choosingyourwordscarefully

By Caroline Krantz

Co-author of Navigate

March 25th 2015

Choosing your words carefully

Choosing your words carefully

Professional Development 2

Webinar outline

Webinar outline

• How many words do

learners need?

• Which words, in what

order?

• The Oxford 3000 and

other helpful tools

• Vocabulary selection in

Navigate

• Your Questions

Roughly how many words are

there in English?

a) 400,000

b) 600,000

c) over a million

Professional Development

3

How many words in English?

How many words do native speakers know?


On average, an educated, adult native speaker has a

vocabulary of about _________ word families.

a) 20,000 b) 30,000 c) 40,000

How many words does a learner need?

What is the minimum number of

words students need to know, to get

by in English?

a) 1,000 words

b) 3,000 words

c) 5,000 words

5

Why 3000 words?

6

Why 3000

words?

Coverage of most frequent words

Most frequent words (from British National Corpus)

Coverage Total

1st 1,000 words 81.1%

2nd 1,000 words 8.1% 2000 = 89.2% (81.1% + 8.1%)

3rd 1,000 words 4.4% 3000 = 93.6% (89.2 + 4.4%)

Source: I.S.P. Nation Learning Vocabulary in Another

Language 2013

If learners know the top 1000 most frequent words, they will understand 81.1%

of what they read and hear.

If they know the 2000 most frequent words, they’ll understand 89.2%.

If they know the 3000 most frequent words, they’ll understand 93.6%

Coverage of most frequent words

Most frequent words (taken from British National Corpus)

% cumulative coverage of words

1st 1,000 words 81.1%

2nd 1,000 words 89.2%

3rd 1,000 words 93.6%

4th 1,000 words 95.4%

5th 1,000 words 96.4%

6th 1,000 words 97.1%

7th 1,000 words 97.5%

Source: I.S.P. Nation Learning Vocabulary in

Another Language 2013

Coverage of frequent words

9

1st 1000 words 2nd 1000 words 3rd 1000 words 4th 1000 words 5th 1000 words 6th 1000 words

coverage of words 81.14% 89.24% 93.60% 95.37% 96.41% 97.08%

70.00%

75.00%

80.00%

85.00%

90.00%

95.00%

100.00%

coverage of words

Which 3000 words?


Which words do they need?

10

The Oxford 3000


The Oxford 3000 List of 3000 keywords

How was the Oxford 3000 created?


Frequency Three selection criteria:

• Frequency

• Range

• Centrality

Oxford 3000 – Selection Criteria


1: Frequency

1 British National Corpus 100 million words from a range of written and spoken sources:

e.g. newspapers, magazines, fiction, non-fiction, real-life conversations, TV and

radio programmes.

2 The Oxford Corpus Collection 2.5 billion words taken from World Wide Web,

e.g. emails, blogs and social media. Not just British English.

Oxford 3000 - Selection Criteria


1: Frequency

FREQUENCY

Word Number of times it appears

in corpus

??? 5976498

??? 3557210

??? 3017772

And 2621951

To 2551312

A 2154024

In 1900782

That 1193673

Have 1129193

It 1054848

I 897073

For 856455

Oxford 3000 - Selection Criteria


2: Range

spoken

arts world affairs

fiction science

commerce leisure

TV

RANGE

Oxford 3000 - selection criteria


3: Centrality

CENTRALITY

words which are low frequency but important

cannot be expressed in another way

words identified by a panel of 70 experts

Oxford 3000 - selection criteria


3: Centrality

Centrality domestic objects & activities: container, ink, lid, rubbish, shower

emotions: ashamed, grateful, jealous, lonely, pity, suspicious

food/drink/cooking: cheese, chocolate, juice, menu, rice, sour, spoon

function words: hers, nowhere, ours, ourselves, theirs

human physiology: female, fever, hungry, swell, toilet, unconscious

human relationships: apologize, boyfriend, forgive, goodbye, insult, punish

the physical world: boil, liquid, melt, shallow, transparent, vertical, width

Frequency

Range

(quantitative: numbers and computer data)

Centrality

Oxford 3000


A qualitative and quantitative wordlist

(qualitative: advice from panel of 70 experts)

Key, or not key?


Which three of the following are not keywords?

degree delay deliberate delighted

deliver dormant drowsy deny

depart departure depend duty

Key, or not key?


degree delay deliberate delighted

deliver dormant drowsy deny

duty depart departure depend

Recap




In what order do we teach them?

Checking Level


English Vocabulary Profile (EVP)

Checking Level


English Vocabulary Profile

Polysemy


POLYSEMY

POLYSEMY


POLYSEMY

=

words with

multiple meanings

Words with multiple meanings


‘KEY’

Meanings of key


Meanings of ‘Key’


noun

MOST IMPORTANT THING e.g. key to success

ON A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT e.g. piano key

ANSWERS e.g. check your answers in the key

TOOL FOR LOCK e.g. car keys

ON MAP (an explanation of symbols)

MUSIC e.g. a tune in the key of E flat

ON COMPUTER e.g. press the return key

verb ~ sth (in) TYPE ON A KEYBOARD e.g. key in your password

DAMAGE A CAR WITH A KEY

adj. VITAL, ESSENTIAL e.g. a key player in a team, a key role.

Meanings of ‘key’


noun





ON MAP (an explanation of symbols)

MUSIC e.g. a tune in the key of E flat



DAMAGE A CAR WITH A KEY






noun










Checking level of multiple meanings

Stop and reflect ….




In what order do we teach them?

How did we ‘choose our words carefully’ in

Navigate?

Vocabulary selection in Navigate


“Understanding the next bit of English”

“How does today’s teaching make

tomorrow’s text easier?” Paul Nation: ‘Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing’

“… Our real job is to help learners

understand the next bit of English they

read or hear.”

Catherine Walter, series adviser for Navigate



Vocabulary syllabus



Texts - carefully-graded language

To understand a text without a dictionary

learners need to understand 95 - 98%

of the words. (Hu and Nation 2000)



Texts - exploiting vocabulary in texts

Focus on high-frequency vocabulary,

helping students to understand ‘tomorrow’s text’.



Grammar exercises



[add cover photo The Workbook

Of WB]

‘Mopping up’ the Oxford 3000



Vocab Syllabus – lexical sets

Texts - careful grading

- vocab exercises based on

the text

Grammar exercises

Workbook

Writing Navigate


A glimpse behind the scenes: justifying our vocab choices …

Extract from B1 manuscript

Writing Navigate


A glimpse behind the scenes: demonstrating level

extract from Navigate B1 manuscript

Writing Navigate


A glimpse behind the scenes: ticking off words …

Writing Navigate


A glimpse behind the scenes: detailed record-keeping!

Beyond the Oxford 3000


Is the Oxford

3000 really all

learners need?



Idiomatic language

put your foot in it

at the crack of dawn hit it off

not sleep a wink come up with an idea

know your stuff bored stiff

soak up the atmosphere get your money’s worth

step out of your comfort zone

Some idioms from Navigate B2

Idiomatic language



‘New’ words

hand-held device tech-savvy eco-friendly

wireless copy sb in / Cc sb (email)

go viral

live-streaming smart

to hack high-tech

hang out zone out

Some ‘new’ words in Navigate B2

B3



Word formation

adjective suffixes -able, -al, - ant, - ive

prefixes noun suffixes semi-, bi-, self-, multi- -ence, -ity, -tion, -dom

compound nouns compound adjectives pedestrian area, parking space tight-fitting, high-tech, run-down

opportunities to

expand vocabulary

Extracts from Navigate


Any questions?


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