
Table 4.12.

Vocabulary knowledge dimensions in the vocabulary activities of

TA9-2
Table 4.13.

Comparision of vocabulary activities in TA9-1& TA9-2 and


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Percentage of vocab activities in TA9


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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1.

Background and rationale
Vocabulary learning is central to language acquisition, no matter the

language is first,second, or foreign. As McCarthy (1990: viii) noted in his
introduction, “no matter how well the students learn grammar, no matter how
successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range
of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way”.
If grammar is like the skeleton of a language, vocabulary is like the flesh. Without
words, the building blocks, communication and understanding cannot be achieved.
Vocabulary learning is, therefore, one of the specific goals in a language classroom.
Given the important role of vocabulary in learning English as a foreign
language, it is very important to investigate how vocabulary is presented in text
books and to clarify how lexis is treated through analyzing exercises from

authorized textbooks used for students. This is because in many contexts, textbooks
are also the syllabus and serve as an important source of lexical input. The
assessment of EFL textbooks has attracted the attention of language teachers and
researchers since the 1980s, but most of the studies used the corpus-based approach
to identify the number of words presented in the textbook. The new TIENG ANH
textbook for high schools students in Vietnam is being piloted but it seems that no
attention is given to vocabulary. This is the motivation behind the study reported in
this thesis, whose focus is on how vocabulary is treated in the TIENG ANH 9 ( a
textbook for grade 9 students), which is planned to be in use soon after the piloting
time.
1.2 The aims of the study
The aim of this study is to ascertain the opportunities for vocabulary learning
offered to students by the new textbook TIENG ANH 9 (Books 1 and 2), which
were being piloted and planned to be introduced officially in 2018, from the point of
view of the frequency of lexical items and repetitive activities focused on


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vocabulary. To achieve this aim a content analysis technique was adopted.
1.3. Research questions
In order to achieve the above aim, the study was designed to answer the
following questions:
1. What kind of vocabulary words are high school students exposed to and expected
to master in the new TIENG ANH 9 textbook?
2. How words are distributed and recycled

and what dimensions of lexical

knowledge are covered in the researched textbooks?

3. What types of exercises are dominant in the researched

textbooks ? How

adequate are these vocabulary exercises types to the development of students’
lexical knowledge?
In seeking the answers to these research questions, the following issues are
examined: (1) the distribution of lexical items per Range, in order to determine
whether such a distribution is appropriate to the goal of the course; (2) the
standardised type/token ratio (STTR) so as to find out the average amount of
opportunities for lexical input (and repetition) offered; (3) the amount of lexical
exercise types included and its adequacy to the students’ ;earning potential ; and (4)
the amount of repetitive practice activities or exercises included in order to support
vocabulary learning.
1.4. The structure of the thesis
The thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One introduces the
background of vocabulary teaching and learning in Vietnamese secondary schools
and outlines the objective of the study. Chapter Two provides a review of the
relevant literature, which prepares for the design of the study and providing
background information on the research questions. Chapter Three introduces the
textbooks analyzed and explains the methodology used in the study. Chapter Four
presents the findings of the analysis. Chapter Five highlights and discusses the
results. Finally Chapter Six concludes by summarizing the research, stating the
contribution, the limitations and recommendations in the study.


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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 What is vocabulary ?

