The present study aims to investigate the sizes and distribution of academic words from the AWL in the five current senior high school English textbook series with emphasis on learning the higher-frequency academic words from Sublist 1 and the first three sublists. The academic words on the AWL which do not appear in the textbook series were identified to form a complementary word list for each textbook series to assist students’ academic vocabulary development. New words in textbooks were also analyzed with the frequency scheme of the GSL and the AWL to understand how many high-frequency words and academic words were introduced in each
textbook series in order to assess the impacts that the textbooks might have on students’ vocabulary knowledge to read academic texts in English. The words on the 1,200-word List were also integrated with the new words of each textbook series to plot the optimal vocabulary sizes that students could develop through the K-12 English curriculum in Taiwan with the use of particular textbook series at the senior high school level.
Sizes of Academic Vocabulary in Textbooks
This section displays the statistical results of the academic word sizes in the five senior high school English textbook series. The latest 2010 senior high school curriculum guidelines do not specify the amount of academic vocabulary for English learning and the findings of this study are more of exploratory in nature. The sizes of academic words on the AWL in the new word section from five textbook series are illustrated in Table 3. “Word family” was employed as the counting unit to show the amount of academic words from the AWL in textbooks against the total amount of 570 academic word families on the Academic Word List.
The collected data shows that different textbook series contain different amount of academic words, which provides different choices for senior high school students with different English proficiency and diverse learning needs. Three textbook series contain more than 50% of the academic words from the AWL: textbook series C include the most of them with 315 word families, followed by textbook series E with 306 word families and textbook series D with 289 word families. In contrast, textbook series B and A were found to include less than 50% of the academic words from the AWL. Textbook series B and A contain 256 word families and 240 word families of academic words on the AWL respectively, which account for about 45%
and 42% of the total amount of academic words of the AWL.
Table 3
Chi-square Test for the Amounts of Academic Words across Five Textbook Series Textbooks Academic
Words
Percentage χ2 df p Post hoc
A 240 42.11% 14.761** 4 .005 C>B
B 256 44.91% C>A
C 315 55.26% E>B
D 289 50.70% E>A
E 306 53.68% B>A
Note. ** p < .01
A chi-square goodness-of-fit test indicates that there are significant
differences in the amounts of academic words identified in the current five textbook series, χ2 (4, n = 1406) = 14.761, p < .01. Post hoc analysis shows that five pairs out of ten significantly differ in the amounts of academic words identified across six
volumes in the textbook series as illustrated in Table 3. Textbook series C and E show significant differences in terms of the amounts of academic words identified in the textbook series when compared with textbook series B and A. Textbook series D does show significant differences in its post-hoc chi-square test with textbook series A yet
does not show significant differences when compared with textbook series B. This suggests that textbook series A might have a significantly smaller learning load of academic words in terms of sizes when compared with textbook series C, E and D while the textbook series C and E would have a significantly higher learning load of academic words when compared with textbook series B and A.
The percentage of the academic words from the AWL included in the new word section in the current five textbook series ranges from 42% to 55%. This figure seems to correspond to Fan’s (2004) earlier finding of academic words selected from the University Word List (UWL) in the previous senior high school textbook series following the 1995 High School Curriculum Standards. About half of the academic words on the UWL were included in previous textbook series. Nonetheless, the
percentage of the academic words from the AWL included in the current five textbook series were found to be significantly lower than that of a more recent finding of academic words selected from the AWL in the SM textbook series. Huang (2009) reported that textbook series E following the 2006 Senior High School Temporary Curriculum Guidelines were found to include about 71% of academic words from the AWL. Current study shows that textbook series E following the 2010 Senior High School Curriculum Guideline actually only selected about 54% of academic words from the AWL. Since majority of senior high school graduates are likely to be required to read English-medium textbooks in college, textbook writers should perhaps consider including more academic words from the AWL in their future
textbook series to better prepare high school students for academic studies in English.
