Knowledge-based Vocabulary Lists
Norbert Schmitt [+–]
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
Karen Dunn [+–]
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
Barry O’Sullivan [+–]
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Laurence Anthony [+–]
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
Benjamin Kremmel [+–]
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
It is widely acknowledged that vocabulary is a key component of language proficiency, and much research suggests that it is the essential component, particularly for the four language skills. This is particularly true in English as a Second Language (ESL) contexts, as second language learners typically have not had sufficient language exposure to acquire a wide English vocabulary, and this lexical deficiency causes problems in all of their L2 language usage. This puts a premium on teaching vocabulary, and measuring it in language tests. The problem is that there are hundreds of thousands of English words, and it is possible to teach and test only a tiny fraction of these. What principle can inform which words to focus upon? The solution to this problem for the last century has been frequency of occurrence. Frequency has been useful in identifying perhaps the 10,000 most useful words to teach and test, but has several disadvantages. The main ones are that frequency lists purport to identify words according to how often they occur in real life, but this will only be imperfectly represented by any corpus. Moreover, just because words occur in a certain frequency in a corpus, this does not mean that L2 learners learn them in this order. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that they do not, primarily because L2 classroom discourse, textbooks, and materials do not mirror real-world frequency very closely.
This book is the first to propose a solution by developing rank lists of English vocabulary based not on crude-at-best frequency data, but on the actual likelihood of L2 learners knowing the words. Knowledge-based Vocabulary Lists outlines the underlying research methodology and also includes the actual knowledge-based lists (one for each group of language learners studied: Spanish as L1, Chinese as L1, German as L1). These lists are useful resources for all practitioners of English Language Teaching (ELT). Teachers are able to consult it in their teaching, helping them to sequence their vocabulary teaching. Likewise, ELT materials developers and syllabus designers will find the lists invaluable in designing materials and curricula which better mirror English learners actual vocabulary learning trajectories. Tester developers will be better able to design vocabulary tests which match leaners actual lexical knowledge, as opposed to their theoretical knowledge based on frequency results. Finally, second language and corpus researchers will benefit from becoming familiar with the cutting-edge methodology employed in the KVL project.
Series: British Council Monographs on Modern Language Testing
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
This introductory chapter outlines the need and the rationale of the KVL. It begins with a brief history of word lists, illustrating how they are useful for second language pedagogy. It then moves on to frequency-based lists and their strengths, but particularly their weakness. Finally, it argues why a knowledge-based list can overcomes many of these weaknesses for many pedagogic purposes.
Chapter 2
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
This is the first methodology chapter, and describes how we compiled the initial candidate list of lemmas to be placed on the eventual tests. This was important because we did not know which 5,000 lemmas would end up on the list, so we need to test a larger number of lemmas in order to capture the best-known 5,000. The chapter also discusses key initial decisions, like scope of the list, choosing the counting unit (e.g. word, lemma, or word family), choosing the reference corpora, and which L1 speakers to test.
Chapter 3
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
This chapter discusses the development of the vocabulary tests we used, and all of the decisions that went it. These included deciding on an item format, developing the item-writing process, and developing the test instructions. It then reports on the piloting process with Spanish and Chinese participants.
Chapter 4
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
This chapter discusses development of the Internet-based vocabulary test, based on the paper-and-pencil piloting described in Chapter 3. We needed to make sure the test worked as well on computers and mobile phones as it did on paper.
Chapter 5
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
Once the test had been validated and the website developed, the next step was to have all 7,762 lemmas translated into Spanish, Chinese, and German, and then embedding them onto the Vocabulary Challenge website.
Chapter 6
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
The chapter discusses the substantial problems involved in developing a large-scale website (the Vocabulary Challenge website) to host our major project across three languages and multiple countries. There is also a section on British Council vetting of the site. The chapter includes screenshots of the actual Vocabulary Challenge instructions and test items.
Chapter 7
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
This chapter describes the data collection phase, and some of the challenges involved in collecting 125-150 responses for 7,762 target lemmas (i.e. 970,625 responses in total). This was for each language, that is, nearly 300,00 responses. Topics covered include the publicity and website tweaks that were necessary to obtain this amount of data.