Research in the field of vocabulary learning has been scarce until recently;
even more so in the field of vocabulary teaching. The situation seems to be
changing in the last two or three decades, and a few studies have already engaged in
the analysis of textbooks from the point of view of their lexical component.
Research and publications by Nation (2001) have been decisive for promoting
studies on vocabulary and textbook teaching. Milton (2009) published a thorough
and comprehensive study on vocabulary acquisition in which, among other issues,
he discusses the role of textbooks for teaching and learning vocabulary. We call the
attention on two groups of studies. Firstly, those studies centred on the actual
amount of vocabulary and vocabulary coverage in teaching materials. Some of
those studies examine the associative relationship of two factors as well, textbook
vocabulary and teacher’s lexical production - his/her oral input in the classroom with students’ vocabulary gains. The second group consists of those studies focused
on the rate of vocabulary learning.
Language researchers have given many different definitions of vocabulary.
Each linguist gives his own definition of vocabulary. Vocabulary is central to
English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot
understand others or express their own ideas. Wilkins, a famous British linguist,
emphasized this with his saying "without grammar, very little can be conveyed,
without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed "(1972, p.11). Most people think that
vocabulary is considered as words of a language with the reason that vocabulary
does deal with words. Yet vocabulary is much more than just single words. It will be
likely to learn that vocabulary includes lexical chunks , phrases of two or more
words. Phrases like these which are known as single lexical units involving a clear ,
formulaic usage and making up a significant portion of spoken or written English
language usage, are called formulaic sequences ( Alali & Schmitt,2012). Ur (1996:


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60) defined vocabulary “as the words we teach in the foreign language. However, a
new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound of two or
three words or multi-word idioms”. Ur’s definition is adopted in this study because
the definition is more relevant to the pedagogical purposes.
Regarding the role of vocabulary, Pyles and Algeo (1970) claimed that
“when most of us think about language we think first about words. It is true that the
vocabulary is the focus of language. It is in words that sounds and meanings
interlock to allow us to communicate with one another, and it is words that we
arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds” (p. 96).
The issue of the role of vocabulary will be discussed further in the subsequent
section.
2.2. The role of vocabulary in second language learning.
Words are the building blocks of language and without them there is no
language. A learner of a foreign language can neither speak fluently and accurately,
write easily nor understand what he reads or hears if he or she doesn’t have enough
vocabulary and have a communicative competence. Vocabulary is central to English
language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand
others, convey their intended meanings or label objects, actions and express their
own ideas. Word knowledge is a necessary part of communicative competence
(Seal, 1991), and it is important for both production and comprehension in a foreign
language.
It is essential to gaining proficiency in the students’ target language by
developing a solid vocabulary. Nowadays, Linguistics have recognized the
tremendous importance of helping language learners to develop an extensive
vocabulary. Vocabulary itself is multi-faceted involving spelling, pronunciation, and
grammatical behavior. Develop myriad techniques for teaching vocabulary so that
students remain engaged and multiple learner types are reached. Current research
suggests that visual techniques are extremely effective for vocabulary acquisition,

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with modern multimedia technologies providing teachers with a range of options for
presentation (including many authentic materials that would otherwise be
unavailable). The use of multimedia is helpful for both the students’ comprehension
and retention processes, as visual memory is extremely powerful. However, because
of this, educators must pay careful attention to craft a pedagogical strategy that
readily incorporates the development of auditory skills as well. Furthermore, the
quality of tasks selected directly reflects the depth of cognition for the learners. This
connection is significant, for the higher the cognition level, the more meaningful the
outcome. In order to maximize vocabulary development, teachers should utilize
activities that require students to employ context and students’ background
knowledge so that they engage more deeply with the material. As students’
knowledge of the target languages progresses, it is imperative to initiate
comprehension checks to ensure that students are retaining information and can
properly apply it. Overall, second language instructors should consider vocabulary
an integral part of language acquisition and work to build a creative and continually
evolving repertoire of classroom techniques.
2.3 Vocabulary knowledge.
In recent decades, vocabulary researchers have proposed various definitions
of vocabulary knowledge and complementary frameworks of it. Most researchers
agree that lexical knowledge is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but involves
degrees of knowledge. They regard it should be constructed as a continuum, or
continua, consisting of several levels and dimensions of knowledge. Much of what
is written on word knowledge goes back to the well-known vocabulary knowledge
framework of Richards (1976). He identified seven aspects of word knowledge (e.g.
syntactic behavior, associations, semantic value, different meanings, underlying

form and derivations). Nation (1990) distinguished eight types of word knowledge
(e.g. form, grammatical pattern, meaning, function, relation with other words),


