An examination of vocabulary presentation in textbook new english 9

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 dim

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

MASTER’ S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Thanh Hoa, 2017

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

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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

ABSTRACT iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background and rationale 1

1.2 The aims of the study 1

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 The structure of the thesis 2

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1 What is vocabulary ? 3

2.2 The role of vocabulary in second language learning 4

2.3 Vocabulary knowledge 5

2.3.1 Vocabulary size 6

2.3.2 Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge 8

2.3.3 Depth of vocabulary knowledge 9

2.4 Vocabulary learning from second language acquisition theories 9

2.4.1 The learning of vocabulary from a cognitive perspective 10

2.4.2 Frequency and vocabulary learning 12

2.4.3 Nature of vocabulary acquisition: the importance of repetition 14

2.4.4 Direct and Indirect Approaches to Vocabulary Learning 15

2.4.5 Vocabulary input in textbooks 16

2.5 Previous studies on vocabulary presented in ELT textbooks 17

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CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Textbook “New English 9” 20

3.2 Research method 22

3.2.1 Content analysis 23

3.2.2 Corpus-based method 24

3.3 Research questions 24

3.4 Data analysis 25

3.5 Research tools 25

3.5.1 Vocabulary Profile (VP) 26

3.6 Framework of vocabulary knowledge dimensions 28

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS 30

4.1 Findings relating to the vocabulary types 30

4.1.1 Lexical frequency profile and text coverage 30

4.1.2 Lexical variation 34

4.1.3 Distribution of new words and new words occurring frequency 35

4.2 Findings relating to the vocabulary exercises 39

4.2.1 Types of vocabulary exercises 39

4.2.2 The coverage of lexical knowledge 41

4.2.3 Comparison of the two textbooks 47

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION 50

5.1 Vocabulary knowledge presented in the textbooks 50

5.1.1 Tokens occurring in textbooks 50

5.1.2 Word types occurring in textbooks 51

5.1.3 Vocabulary variety 51

5.1.4 Word frequency, vocabulary size and text coverage 52

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5.1.5 The repetition of new words 54

5.2 Vocabulary activities presented in the textbooks 55

5.2.1 The differences and similarities of vocabulary presentation in the two textbooks 55

5.2.2 The dimensions emphasized in each textbook 56

5.2.2.1 The pronunciation 56

5.2.2.2 The context- dependency of word senses 57

5.2.2.3 The design 58

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 60

6.1 Summary of the major findings of the study 60

6.2 Pedagogical implications for teachers 62

6.2.1 Criteria of evaluating or choosing textbooks 62

6.2.2 Information for teaching decisions 63

6.3 Limitations and recommendations for future study 63

6.4 Concluding remarks 64

REFERENCES 65

APPENDIX 1 68

APPENDIX 2 70

APPENDIX 3 72

APPENDIX 4 74

APPENDIX 5 76

APPENDIX 6 78

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

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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 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

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

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, with modern multimedia technologies providing teachers with a range

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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), 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

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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 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

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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 6th grade to 12thgrade), 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 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

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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

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 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

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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 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

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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 (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

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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 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

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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

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

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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 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

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(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

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

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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 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

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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, 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

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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 upper-intermediate 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 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

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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 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

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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

“New English 9“is one of the textbooks in a pilot project The new set materials called English for Vietnam is being produced with funding from an American business organization (BAVE/ The Business Alliance for Vietnamese Education) The textbooks have not been officially approved by Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) for classroom use A pilot project is being carried out in a number of selected schools in the provinces to trial the feasibility of the published materials as well as proposed curriculum and the approach of teaching and learning Therefore , there is a long way to go before the BAVE series of textbooks is completely implemented in Vietnamese schools It is my understanding that MOET plans to have all the newly designed textbooks trialed, adapted and approved in the coming years and ready for implementation nationwide

New English 9 is the final of the four levels of English language textbooks for Vietnamese students in lower secondary schools learning English as a foreign language It follows the systematic, cyclical, and theme-based syllabus approved by the Ministry of Education and Training, which focused on the use of language (pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar) to develop the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing)

The tasks, language and content in the textbooks are selected according to topics difficulty and text difficulty These textbooks in the series are based on a