Chapter 8
Analysis and Ranking of Lemmas (Including Comparison of the Spanish, German, and Chinese Results) [+–]
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
The is perhaps the main text chapter in the book, describing the data analyses involved in creating the lists.
Chapter 9
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
Another key chapter, where we compare our KVL results with existing frequency lists, and demonstrate why the KVL adds unique value for particular pedagogical purposes. If Marc Brysbaert’s list of L2 ‘Prevalence’ (essentially ‘knowledge’) is published by the time we are finishing this chapter, we will compare the KVL with his results as well.
Chapter 10
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
In this potential chapter, we look at various learner factors which affect leaner knowing or not knowing particular lemmas. However, as we will probably be up against the word limit, it is likely that this chapter will have to be dropped.
Chapter 11
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
This is another desirable chapter which outlines what we see as useful research directions stemming from the project, in particular developing KVL lists for other major languages like Japanese and Arabic. However, it is another chapter that may need to be deleted due to space constraints.
Chapter 12
Using the KVL Lists [+–]
Nottingham University
Norbert Schmitt is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in all aspects of second language vocabulary description, acquisition, use, pedagogy, and measurement. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on lexical issues, as well as four books: Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, and Pedagogy (with Michael McCarthy, 1997, CUP), Vocabulary in Language Teaching (2000, CUP), Formulaic Sequences (2004, John Benjamins), and Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual (2010, Palgrave). He has also published several other books on applied linguistics: A Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2010, Hodder), Why is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions (2006, University of Michigan Press). His student textbook (with Diane Schmitt) Focus on Vocabulary: The Academic Word List (2000, 2013 2nd ed., Pearson Longman) has sold over 100,000 copies and this has been followed up with Focus on Vocabulary: Bridging Vocabulary. Norbert has an h-index of 58 and has 26,000 citations as of March 13, 2020. He regularly presents at major conferences and consults globally on lexical issues.
British Council
Dr. Karen Dunn is a Senior Researcher in measurement and evaluation at the British Council. She holds a PhD in Applied Social Statistics and Masters in Language Studies. The focus of Karen’s PhD research was on using Explanatory Item Response Theory to investigate word difficulty for L2 learners of English. In additional to operational test concerns, her current research interests include scoring validity of reading reordering tasks, assessing language test dimensionality, and linking motivational profiles to proficiency outcomes.
British Council
Barry O’Sullivan is Head of Assessment Research and Development, the British Council, London, Visiting Professor of Language Assessment at the University of Reading, and Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Waseda University, Japan
Laurence Anthony is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan. He is a former director of the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) and is the coordinator of the CELESE technical English program. He received the M.A. degree in TESL/TEFL, and the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and the B.Sc. degree in mathematical physics from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include corpus linguistics, educational technology, natural language processing (NLP), and genre analysis. His main research interests are in educational technology, corpus linguistics, and natural language processing. Continuing from his Masters work in genre analysis, he developed software to automatically analyze texts at the sentence and discourse level for his PhD. Since then, he has been developing educational software for use by researchers, teachers, and learners in corpus linguistics, including AntConc, a freeware concordancer, AntWordProfiler, a freeware vocabulary profiler, and more recently web-based monolingual and parallel concordancers.
University of Innsbruck
Benjamin Kremmel is Head of the Language Testing Research Group Innsbruck (LTRGI) at the University of Innsbruck. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Subject-specific Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education and has been involved in multiple language test development projects, such as the exam reform of the Austrian school leaving exam and the development of a new national language exam for diagnosis and educational monitoring. His PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, was on the development and validation of vocabulary assessments. His research interests include vocabulary assessment, L2 reading assessment, diagnostic language testing, language assessment literacy, and SLA. His work has been published in Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching, PlosOne and TESOL Quarterly.
We are developing the list to be used by language practitioners, so it is important to outline how the list should (and should not!) be used. This chapter will essentially be a ‘User’s Manual’ in plain-speak to be used in conjunction with the KVL lists.