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which were specified both for receptive and productive knowledge. Chapelle (1998)
argued that a trait definition of vocabulary should contain four dimensions:
vocabulary size,

knowledge of word characteristics, lexicon organization, and

processes of lexical access. Henriksen (1999) proposed three separate but related
vocabulary dimensions: a “partial-precise knowledge” dimension, a “depth of
knowledge” dimension, and a “receptive-productive” dimension. Qian’s (2002)
recent framework, developed on the collective strength of earlier models of
vocabulary knowledge proposed that vocabulary knowledge comprises four
intrinsically connected dimensions: vocabulary size,

depth of vocabulary

knowledge, lexical organization, and automaticity of receptive–productive
knowledge. The importance of various factors in these dimensions will vary
according to the specific purpose of language use. In all the frameworks reviewed,
there is a clear consensus that vocabulary knowledge should at least comprise two
dimensions, which are vocabulary size: breadth and depth, or quality and quantity
of vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary breadth- quantity of vocabulary refers to the
number of words the meaning of which a learner has at least some superficial

knowledge. Depth of vocabulary knowledge – quality of vocabulary is defined as a
learner’s level knowledge of various aspects of a given word, or how well the
learner knows this word.
2.3.1. Vocabulary size
English probably contains the greatest number of words of any major
language, which makes learning a sufficient amount of its vocabulary a formidable
task. With out of the 54,000 or so word families appearing in Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary (1961), even educated native speakers will know only a
fraction, perhaps up to around 20,000 word families (Goulden, Nation, &
Read.1990). Although this is probably an unrealistic figure for all but the most
motivated learners, it is a good news for learners that they can function in English
with vocabularies far smaller than this. We know that in order to participate in basic


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everyday oral communication, English learners may get the lexical resource of the
most frequent 2,000-3,000 word families (Adolphs & Schmitt,2003; Schonell et
al.,1956). The vocabulary in the 2,000-3,000 frequency band provides additional
material for spoken discourse, but additionally, knowledge of around 3,000 families
is the threshold that should allow learners to begin to read authentic texts. Most
research indicates that knowledge of the most frequent 5,000 word families should
provide enough vocabulary to enable learners to read authentic texts. Of course,
many words will still be unknown, but this level of knowledge should allow
learners to infer the meaning of many of the novel words from context and to
understand most of the communicative content of the text. Second language learners
with a knowledge of the most frequent 10,000 word families in English can be
considered to have a wide vocabulary, and Hazenburg and Hulstijn (1996) found

that a vocabulary of this magnitude may be required to cope with the challenges of
university study in a second language. The textbooks explored in this research are
used in secondary schools with elementary level. It is generally assumed that after
approximately 700 class hours in seven years of studying (from 6 th grade to 12th
grade), students should have mastered basic English phonetics and grammar, and to
know a minimum of around 2,000 vocabulary items of English. It is a necessary
load of vocabulary knowledge for learners to be able to read authentic text as well
get real communication.
Besides, we must first determine the percentage of lexical items in written or
spoken discourse that a learner must know in order to understand it. It was
previously thought that around 95% coverage was sufficient (Laufer, 1989), but
more recent research suggests that the figure is closer to 98–99% (Hu & Nation,
2000), at least for written discourse 98% coverage would mean that one word in 50
is unknown, which still does not make comprehension easy (Carver, 1994), and so
this is probably a reasonable minimum coverage figure . Using word lists based on
(the mainly written) British National Corpus,Nation(2006) calculated that 6000–
7000 word families are required to reach the 98% goal. An analysis of the spoken


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CANCODE corpus (Adolphs and Schmitt, 2003) found coverage figures congruent
with Nation’s at the 3000 word family level (the upper limit of their analysis),
supporting Nation’s calculations.
Table 2.1. Vocabulary Size and Text Coverage of Written Discourse
Vocabulary size in Lemmas
(stem words and inflected forms)