Worthington and Nation (1996) examined whether natural occurrence of academic vocabulary in texts was sufficient to provide coverage of the whole
academic vocabulary on the UWL. They argued that if texts were used as a means of sequencing academic vocabulary learning, it would be possible to do this for only a
part of about 50%. It is claimed that an impossibly large number of texts would be needed to cover all of the academic vocabulary on the UWL. Nation (2001) pointed out that this might be less of the problem for the Academic Word List as the AWL contains a smaller size of words and it might require fewer texts to provide coverage of the whole list. Empirical research on how many texts are needed to cover the whole list of the AWL has not been reported yet. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to expect that more than 50% of the academic words from the AWL could be covered by texts given that Worthington and Nation (1996) found it feasible for texts to cover half of the academic words from the 836-word-family UWL. Three of the textbook series examined in this research include more than 50% of academic words of the AWL.
Indeed, a higher percentage of academic words from the AWL could perhaps be targeted in the future textbook series. Text adaptation or specially-prepared exercises targeting on certain academic words might be needed to introduce more academic words from the AWL in the senior high school textbook series.
According to the nine-year integrated curriculum guidelines (MOE, 2006), junior high school graduates are expected to be proficient in using the words on the Basic 1200-word List for Elementary and Junior High School Students (1200-word List). A word frequency band analysis with Web VocabProfile Classic v.4 reveals that the 1200-word List includes nine hundred word families of the GSL with 621 word families identified on the first thousand frequency band (K1) and 279 word families on the second thousand frequency band (K2). Nine academic words from the Academic Word List were also identified: compute, final, grade, link, medium, physical, tape, team, and uniform. The 1,200-word List mainly consists of words for daily communication and thus only nine academic words were identified in the list.
Table 4
Chi-square Test for the Amounts of Academic Words in Five Textbook Series Plus 1200-word List
Textbooks +1200WL
Academic Words
Percentage χ2 df p Post hoc
A+1200 247 43.33% 14.493** 4 .006 C>B
B+1200 262 45.96% C>A
C+1200 320 56.14% E>B
D+1200 296 51.93% E>A
E+1200 315 55.26% D>A
Note. ** p < .01
As illustrated in Table 4, senior high school graduates who have successfully mastered the academic words from the curriculum are expected to have academic vocabulary sizes of 247 to 320 word families of the Academic Word List depending on which textbook series that the students have used. The amount of academic vocabulary senior high school graduates develop would consist of about 43% to 56%
of the total amount of academic words on the AWL, which is not sufficient to help students to reach adequate reading comprehension of academic texts. To have better comprehension of academic texts, students would need to learn the remaining part of academic words on the AWL. If the inclusion of more academic words from the AWL into textbooks is feasible, textbook writers could perhaps try to select more academic words into their textbook series. Teachers and instructors could also introduce the remaining academic vocabulary from the AWL through adaptation of texts, learning from lists, specially-prepared exercises and encourage students to read extensively to facilitate the learning of academic vocabulary (Nation, 2001). The remaining
academic words from the AWL of each textbook series were also identified in this study to form complementary word lists to help students develop their academic vocabulary knowledge. The complementary word lists would be presented after the
examination of the distribution of the academic words in textbook series.
Distribution of Academic Vocabulary in Textbooks
In the preceding part, the sizes of academic words from the AWL in textbook series were revealed. This section will present the distribution of academic words across the ten sublists of the AWL and then across the six volumes among the five textbook series.
Distribution of Academic Vocabulary across Sublists in Textbooks
The AWL consists of ten sublists based on frequency, range and text coverage, which provides a rationale for sequencing the learning. The 60 academic words on Sublist 1 provide text coverage of 3.6%, accounting for one-third of the coverage of the AWL for original academic corpus. The academic words on Sublist 1 on average occur once every 4.3 pages on the original corpus with each page averaging 400 words. The second sublist provides half of the coverage of that of the first sublist.
Table 5 illustrated the coverage of the academic corpus from each sublist of the AWL. Coxhead (2001) suggested that the academic words on the first three sublists occur with relatively high frequency and have great value for learning. Since the senior high school students have limited class hours and word frequency is the important criteria in vocabulary selection in textbook (Coady, et al., 1993; Cobb, 2013;
Gairns & Redman, 1986; Geothals, 2004; Nation, 2001& 2003; Nation & Waring, 1997; Richards, 1974 & 2001; Schmitt, 2000; Schmitt & Schmitt, 2012; Sinclair &
Renouf, 1998), more academic words from each of the first three sublists should be introduced than the academic words from each of the lower frequency sublists.
