This article highlights the challenging task teachers face in selecting vocabulary to teach. First, we briefly discuss three features of the English lexicon that are crucial to keep in mind when selecting vocabulary for instruction and three approaches that have been suggested. Then, we present a theoretically based approach called Selecting Words…

Pre-service special educators' Malay word structure knowledge was assessed through their analysis of words. A total of 69 participants analysed a vocabulary list based on a set of criteria formulated from the Malay language word structure. Results indicated that they were able to count syllables and phonemes, and identify types of…

The present article provides an exploration of ultimate attainment in second language (L2) and its limitations. It is argued that the question of maturational constraints can best be investigated when the reference population is bilingual and exposed on a regular basis to varieties of their first language (L1) that show cross-linguistic influence.…

Purpose: Speech recognition may be analyzed in terms of recognition probabilities for perceptual wholes (e.g., words) and parts (e.g., phonemes), where j or the j-factor reveals the number of independent perceptual units required for recognition of the whole (Boothroyd, 1968b; Boothroyd & Nittrouer, 1988; Nittrouer & Boothroyd, 1990). For…

The purpose of the study was to improve the immediate and delayed memory sections of the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) by identifying a list of more psychometrically sound items (words). A total of 200 participants with no history of concussion in the previous six months (aged 19.60 ± 2.20 years; N?=?93 men, N?=?107 women)…

Sinclair (1991) found that lexical analysis can be overcomplicated, yet Johns (1994) called for investigation into whether corpus analysis can motivate beginners and near-beginners. The findings of this research suggest that young EFL learners can enjoy using corpus analysis tools (wordlists and concordances) to identify, classify, and generalize…

The effects of warning on false recognition and associated subjective experience of false recollection and familiarity were investigated in 7-to 13-year-old children and young adults (N = 259) using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Two warning conditions (warning with an example of a critical lure and warning without an example of a…

This study aims to examine language dominance and language switching effects in a series of monolingual and multilingual lexical decisions in which participants have to decide if the presented letter string is a word or not, regardless of language. Thirty participants (12 French-English bilinguals and 18 French-English-Spanish trilinguals) were…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to demonstrate improved precision of word recognition scores (WRSs) by increasing list length and analyzing phonemic errors. Method: Pure-tone thresholds (frequencies between 0.25 and 8.0 kHz) and WRSs were measured in 3 levels of speech-shaped noise (50, 52, and 54 dB HL) for 24 listeners with normal…

The English Language Institute (now the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) at Victoria University of Wellington has a long history of corpus-based vocabulary research, especially after the arrival of the second director of the institute, H. V. George, and the appointment of Helen Barnard, whom George knew in India. George's…

This article presents our new Academic Vocabulary List (AVL), derived from a 120-million-word academic subcorpus of the 425-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA; Davies 2012). We first explore reasons why a new academic core list is warranted, and why such a list is still needed in English language education. We also provide…

This study entailed two short-term memory (STM) experiments investigating the importance of vowel diacritics for the temporary retention of three distinct Hebrew word list types: heterophonic homographs, non-homographs and homophonic homographs. Eighty university students participated in each experiment, with half of them tested with word lists…

This study created a medical word list (MWL) to bridge the gap between non-technical and technical vocabulary. The researcher compiled a corpus containing 155 textbooks across 31 medical subject areas from e-book databases (totaling 15 million running words) and examined the range and frequency of words outside the most frequent 3,000-word…

It is common to see word walls displaying the vocabulary that students have learned in class. Word walls serve as visual scaffolds and are a classroom strategy used to reinforce reading and language arts instruction. Research shows a strong relationship between student word knowledge and academic achievement (Stahl and Fairbanks 1986). As a…

In this article, a classroom teacher discusses ambiguities in mathematics vocabulary and strategies for ELL students in building understanding. The authors note that mathematics vocabulary may be more difficult to learn than other academic vocabulary for several reasons: (1) definitions are filled with technical vocabulary, symbols, and diagrams;…