Text coverage

1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
15,851

72.0%
79.7%
84.0%
86.8%
88.7%
89.9%
97.8%

Note: Adapted from Nation, P., and Waring, R. (1997). Vocabulary size, text coverage and
word lists. In N. Schmitt & M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary: Description, acquisition and
pedagogy (p. 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

2.3.2 Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge
Breath of vocabulary knowledge refers to the number of words the meaning
of which a learner has at least some superficial knowledge and can be calculated in
terms of recognition, recall or production of vocabulary items. With second
language learners the aim is often more narrowly defined in terms of their
knowledge of items in a specified list of relatively high frequency words
.Vocabulary size tests that are used for proficiency or placement purposes should
include the broadest possible range of word families. An estimation of total

vocabulary size can be attained in two ways. The first is based on sampling from a
dictionary, and the second is based on corpus-derived lists of word families grouped
by frequency. The dictionary sampling method involves selecting a dictionary that
contains the number of word families that learners are expected to know, then


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testing a selection of those words. The problem with this method is that higher
frequency words tend to have longer entries, and are thus more likely to end up on
the test, which may skew the results. The second method to estimate vocabulary
size is to select word families according to their frequency in a corpus. Usually,
these word families are grouped together into the first 1,000 most frequent words,
the second 1,000 most frequent words, and so on. The second method was applied
effectively in this study.
2.3.3. Depth of vocabulary knowledge
Depth of vocabulary knowledge is defined as a learner’s level knowledge of
various aspects of a given word, or how well the learner knows this word. Depth of
knowledge focuses on the idea that for useful higher-frequency words learners need
to have more than just a superficial understanding of the meaning. According to
Qian (1999), the depth dimension should cover such components as pronunciation,
spelling, meaning, register, frequency, and morphological, syntactic, and
collocational properties.
2.4 Vocabulary learning from second language acquisition theories
Learning in second language has become of great research interest, a great
deal of research has supported that vocabulary is a vital aspect of the second
language acquisition. No matter how well the student learns the grammar, no matter
how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide

range of meanings, communication in L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful
way. However the second language vocabulary acquisition has been very largely
neglected by recent developments in research and most learners identify the
acquisition of vocabulary as their greatest single source of problems.
Moreover, the mastery of vocabulary is widely recognized as an essential
component of second language and foreign language learning. It plays a vital role in
all aspects of language learning, including listening speaking, reading, writing and
translation. Therefore, learners must learn vocabulary well in order to become
proficient in L2 acquisition. Although learners are aware of the importance of


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vocabulary acquisition in English learning, their effort made to learn vocabulary
often result in disappointment and frustration. Learners themselves readily admit
that they experience considerable difficulty with vocabulary learning, especially
when they have got over the initial stages of acquiring their second language. This
draws our attention to the complex nature of vocabulary acquisition and the factors
on the second language vocabulary acquisition. Here the author reviews the factors
on the second language vocabulary acquisition and calls for our attention to it.
Vocabulary acquisition has been approached from a variety of different
theoretical perspectives: cognitive processes of vocabulary acquisition; the role of
frequency in vocabulary acquisition or learning and how this question affects
textbooks; and the distribution of the vocabulary to be learnt all along the textbook.
These theoretical positions will be reviewed one by one in the following sections.
2.4.1. The learning of vocabulary from a cognitive perspective
Knowledge of the words of a language is the type of knowledge referred to
as ‘declarative knowledge’ (DEC). DEC opposes ‘procedural knowledge’ (PRO).

