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50 Years of ERIC
50 Years of ERIC
The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is celebrating its 50th Birthday! First opened on May 15th, 1964 ERIC continues the long tradition of ongoing innovation and enhancement.

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Showing all 7 results
How Much Input Do You Need to Learn the Most Frequent 9,000 Words?
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Nation, Paul – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2014
This study looks at how much input is needed to gain enough repetition of the 1st 9,000 words of English for learning to occur. It uses corpora of various sizes and composition to see how many tokens of input would be needed to gain at least twelve repetitions and to meet most of the words at eight of the nine 1000 word family levels. Corpus sizes…
Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Linguistic Input, English (Second Language), Novels
Technical Vocabulary in Specialised Texts.
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Chung, Teresa Mihwa; Nation, Paul – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2003
Describes two studies of technical vocabulary, one using an anatomy text and the other an applied linguistics text. Technical vocabulary was found by rating words in the texts on a four-step scale. Found that technical vocabulary made up a very substantial proportion of both the different words and the running words in texts. (Author/VWL)
Descriptors: Applied Linguistics, English for Special Purposes, Reading Comprehension, Second Language Instruction
Unknown Vocabulary Density and Reading Comprehension.
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Hsueh-Chao, Marcella Hu; Nation, Paul – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2000
Examines what percentage of coverage of text is needed for unassisted reading for pleasure, where learners are able to read without the interruption of looking up words. Looks at the effect of three densities of unknown vocabulary on two measures of reading comprehension, a multiple-choice test and a cued written recall test. (Author/VWL)
Descriptors: English (Second Language), Multiple Choice Tests, Reading Comprehension, Recall (Psychology)
Graded Readers and Vocabulary.
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Nation, Paul; Ming-Tzu, Karen Wang – Reading in a Foreign Language, 1999
Examines the potential for vocabulary learning using a corpus of 42 grade readers from one series of graded readers (seven at each of six levels in the series). It was found that in order to have 95% coverage of the running words at a level in the series, it was necessary to already know the vocabulary of the current level in the scheme.…
Descriptors: Basal Reading, Computer Software, English (Second Language), Instructional Materials
Learning from Graded Readers.
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Wodinsky, Marilyn; Nation, Paul – Reading in a Foreign Language, 1988
A word frequency study of two graded readers and an unsimplified text indicated that graded readers facilitated better foreign-language reading and vocabulary learning than did unsimplified texts. It was found that students needed to read several same-level texts to master vocabulary, and that vocabulary mastery was not necessary for successful…
Descriptors: Instructional Effectiveness, Readability Formulas, Reading Achievement, Reading Materials
Reducing the Vocabulary Load and Encouraging Vocabulary Learning through Reading Newspapers.
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Kyongho, Hwang; Nation, Paul – Reading in a Foreign Language, 1989
Comparison of the effectiveness of two story selection processes for English-as-a-Second-Language learners indicated that selecting "running" stories (a story and its follow-up articles) provided more repetition of low frequency words, better reduced vocabulary load, and provided better conditions for vocabulary acquisition than did selecting…
Descriptors: Comparative Analysis, English (Second Language), Korean, Newspapers
What Vocabulary Size Is Needed to Read Unsimplified Texts for Pleasure?
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Hirsh, David; Nation, Paul – Reading in a Foreign Language, 1992
The types of vocabulary in three short novels were analyzed to determine the text coverage of the most frequent 2,000 words of English, and the vocabulary needed to gain 97-98% coverage of the running words in each text. It was found that a 5,000-word vocabulary was necessary for adequate coverage in pleasure reading. (Contains nine references.)…
Descriptors: Decoding (Reading), Foreign Countries, Language Skills, Novels