Despite adding little to the whole AWL coverage, academic words from the rest of the sublists are still worth including in the teaching materials as Coxhead (2001) pointed out that these less frequent academic words occur in a wide range of texts and are less
likely to be learned incidentally from reading. The inclusion of these less frequent academic words in the lists for direct teaching or learning could facilitate students’
development of academic vocabulary knowledge and subsequently aiding their comprehension of academic texts.
Table 5
Text Coverage of Each Sublists of the AWL Items Coverage of
Academic Corpus
Cumulative Coverage
Pages per Occurrence in Academic Corpus
Sublist 1 60 3.6% 3.6% 4.3
Sublist 2 60 1.8% 5.4% 8.4
Sublist 3 60 1.2% 6.6% 12.3
Sublist 4 60 0.9% 7.5% 15.9
Sublist 5 60 0.8% 8.3% 19.4
Sublist 6 60 0.6% 8.9% 24.0
Sublist 7 60 0.5% 9.4% 30.8
Sublist 8 60 0.3% 9.7% 49.4
Sublist 9 60 0.2% 9.9% 67.3
Sublist 10 60 0.1% 10.0% 82.5
Note. From “A New Academic Word List,” by A. Coxhead, 2000, TESOL Quarterly, 34, 228.
Figure 1 reveals the distribution of academic words across ten sublists of the five textbook series. As can been seen in Figure 1, textbook series A seems to have more ideal sequencing and gradation with more academic words introduced from the sublists with higher frequency academic vocabulary than from the sublists with lower frequency academic vocabulary. The amount of academic words included in textbook series A appears to decrease gradually with the progression of the sublists from the higher frequency to lower frequency. The other four textbook series appear to fluctuate slightly in the amount of academic words presented across the ten sublists.
The other four textbook series do select more academic words from Sublist 1 and
Sublist 2 than from the lower frequency sublists. However, the academic words chosen from the lower frequency sublists sometimes outnumber the academic words chosen from the higher frequency sublists. For example, textbook series E includes 35 academic word families from Sublist 7 and only 29 word families from
high-frequency Sublist 3.
Figure 1. Line graph showing academic word distribution across ten sublists in five textbook series.
Table 6 presents the amount and percentage of academic words selected from Sublist 1 in the current five textbook series. Textbook series D appears to have the largest amount of academic words selected from Sublist 1 with 47 word families, which accounts for 78% of the academic words of Sublist 1 while textbook series B and E have the smallest amount of academic words selected from Sublist 1 with 41 word families, which accounts for 68% of the academic words of Sublist1. Textbook series C and A were found to include 45 and 42 word families from Sublist 1, which account for 75% and 70% of the academic words on Sublist 1. Yet, a chi-square
goodness-of-fit test indicates that there are no significant differences in the amount of academic words selected from Sublist 1 in the current five textbook series, χ2(4, n = 219) = .521, p = .971. Despite no significant differences in the amount of academic words selected from Sublist 1 of the AWL among the five textbook series, each textbook series introduces different academic words from Sublist 1. The exact
academic word families from Sublist 1 selected by each textbook series are identified and compiled in Appendix A.
Table 6
Chi-square Test for the Amounts of Academic Words from Sublist 1 across Five Textbook Series
Textbooks Academic Words
Percentage of Sublist1
χ2 df p
A 42 70.00% .521 4 .971
B 41 68.33%
C 45 75.00%
D 47 78.33%
E 41 68.33%
Note. * p < .05
Table 7 displays the amount and percentage of academic words selected from the first three sublists among the five textbook series. Textbook series C contains the largest amount of academic word families from the first three sublists with 124 word families (69% of academic words from the first three sublists), followed by textbook series D with 118 word families (66% of academic words from the first three sublists), textbook series B with 113 word families (63% of academic words from the first three sublists), textbook series E with 111 word families (62% of academic words from the first three sublists) and textbook series A with 105 word families (58% of academic words from the first three sublists). A chi-square test nonetheless shows no significant
differences for the amounts of academic words selected from the first free sublists among the five textbook series, χ2 (4, n = 571) = 1.811, p = .770. This statistical result implies that all of the five textbook series examined show similar strength in terms of selecting the higher-frequency academic words, which are recommended to be placed with high priority for academic word learning as they yield to a higher text coverage compared to the remaining academic words on the AWL. Despite no significant difference shown in terms of the amount of academic words selected from the first three sublists among the five textbook series, variation of selection of academic words can still be observed from the qualitative data of the exact academic words identified.