The nature of both types of knowledge may imply different strategies for their
acquisition. That is the case when we refer, for example, to the role of
consciousness or implicitness in learning. Regarding the consolidation of both
types of knowledge, however, the basic strategy is the same: consolidation depends
on previous memorization, and memorization is governed by rehearsal. It is true
that DEC may require only a single stimulus to be acquired at times (Ullman, 2004),
while PRO will practically always result from repeated action triggered by recurrent
stimuli. Nevertheless, the consolidation of both DEC and PRO share a similar need
for repetition before becoming automatized (Sánchez & Criado, in press).
Automatization is the only condition in skill learning that guarantees fluency of
performance, which in the case of language will be fluency in communication.
Declarative knowledge is acquired through association. In the case of vocabulary,
the acquisition depends on the association of things in the outside world to a
concept in our mind. Associations are triggered by stimuli in the neural network


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(Ullman, 2004). A stimulus may begin at a specific neural node and is transmitted to
other neurons by means of neurotransmitters, which result from the release of
chemicals that change the electric polarization of the membrane in the neural
receptors. The transmission of the electrical signals runs along specific channels,
which strengthen under certain conditions. Full consolidation is reached when the
same stimulus is able to automatically activate an already shaped channel and
produce similar results at the end of the neural circuitry. There is still a long way
ahead to fully understand how these initial electrical bits generated by and
transmitted through the neural system derive into knowledge. Psycholinguistics
firstly and neurolinguistics in the last decades are contributing a better

understanding of the cognitive processes that generate what we refer to as
‘knowledge’ (Anderson, 2005). One of the most relevant areas of cognitive
processes is how data are accessed, transmitted and memorized. Memory is
particularly important in cognitive processes, since it is the device responsible for
storing data, keeping them at our disposal and accessing them whenever we need
them. Our neural system is known to work with two types of memorization devices:
short-term memory and long-term memory (Anderson 2005; Atkinson & Shiffrin
1968). Data captured are first presented to short-term memory, a kind of working
memory acting as an interface with the outside world. Input entering the working
memory flows very quickly and is immediately lost unless it enters long-term
memory. Therefore, it can be stated that our working memory is the main entrance
for input data; it is equipped with a filter for evaluating and selecting only the data
considered relevant or necessary.
From the point of view of efficiency in vocabulary learning, what matters is
the amount of lexical information entering and consolidating in long-term memory.
Neurologists and psycholinguists tell us that long-term memory is activated and
strengthened mainly (i) through rehearsal or repetitive practice and activation, (ii)
when attention is drawn to specific data, and (iii) when new data are associated in
some way to already consolidated information. The three options are accessible to


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learners and teachers. Repetitive practice has been present all throughout the history
of school teaching and there is no doubt on its efficacy as a teaching and learning
technique (Sánchez & Criado, in press). The efficacy of repetition is due to the
structural changes that take place in the neural synapses (or connections among
neurons). Repeated connections strengthen the channel, and so the task is rendered

easier. When the task becomes so easy that you can perform it with less effort or
attention, it is because a certain degree of proceduralization of the process has been
reached. At this point in the process, structural changes in the synapses affected
apparently cease and become stable. In addition, more practice implies more
efficient execution. Facts regarding the two types of memory and the consolidation
of data may be synthesized in the following way: most of the information which
flows through the short-term memory is usually lost, pressed by the permanent flow
of incoming data, unless repetitive iteration and/or attention favours its selection to
enter long-term memory. Iteration or repetition, together with attention, is therefore
the habitual mechanism, which guarantees permanence and avoids oblivion in
information storing.
Cognitive processes in knowledge acquisition imply some conditions, which
teachers and teaching materials must meet. One of them asks not only for the
presentation of new words, but also for opportunities to encourage and facilitate
repetition. To reach such a goal, textbooks must be adequately planned regarding
vocabulary distribution, firstly allowing for the presentation of new lexical items
and promoting, in a second stage, abundant instances for repetition of the items
previously presented. In addition to that, course books should also provide
opportunities for explicit and implicit vocabulary acquisition. The role of
consciousness is emphasized in explicit activities, while language usage (both
receptive and productive) is at the base of implicit activities. Both types should be
at work in vocabulary learning; the method claimed by the textbook will define the
prevalence of one or the other type of activities.


