vocabulary 20frequency

7/30/2019 Vocabulary 20frequency

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When we say that a word is frequent, we mean that it is used more often in the language

than other words which are less frequent. We measure frequency by looking at a sample

of language called a corpus. A corpus is a collection of text, usually held on a computer,

which we can analyse in order to obtain information about the language in general.

When we are writing dictionaries, one of the things we use corpus for is to analyse how

a word behaves in context so that we can give information about collocation and

grammar patterns, and to help us write example sentences. You may have heard about

this aspect of corpus. But what we are interested in here is getting information about

how frequent a word is. Our corpus programs allow us to generate frequency lists which

show the words in the corpus in order of frequency, with the most frequent at the top and

becoming less and less frequent as we go down the list. Here are the top twelve words

from the frequency list. (The numbers show the numbers of times that the word appears

in the corpus.)

the 5976498

be 3557210

of 3017772

and 2621951

to 2551312

a 2154024

in 1900782

that 1193673

have 1129193

it 1054848

I 897073

for 856455

You will notice that there is a dramatic difference in frequency between the items at the

top of the list, but the further down the list we go, the closer together their frequencies

become. So that means that the top words make up a huge proportion of what we

actually say and write. The, at the top, makes up around 7% of any text or conversation.


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But why bother with wordlists anyway? Well, learners always want to know: How many

words do we need to learn? and What are they?. Our research shows very clearly that

teachers and students think that knowing which words are more frequent gives a big

advantage when it comes to learning vocabulary. And, in fact, applied linguistics

research shows that they are right.

It all comes down to the fact, obvious in a way, that some words are far more frequent,

and therefore far more useful, than others. As we saw, one word, the, makes up 7% of

all words in an average text. The most common ten words make up about 24% of an

average text, even more in the spoken language. It is clear from this that 3000 words will

make up a very large proportion of what we speak and write.

The implications for vocabulary teaching are quite far-reaching. It does not mean that we

can just teach 3000 words and that will be enough for our students; but it does mean

that we must give priority to teaching the high frequency words above words which are

lower frequency.

The conclusion which these figures lead us to, then, is that concentrating our efforts on a

restricted list of the most frequent 3000 words is a good investment of time and energy,

as it will allow us to understand a very high proportion of the words in a text.

This is what we have done in the Seventh edition of the Oxford Advanced Learners

Dictionary(OALD). We have produced a vocabulary list which can be used by students

at most levels. The keywords of the Oxford 3000 have been carefully selected by a

group of language experts and experienced teachers as the words which should receive

priority in vocabulary study because of their importance and usefulness. The selection is

based on three criteria.

The first strand is corpus frequency, of course: how common the word is overall.

Frequency is a very important factor in how important a word is for learners to know, as

we have already seen.

So, the words which occur most frequently in English are included, based on theinformation in our corpus collection.

Most frequency-based word lists stop there they are based purely on word counts.

This has disadvantages, however. it may be that the word is used very frequently, but

only in a narrowly defined area, such as newspapers or scientific articles. So in order to

avoid including these restricted words, we include as keywords only those words which


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are frequent across a range of different types of text. In other words, keywords are both

frequent and used in a variety of contexts.

In addition, the list includes some very important words which happen not to be used

frequently, even though they are very familiarto most users of English. This list of low-

frequency but important words includes, perhaps surprisingly, words for parts of the

body (such as chestand stomach), words to do with human relationships (such as

boyfriendand aunt), and words which are useful for explaining what you mean when you

do not know the exact word for something (such as liquidandpowder). These words

were identified by consulting a panel of over seventy experts in the fields of teaching and

language study to find out which of these low-frequency words they considered to be

most important for students learning.

The words which the panel considered essential are invariably words which have a very

basic meaning, which cannot be expressed in any other way. It is difficult to imagine

being able to function in English without some of these words. As well as the words I

have already mentioned, they include words for domestic objects and activities (shower,

stairs, cupboard), words to do with emotions (ashamed,jealous, grateful), and words to

do with food, drink and cooking (cheese, chocolate, spoon). Perhaps surprisingly, a few

function words are not all that frequent, including some possessive pronouns (hers, ours,

theirs).

These are all words which do not fulfil the frequency criteria but are included in theOxford 3000 because they are important for students to know. They are useful words

because they are the words that a learner needs in order to explain something that he or

she does not have the vocabulary for. And for the same reason they are also important

for dictionary-makers, because they are words which are essential for writing definitions.

In order to make the definitions in this dictionary easy to understand, we have written

them using the keywords of the Oxford 3000. All words used in normal definition text

are keywords.

The words of the Oxford 3000 are shown in the main section of the dictionary in larger

print, and with a key symbol immediately following. The entries for keywords often have

extra information in the form of more examples of use, special notes explaining

synonyms or related words, or helpful illustrations. This means that the keywords make

an excellent starting point for expanding your vocabulary. With most keywords, there is

far more to learn about them than the first meaning in the entry: often these words have


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many meanings, have a large family of words derived from them, or are used in a variety

of patterns. All of this means that each one of the keywords repays close study.