The exact academic word families selected from the first three sublists in each textbook series can be accessed in Appendix B.
Table 7
Chi-square Test for the Amounts of Academic Words from the First Three Sublists across Five Textbook Series
Textbooks Academic Words
Percentage of Sublist1-3
χ2 df p
A 105 58.33% 1.811 4 .770
B 113 62.78%
C 124 68.89%
D 118 65.56%
E 111 61.67%
Note. * p < .05
In terms of the distribution of academic words from Sublist 1 and the first three sublists across textbook series, the five textbook series examined in this study share a similar pattern. What made the textbook series distinct from each other in academic word selection might be the academic words selected from the sublists with the less frequent academic words (Sublist 4-Sublist 10).
Table 8
Chi-square Test for the Amount of Academic Words from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 across Five Textbook Series
Textbooks Academic Words
Percentage of Sublist 4-10
χ2 df p Post hoc
A 135 34.62% 17.820* 4 .001 C>B
B 143 36.67% C>A
C 191 48.97% E>B
D 171 43.85% E>A
E 195 50.00% D>A
Note. * p < .05
Table 8 shows the amounts and percentage of academic words selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 in the five textbook series. Textbook series E and C outnumber the other textbook series in the amount of academic words selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 with 195 word families and 191 word families respectively followed by textbook series D with 171 academic word families selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10. Textbook series B and A contain relatively smaller amounts of academic words from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 with 143 word families and 135 word families. A chi-square goodness-of-fit test does show significant differences in the amounts of academic words selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 among the five textbook series, χ2 (4, n = 835) = 17.820, p = .001. Post hoc analysis reveals five pairs out of ten show significant differences in terms of the amount of academic words selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10. Textbook series E and C show significant differences in terms of the amount of academic words selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 when
compared with textbook series B and A. Textbook series D show significant differences in its post-hoc Chi-square test with the B textbook series yet does not show significant differences when compared with textbook series A in terms of the amount of academic words selected from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10.
These results seem to correspond exactly to the results of the total amount of
the academic words included from the AWL among the five textbook series as discussed previously. Given that the five textbook series do not significantly differ in the amount of academic words from the first three sublists yet the total sizes of academic words significantly differ among the five textbook series, it seems reasonable to conclude that the significant differences of the amount of academic words from Sublist 4 to Sublist 10 might have contributed to the significant
differences of the total sizes of academic words identified in the textbook series. In other words, the five textbook series do not differ in their strength in terms of selecting the most frequent academic words from the high-frequency sublists. The differences of the amount of academic word selection among five textbook series mainly arise from the selection of academic words in the less-frequent sublists (Sublist 4 to Sublist 10). The exact academic words selected by each textbook series are presented in Appendix C.
Distribution of Academic Vocabulary across Six Volumes in Textbooks
Nation (1990 & 2001) suggested that higher priorities be given to the learning of the 2,000 high-frequency GSL words than to the academic vocabulary for beginner and intermediate students. Learners who plan to do academic study in English can proceed to academic vocabulary learning after gaining control of the 2,000
high-frequency words. As the junior high school graduates in Taiwan might not have fully mastered the 2,000 high-frequency words, the senior high school English textbook series in Taiwan would still have to introduce the high-frequency 2, 000 words and gradually add some academic vocabulary in the more advanced volume.
Figure 2 illustrates the academic words distribution plot across the six volumes among the five textbook series. A chi-square test indicates that there are significant differences in the distribution of academic words identified across the six
volumes in the current five textbook series, χ2 (20, n = 1511) = 39.357, p < .01.
Despite the difference in academic words distribution across volumes, some similar patterns could still be observed among some textbook series. The fourth volumes
Despite the difference in academic words distribution across volumes, some similar patterns could still be observed among some textbook series. The fourth volumes