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grammatical syllabus in which grammatical structures are divided into sections graded according to difficulty and, or importance In the main, however, the whole set of textbooks is more grammatically oriented and less communicatively oriented

as is illustrated by the schematics format Besides, topics covered in the presentation of material vary widely and plentifully to reflect the characteristics of the society, the life-style, the civilization and the culture of English – speaking people Various topics are dealt with in the textbooks and all the texts, exercises, and use of vocabulary are thus selected to have relevance to each particular topic The textbook contains four main parts: Book map (providing an overview of each unit); 12 topics- based Units, each covering seven sections to be taught in seven 45 lessons; Four Reviews, each providing revision and further practice of the previous three units, to be dealt with over two lessons; Glossary: Giving meaning and phonetic transcriptions of the new words in the units

There are 12 main units in the textbooks Each unit has seven sections and

provides language input for seven classrooms of 45 minutes each They are Getting Started; A closer look 1; A closer look 2; Communication; Skills 1; Skills 2, and Looking back & Project These 12 richly illustrated, cross- curricular, and theme-

based units focus on offering students motivation, memorable lessons, and a joyful learning experience

Section 1- Getting started - vocabulary is presented through the authentic

contexts Students at this level not only learn single words but also “chunks” of English such as idioms which combine vocabulary and grammatical patterns in an unanalyzed way

Section 2- Closer look 1- presents vocabulary and pronunciation of the unit

The active vocabulary of the unit is given in an interesting and illustrated way so that it is easy for students to memorize Intonation patterns, which frequently appear

in the unit, are targeted and practiced in isolation and in context There are different exercises focusing on intensive practice of vocabulary and pronunciation

Section 3- A Closer look 2- dealts with the main grammar point of unit

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Section4 – Communication - is to help students use the functional language

in everyday life contexts and to consolidate what they have learnt in the previous sections It also gives students opportunities to learn and apply the cultural aspects

of the language learnt

Section 5- Skills 1 – the reading text is presented The text is often based on

the vocabulary and structures that students have previously acquired Important new vocabulary is introduced in the text and practiced in a follow-up activity The speaking section supports students in their production of spoken English The section uses the recently introduced items in combination with previously learnt language in new contexts

Section 6- Skills 2 is composed of listening (receptive skill) and writing

(productive skill) The listening section provides students with an opportunity to develop their listening skills Thic section trains them to listen for general and specific information.The writing section focusses on developing students’writing skills There is a writing tip or a guideline which is very useful to hepl them to write them effectively The result of the writing section must be a complete piece of writing

Section7 - Looking Back - the language is recycled from the previous

sections and it links with unit topics Various activities and exercises are designed

to help students consolidate anf apply what they have learnt in the unit Through the students’ performance in this secrtion, teachers can evaluate their study results and provide further practice if necessary

The Project helps students to improve their ability to work by themselves

and in a team It extends their imagination in a field relatedto the topic The teacher can use this as an extra- curricular activity ( for groupwork) or as homework for students to do individually

3.2 Research method

Since the purpose of this study is to investigate how vocabulary is presented and approached in the TIENG ANH textbooks, two methods : content analysis and

In this study, the researcher used the descriptive method the content analysis

- conceptual analysis Traditionally, content analysis has most often been thought of

in terms of conceptual analysis In conceptual analysis, a concept is chosen for examination and the number of its occurrences within the text recorded Because terms may be implicit as well as explicit, it is important to clearly define implicit terms before the beginning of the counting process To limit the subjectivity in the definitions of concepts, specialized dictionaries are used As with most other research methods, conceptual analysis begins with identifying research questions and choosing a sample or samples Once chosen, the text must be coded into manageable content categories The process of coding is basically one of selective

of textbooks can be viewed as a corpus Corpora allow researchers, teachers and learners to use great amounts of real data in their study to view language at a different perspective (Schmitt, 2000:68).The present study is corpus research which

is one of the sub-fields of vocabulary research The famous linguistics Nation (2001: 31) asserted a corpus research requires three essential elements: 1) a set of good research questions that can be answered by study of a corpus, 2) a corpus to provide data source, and 3) the computer programs that can facilitate the task of organizing the data from the corpus The textbooks used as the corpus data will be discussed in depth in the following research data and data processing sections And the other element of corpus research, that is the computer programs used in the study, will be introduced in the research tools section later

3.3 Research questions

This study was conducted to answer the following research questions:

1.What kind of vocabulary words are high school students exposed to and expected

to master in the new TIENG ANH 9 textbooks?