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2.4.2. Frequency and vocabulary learning

Frequency matters in vocabulary learning for two reasons: (i) most often
used lexical items should be learned first, since they contribute towards a
communicative efficiency more significantly, and (ii) frequency of occurrence
offers opportunities for repetitive practice. This is one of the necessary conditions
for vocabulary consolidation, as is required by cognitiveprocesses in knowledge
acquisition. Studies in vocabulary frequency abound nowadays, hand in hand with
the increasing interest in corpus linguistics and the computational facilities available
(D’Anna, Zechmeister and Hall, 1991; Nation, 1993a, 1993b; Sánchez, 2000;
Schmitt, 2000, among others). We have easy access today to frequency lists of
language use, and consequently reliable information on which words are preferred
by the speakers in different domains and communicative situations. Information on
lexical frequency was already used in the Audio-lingual method to take decisions on
which words to select for the different teaching levels (Sánchez, 2009). It was then
assumed that the most frequent 800-1,000 words were to be learnt by elementary
level students, while intermediate and advanced students would be presented the
next 800-1,000 or 2,000 words in the frequency list. Research in this field has
refined the tools of analysis and offers reliable and very useful results for teachers
and textbooks. The work by Nation (2001, 2006) is particularly relevant in this
respect. Nation takes a classical classification of words: as tokens -every word form
in the text, be it repeated or not-, types -different words in the text, such as friend
and friends, which are two types- and word families -the headword, its inflected
forms and its closely related derived forms. He then establishes three consecutive
vocabulary ranges, one thousand words each, based on corpus frequency data. The
analysis of the relationship among the three previous classes of words in a course
book contributes towards significant information regarding the words really
presented in it, their frequency and distribution along the book and the opportunities
for repetition directly depending on frequency. Furthermore, the grouping of words
in word families adds useful and complementary information on the formal and

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semantic relationships among the lexical items presented as learning targets. The
three basic ranges of words are roughly representative of the three basic levels in
language teaching materials concerning the amount of lexical items usually
introduced in each level: beginners (first 1,000 most frequent words), intermediate
(second 1,000 most frequent words) and advanced (third 1,000 most frequent
words). Therefore, those word ranges may be taken as a reference against which
teaching materials (and specifically textbooks) can be compared. The results of such
a comparison will reveal if a specific course book complies with the expectations
regarding vocabulary usage and the conditions governing knowledge acquisition in
general and vocabulary acquisition in particular. The parallelism between real word
usage and frequency and the vocabulary offered by textbooks can be taken as a
positive value, since students may benefit from it. The lack of such a parallelism
would be considered a rather negative factor, given that teaching should look for
more efficiency in communication. This correlates with the amount of words
learned and their relevance for communication.
2.4.3. Nature of vocabulary acquisition: the importance of repetition
One significant nature of vocabulary acquisition is a word cannot be learned
by a single encounter. Lexical acquisition requires multiple exposures to a word.
Several studies (Elley, 1989; Stahl and Fairbanks,1986) stressed the importance of
repetition as a crucial factor in incidental vocabulary learning. Kachroo (1962)
found that words that occurred seven or more times in the textbook were known by
most of the learners and over half of words occurring once or twice in the books
were not known by most of the class. A similar result was found by Salling (1959)
that at least five repetitions were needed to ensure learning. Crothers and Suppes
(1967) found six or seven repetitions to be necessary. Saragi et al. (1978) found that
16 or more repetitions were needed. Nation (1982) suggested seven repetitions are

usually enough for most learners to be able to memorize a word. To recognize the
meanings of a word, Nation (1982) found the average number of encounters needed
for most learners was sixteen. Gairns and Redman (1986) suggested as few as eight


