A comparative study of vocabulary items used in high school textbooks versus Touchstone

Vocabulary frequency as a facet of vocabulary knowledge has been highlighted as an essential contributing factor in vocabulary learning in a natural context. However, in a foreign language learning context, learning large amount of vocabulary through natural text in a short period of time is infeasible. Besides, superiority of those who attend private institutes over high school graduates is evident. Therefore, the researchers compared the vocabulary included in the high school textbooks with those included in Touchstone textbooks via New-GSL as a criterion wordlist. To do so, both groups of textbooks were prepared as a corpus and analyzed by AntConc software. The words along with their frequencies were illustrated in separate wordlists for each group of textbooks as well as for common words, proper nouns, people’s names, and non-lexical conversational sounds. The results showed the superiority of Touchstone series over the High School textbooks in terms of providing more vocabulary items as well as text coverage. Moreover, proper nouns were also examined and it was revealed that proper nouns contained in the High School textbooks mostly were localized by educational authorities. The most significant implication of the study is the necessity of a systematic criterion for vocabulary selection and presenting a well-developed wordlist by textbook designers for language teachers and learners.

Keywords:

Corpus , Vocabulary , ELT , Textbook , Comparison