Of course, a vocabulary of 3000 words will not be sufficient for anyone who is hoping to

progress beyond intermediate level. In order to function at an academic or professional

level, learners need to equip themselves with a certain amount of specialized

vocabulary, the exact nature of which will depend on their academic or professional

interests. For this reason we have included extra lists of 250 words each, which will give

more specialist coverage in three areas that students are likely to be interested in. These

are: arts, sciences, and business and finance. These lists cover the next most important

words to learn after the Oxford 3000 for those who are interested in one of these

fields. The lists are based on analyses of specialist corpora and include the next most

frequent words after the keywords of the Oxford 3000.

The Oxford 3000 is designed to be used by teachers, syllabus planners, materials

writers and test writers. But in particular it will be students who will benefit from using the

list. There are three ways that students can use the Oxford 3000.

Firstly, they can use it to revise. It makes an excellent checklist to make sure that they

know all the words on the list, the most frequent and useful words of English.

Secondly, they can use it to extend their knowledge of keywords. It is important to know

high-frequency words well. Students may think that they already know all there is to

know about these words, but a glance at a dictionary entry will show that there is more to

a word than its basic meaning. Students should be aware that Oxford 3000 words

often have several meanings and are often used in idioms, as part of phrasal verbs, in

common collocations, and in particular grammatical patterns.

And thirdly, they can use it to expand their vocabulary using the Oxford 3000 as a

springboard. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionarycontains a large number of

notes, illustrations and cross-references which students can use to build up their word

knowledge beyond the words in the list. For example, notes in the dictionary group

together words with related meanings. At the entry forbreak, an Oxford 3000

keyword, the note in the blue panel lists word which have similar meanings to break, but

which will often be more appropriate for a particular context.

So, how can you help your students to make use of this resource to learn the items on

the Oxford 3000 list, and then to use the Oxford 3000 to progress beyond the


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intermediate plateau? The final part of this article looks at some ways teachers can

make use of the Oxford 3000 in the classroom. Many of these ideas are exploited in

the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary Resource Book, which contains

photocopiable exercises and activities for use in the classroom.

First of all, research shows that repetition on its own is not very effective so there is not

much point in just reading the list passively. Most researchers say that the learner needs

to engage with the word in some way in order to learn it effectively.

One easy way of doing this would be to get your students to use the word in written

sentences, then get them to read them aloud to each other (reading aloud is a more

effective way of memorizing than silent reading). For example, tell them to write a

sentence with landscape, then read it aloud to their neighbour. The sentence should be

as personal as possible to make it more memorable.

Another way to engage with the word is for students to make decisions about the word.

This could involve categorizing, ranking, and sequencing. For example, give them a list

of words (qualification, worship, term, federal, court,prayer,party, illegal) and get them

to put them into the following categories: law, politics, education, religion.

You could also get them to arrange words in order of size, for example spider, mouse,

cat, cow, or in time order, for example baby, child, teenager, adult.

It often helps to associate words with a mental image. This is quite easy for real-world

objects, like flowerorarrow but it can also be extended to abstract ones. For example,

what image might you associate with dangerous?

Again, this could be adapted as a classroom activity: One student draws a picture to

represent a particular word, while the other students try to guess what the word is.

Different students will of course have different learning styles so you should allow

learners to organize their own vocabulary learning where this is practical. So for

example, students could make their own choice of words to learn from the Oxford

3000 and compare the words that they have chosen with the words that other students

have chosen, telling their partner the reasons for their choice to give it a more personal

and memorable touch.

Another way of making words memorable is to choose a few apparently unrelated words

and try to relate them in some way.


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For example, how would you relate emergencyandpepper? You could write a sentence,

or just think of an idea. A more extended version of this would be to give students

between five and ten words and ask them to write a story, perhaps in groups,

incorporating all of the words. It does not particularly matter if the resulting story is not

very logical or coherent the personal involvement should help to make the words used

more memorable.

Some other quick and easy ways of making vocabulary more memorable by engaging

with it include anagrams, word searches, and word strings. Examples of these can be

found in the OALD Resource Book.

We have been talking about ways of making the process of learning vocabulary more

meaningful by maximizing the students involvement, but there is still a lot to be said for

list-learning. For example bilingual wordlists are an effective way of summarizing

meaning and an economical way of learning. Different estimates have put the number of

words that can be learnt in this way at 50 words in a week, or even 30 words in an hour.

It would seem to be perfectly possible to learn 3000 words in this way in less than a

year. Of course, students will not learn all there is to know about each word by learning

in this way. But it always takes a number of encounters with the word before it is learnt

anyway, so memorizing it along with its translation is not such a bad idea. It is also

useful for self-testing: students cover up one half of the pair, either the English word or

the translation, and try to remember the other half.

The Oxford 3000 list has been specially designed to be used with the Oxford

Advanced Learners Dictionary. For more information on the Oxford 3000, visit the

OALD website at http://www.oup.com/elt/oald , where you can also download an

electronic copy of the list which you can then manipulate to create your own exercises

and learning resources. I hope that this will encourage dictionary users and not-yet

dictionary users to realize the wonderful resource material that is contained in our

dictionaries.

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