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to twelve new items may be suitable (eight for elementary and twelve for advanced)
per sixty-minute lesson for productive learning to happen. Nagy (1997) reported the
chances of learning and retaining a word from one exposure when reading are only
about 5%-14%. Other studies suggested that it needs five to sixteen or more
repetitions for a word to be learned (Nation, 1990:44). In a few years later, Nation
(2001:81) further suggested “most learners required five to seven repetitions for the
learning of a group of six paired associates. A few required over twenty repetitions.”
Although different researchers have concluded different numbers of
repetition, it is reasonable and sensible to conclude that five repetitions will be
minimal and necessary. Temporarily ignoring the number of repetitions, it is true
that repetition of words is a crucial factor to examine a textbook. The following
quote summarizes the importance of repetition and the role of textbooks.
“If the teacher or course book does not provide opportunity for
sufficient repetition or for attention to vocabulary which will result in
learning, then the effort spent in dealing with the vocabulary will be wasted”
(Nation 1990:45)
2.4.4 Direct and Indirect Approaches to Vocabulary Learning
Students learn vocabulary indirectly when they hear and see words used in
many different contexts, for example, through conversations with others, through
reading extensively on their own, especially for children, they learn the meanings of
most words indirectly, through everyday experiences with oral and written

language. Students learn vocabulary directly when they are explicitly taught both
individual words and word-learning strategies. The scientific research on
vocabulary instruction reveals that most vocabulary is learned indirectly and some
vocabulary must be taught directly. Direct instruction helps students learn difficult
words and direct instruction of vocabulary relevant to a given text leads to a better
reading comprehension. In Nation’s view [12] (1990), direct vocabulary learning
and indirect vocabulary learning are two approaches to vocabulary learning. He
holds that, in direct vocabulary learning, the learners do exercises and activities that


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focus their attention on vocabulary. Such exercises include word-building exercises,
guessing words from context, learning words in lists, and vocabulary games. In
indirect vocabulary learning, the learners’ attention is focused on some other
feature, usually the message that is conveyed by a speaker or writer. And
considerable vocabulary learning can occur if the amount of unknown vocabulary is
low.
2.4.5. Vocabulary input in textbooks
The three corpus-based word ranges defined by Nation (2001, 2006) are
indicative of three consecutive stages in language command, as reflected in
vocabulary use: beginners, intermediate and advanced. This is precisely the
organizational scheme of most textbooks. It is therefore to be expected that course
books for each one of those levels keep close to the three vocabulary ranges
mentioned above. Beginner courses should roughly include range 1 words,
intermediate courses should cover word range 2 and advanced courses should
include word range 3. Textbooks can be analyzed against this expected pattern and
the vocabulary they contain evaluated according to the model described in each

word range. The analysis will reveal how textbooks adjust to the word range they
have been designed for. Moreover, a closer look at the vocabulary presented will
allow us to discover and define with accuracy in which way and how much a
specific textbook deviates from the word range it claims to represent. The
requirement is that we compare the vocabulary in the textbook against each one of
the three predefined ranges. The sequence of ranges and the conditions derived from
the cognitive processes underlying language acquisition ask for some additional
requirements regarding vocabulary distribution along textbooks. Firstly, new words
must be gradually introduced, possibly within the adequate communicative context;
secondly, new words should mainly pertain to the range the textbook belongs to;
thirdly, the working vocabulary as a whole should include enough instances and
offer abundant opportunities for practicing the new words previously introduced, be
it in the same word range or in the previous ones. The result of such an analysis,


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implemented with computational tools, will clearly reveal if textbooks are the right
instruments and if they can be considered suitable guides for teaching/learning
vocabulary in a most efficient way.
2.5. Previous studies on vocabulary presented in ELT textbooks
The assessment of vocabulary presented in ELT textbooks has attracted the
attention of language teachers and researchers. Most analyses on vocabulary input
in textbooks have aimed to ascertain vocabulary size, text coverage, threshold, high
frequency word lists, vocabulary recycling, suitability to learners’ level, grading and
presentation, vocabulary learning opportunities, communicative contexts as well as
lexical syllabuses. However, differences are observed concerning scope, target
language, and type of textbook researched. These are previous studies on

vocabulary presented in ELT textbooks , which focused on the above lexical issues.
Alfaki (2015) used the content analysis technique to examine features of lexical
items presented in the book Spine, which was used in Iran. The author found that
that the textbook reflected a level of difficulty because it contains a large number of
low frequency words. There was also a poor provision of new vocabulary items.
43.8 % of vocabulary items were not recycled and 44.4% of the words were
recycled at varying degrees. Matsuoka and

