چکیده:
This paper reports a study which investigated if there was a match between students’ English vocabulary size and the vocabulary load of a locally produced textbook. The analysis of the passages of the pre-university English textbook currently in use in Iran’s education system using RANGE program indicated that in order to comprehend the texts, students need to know not only words from 2000 high frequency word list, but also words from academic and low frequency lists. On the other hand, results of the 2000 vocabulary level test administered to 464 Iranian pre-university students, male and female, showed that students did not possess sufficient vocabulary knowledge in order to comprehend the texts and that their vocabulary knowledge was limited far below 2000 words. Other analyses of the textbook, including exercises and word glosses provided more evidence for the inadequacy of the textbook. The paper concludes that the pre-university textbook is flawed in terms of the required principles and standards in materials development which results in students’ frustration and disappointment in learning English. The findings of the study are discussed, which should be of much interest to local and international ELT stakeholders, especially textbook writers.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The analysis of the passages of the pre-university English textbook currently in use in Iran’s education system using RANGE program indicated that in order to comprehend the texts, students need to know not only words from 2000 high frequency word list, but also words from academic and low frequency lists.
Keywords: vocabulary load, high frequency words, text-book evaluation, vocabulary knowledge Introduction Vocabulary treatment in English language textbooks is an important issue given the fact that vocabulary plays an indispensable role in students’ development of their proficiency.
Research has shown that vocabulary plays an important role in helping students build their overall English language proficiency (Schmitt, 2000; Sokmen, 1997) so that it can be said at any stage, ESL/EFL students’ proficiency highly correlates with their level of lexical knowledge.
The implication of the word frequency lists in designing instructional materials and authoring textbook would be to attend to and consider these levels of vocabulary knowledge so that students can involve with the text and improve their learning.
It should be stated that from the dichotomy of breath and depth of vocabulary knowledge (see, Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Nassaji, 2004; Qian, 1999, 2002; Read, 1993; Wesche & Paribakht, 1996), this study focuses on students’ breath or size of vocabulary as operationalized by students’ scores on the 2000 vocabulary test (Schmitt, Clapham, & Schmitt, D.
1- Results of the study revealed that in order to read the texts and understand them, students are required to know not only words from 2000 word high frequency level and academic list, but in four out of eight lessons, knowledge of low frequent words seems also necessary.