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

Microsoft Word format Spell check was carefully done to eliminate the text

recognition error made by the OCR program Then, all the running words in each student book were extracted from the pages and were converted to as a pure text file format (.txt) because a pure text file format is the recognizable file format that can

be further processed by two computer programs for further analysis The scanning and file saving procedures were as follows:

All the running words in each student book were extracted and converted to one ‘electronically – recognizable’ file, (e.g TA9-1.txt) By combining the computer files of student book 1 (e.g TA9-1.txt) and book 2(e.g TA9-2.txt ), a new

file (e.g.TA9.txt) encompassing all the running words used in the two student books

in a school year could be compiled There files were used for further analysis by

computer program: Range for different purposes The procedures will be explained

in the following sections one by one

3.5 Research tools

To extract the relevant quantitative data in both textbooks I relied on RANGE (http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation/nation.aspx), a computational tool designed by Nation RANGE counts and classifies vocabulary in three frequency categories (at present up to 14)1: the first 1,000, the second 1,000 and the third 1,000 most frequent words of general English These frequency categories are called RANGES as well, so that the word RANGE in the present study is taken as each one of the 1,000 word groups sequentially determined in the frequency list considered In our study, words not included within the first three

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most frequent ranges (i.e., the most frequent 3,000 words) appear as off ranges RANGE reads each one the books selected and previously digitized and classifies the words within each range as tokens (every word form in the text, be it repeated or not), types (different words in the text: friend and friends are two types) and word families (the headword, its inflected forms and its closely related derived forms), which is relevant for our study

Data were analyzed with the help of VocabProfile (VP), which is a computer

program which performs lexical text analysis, comparing words in a text with word lists that accompany the program developed by Headley, Nation and Cozhead (http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation/nation.aspx) This computer software creates RANGE and FREQUENCY programs which incorporates the General Service List of English Words (GSL), Academic Word List (AWL) based on

English words occurring frequency, range and dispersion figures The Range

software is used to compare a text against certain base word lists to see what words

in the texts are and are not in the lists, to see what percentage of vocabulary items in the text are covered by the list, namely text coverage In particular, it can also be used to compare the vocabulary of many text files at a time to see how much of the same vocabulary they use (i.e range) and the frequency of occurrence of the words

in total and in each file The principle s used in the Range software to make word

families are based on Bauer and Nation’s (1993) six-level scale

3.5.1 Vocabulary Profile (VP)

In this study the Vocabulary Profile (VP) was used to measure the vocabulary size, frequency of vocabulary, text coverage in the new TIENG ANH 9 (Books 1 and 2) to create a corpus for analysis VP was also used to examine if typical communicative ESL classrooms are a good place to learn a lot of new vocabulary (Meara, Lightbown & Halter, 1997) The lexical richness of texts was

measured by the Range with three-ready-made base lists to be used in text analysis

.The first base list contains the most frequent 1,000 words of English The second base list contains the second 1,000 most frequent words, and the third base list

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contains words not in the first 2,000 words of English but which are frequent in upper secondary school and university texts from a wide range of subjects The base forms of words and derived forms are included in all of these base lists The first 1,000 words thus consist of around 4,000 forms or types The sources of these

lists are A General Service List of English Words (West, 1953) for the first 2000

words, and The Academic Word List (Coxhead, 1998, 2000) containing 570 word

families The first thousand words of A General Service List of English Words are

usually those in the list with a frequency higher than 332 occurrences per 5 million words, plus months, days of the week, numbers, titles (Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Mister), and frequent greetings (Hello, Hi etc) The lists include both American and British

spellings Apostrophes are treated as spaces, so I've is counted as two items, as is Jane's

Table 3.1 An example of a word list table of Tiếng Anh 9 - Book 1( TA9-1)

Coverage (in tokens)

In this study, apart from using Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP) to examine the lexical nature of the textbooks, lexical variation (LV) was another measure to investigate the lexical richness of the textbooks To be more precisely, the researcher used LV to examine the degree of repetition of words and the degree of lexical diversity of the textbooks LV takes as its starting point the distinction between token and type If a text has 500 words, it is said to contain 500 tokens, but

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within the 500-word text, many of these tokens may be repeated and this may give

us a lower total of types (different words).According to Laufer and Nation(1995),

LV is the type/token ratio, the ratio in per cent between the different words in the text and the total number of running words The lower the ratio, the more repetition there is in a text, and the fewer types need to be known to comprehend the text LV

is calculated with the following formula:

number of types ( number of different words)

LV = - X 100

number of tokens ( total number of words in the text)