Hirsh (2010) investigated the

vocabulary learning opportunities in an ELT course book designed for upperintermediate learners. All the words appearing in the 12 chapters of the text were
analyzed. The results suggested that the text would provide opportunities to deepen
knowledge of the second 1,000 most frequent words in English, and would provide
a context for pre-teaching of academic words met in the text for learners on an
academic pathway. The results also suggested that the text would provide minimal
opportunities for learners to develop vocabulary knowledge beyond high frequency
and academic words. The findings demonstrated a need to supplement use of such
texts with an extensive reading program and other forms of language rich input to
promote vocabulary development.
This study has suggested that, in order to adequately comprehend the ELT


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course book and guess unknown words from context, the reader requires knowledge
of the first and second 1,000 most frequent words, familiarity with or recognition of
proper nouns and a small number of technical, textual and technology words, and
pre-teaching of academic words occurring in the text. Direct teaching of academic

vocabulary in this context would provide good return for learners on an academic
pathway. Determining the vocabulary readiness of learners for the vocabulary
demands of the text could be achieved through use of a diagnostic test such as the
Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 2001). The text provides favorable opportunities
for deepening knowledge of the second 1,000 word list due to frequent and spaced
repetitions of many words in various forms and with a range of collocations. The
second 1,000 words list is under-researched in the literature. Future research into
the presence of the second 1,000 words in texts could determine to what extent
these words assume general meanings independent of the subject matter or assume
more technical meanings associated more closely with subject matter. Research
could also investigate the extent to which groups of learners develop deep
knowledge of these words at different stages of their learning.
In light of this, there would appear to be a strong case, when selecting ELT
course books for classroom use, to supplement use of the text with extensive
reading of graded readers or other suitable reading material. This extensive reading
program would ideally be in combination with direct vocabulary instruction (Nation
& Waring, 1997) and instructionally-enhanced reading to highlight vocabulary use
(Hulstijn, Hollander, & Greidanus, 1996; Zahar, Cobb, & Spada, 2001) in order to
provide a rich context for vocabulary development to equip learners with the lexical
resources required to understand and use the language effectively in a range of
communicative contexts.
Takala (1984) and Miranda (1990) investigated the vocabulary input in
textbooks aimed at secondary students; Kaszubsky (1998) sets out to prove that EFL
writing textbooks do not respond to learners’ needs; the study of Nation and Wang
(1999) attempted

to ascertain whether their sample of readers provides good


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conditions for vocabulary learning; Sutarsyah, Nation and Kennedy (1994) analyze
the vocabulary input of a collection of textbooks from different disciplines aimed at
English native speakers; Ljung (1991) gives evidence of the overuse of concrete
words to the detriment of abstract ones, as well as a poor representation of words
which are useful in the establishment of communicative interaction and social
relationships. For their part, Benitez Pérez & Zebrowski (1993) study the
distribution of vocabulary in Spanish as L2 textbooks.
In spite of the variety of perspectives, the conclusions arrived at by these
studies are quite similar since they point to three aspects: i) the number of words to
be included in textbooks; ii) the selection of vocabulary; and, iii) the number of
times a word should be repeated. However, none of these studies have considered
the identification of the dimensions involved in the vocabulary activities included in
textbooks.
By referring to the above mentioned studies, the present evaluation for
vocabulary presentation in EFL textbook aimed to evaluate the selected English
language course books ( New English 9) from the viewpoint of vocabulary
presentation, vocabulary coverage by topics relating the illustration of vocabulary
activities. Chapter III will provide information about the present study.