In the study, LV ratios were calculated the lexical variation of the first set of New English 9 and the second set of New English 9 , then the lexical variation of the two textbooks The LV ratios were calculated by hand after the figures of tokens

and types outputted by Range when calculating LFP of the textbook titles By

calculating the LV ratios, the lexical richness of the textbooks was examined by the degree of repetition of words and the degree of lexical diversity of the textbooks

3.6 Framework of vocabulary knowledge dimensions

Many scholars have proposed taxonomies of vocabulary knowledge They may differ in the number and the nature of the dimensions but basically, as Jiménez

Catalán (2002:155) notes, most classifications can be grouped into grammar and

semantics dimensions of vocabulary knowledge, other aspects such as the vocabulary retrieval and store in learners’ mental lexicon and the pedagogy of

vocabulary teaching or learning are neglected

Many studies have analyzed the vocabulary input in foreign language learners’ textbooks from different perspectives, such as vocabulary selection and presentation, external and internal word frequency, rank order, word distribution or the relation between input and uptake In this study, not only have the research on vocabulary focusing on word frequency but also the analysis of dimensions of word knowledge underlying in vocabulary activities been paid attention to

Given the role played by textbooks and vocabulary in foreign language

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education it is important for teachers and researchers to examine vocabulary input

in learners’ textbooks The present study responds to this need Likewise, it also aims to contribute to narrow the gap in the study of pedagogical dimensions, usually overlooked in vocabulary knowledge taxonomies This is a preliminary step in this regard Our objectives were twofold The first one was to identify the main dimensions of vocabulary knowledge underlying in vocabulary activities in textbooks; the second one was to ascertain whether there were similarities or differences regarding the distribution of vocabulary knowledge dimensions in the targeted textbooks

This preliminary study was based on a content analysis of vocabulary activities drawn from two English textbooks used for students in grade 9 in a pilot curriculum in some Vietnam secondary schools, named “Tiếng Anh tập 1”( TA9-1) and Tiếng Anh tập 2”( TA9-2) As a framework for our analysis we followed Jiménez Catalán’s (2002: 155) classification of vocabulary knowledge dimensions, our translation and adaption of this classification is included in the following chart

Table 3.2 Vocabulary knowledge dimensions (adapted from Jiménez Catalán (2002:155)

No Vocabulary knowledge dimensions

1 Know the grammar, pronunciation and orthography of a word

2 Know the morphology of a word

3 Know the collocability of a word

4 Know the syntactic restrictions of a word

5 Know the frequency in oral and written language of a word

6 Know the contexts where a word can be used

7 Know a word semantic and syntactic relations with other words

8 Recognize the word in its written and oral form

9 Recover the word when it is needed

10 Know the conceptual and referential meaning of a word

11 Know the meanings that the word connotes

12 Know the pragmatic sense of a word

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As can be observed in table 3.2, each lexical dimension has been given a number For the sake of clarity we will use those numbers to refer to the vocabulary knowledge dimensions summarized in the Findings and Discussion sections

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS This corpus-based study of TIENG ANH 9 textbook examines the role the textbook may play in vocabulary learning In this chapter, the findings are divided

into two parts The first part is the findings relating to the vocabulary presentation in the light of lexical terms It contains the five sub sections The first section presents the findings about the text coverage of textbooks in terms of the number of running words and the distribution of textbooks coverage according to the frequency of the running words The second section presents the lexical richness of textbooks by examining lexical variation (LV) The second part is concerned about vocabulary activities in the textbooks The dimensions of vocabulary knowledge are paid attention to in activities illustrated in the textbook The findings referring

to them are displayed in two sections

4.1 Findings relating to the vocabulary types

4.1.1 Lexical frequency profile and text coverage

To examine the lexical nature of the two textbook titles, namely Tieng anh 9 Book 1(TA9 - 1) and Tieng Anh 9 Book 2 (TA9-2) and the corpus of the two textbooks in grade 9 , namely Tieng Anh 9 Books 1+ 2 (TA9), the Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP) of the three corpora was generated by the computer program Range The distribution of words in each set of TA9-1, TA9-2 and the

corpus of two sets of textbooks Tieng Anh 9 book 1& Tieng Anh 9 book 2 (TA9) is illustrated in Table 4.1 The word distribution in TA9-1 was presented in column two and three The word distribution in TA9-2 was presented in column four and five The last two columns show the word distribution of two sets of textbook (TA9) In every left column of the table, word list one refers to the first 1,000 word list; word list two refers to the second 1,000; word list three refers to the list containing words not in the first 2,000 words of English but which are frequent in