A Corpus-based Study of Lexis in L2 English Textbooks

Despite the fact that textbooks are central in foreign language learning, only limited research has explored to what extent L2 textbooks support language learning and whether the content in them is relevant from a vocabulary perspective. This study investigates the vocabulary in seven English textbo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of language teaching and research 2018-05, Vol.9 (3), p.463-473
Main Authors:	Norberg, Cathrine, Nordlund, Marie
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Corpus analysis Elementary education Engelska med didaktisk inriktning English and Education English as a second language English as a second language teaching materials Language textbooks
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Despite the fact that textbooks are central in foreign language learning, only limited research has explored to what extent L2 textbooks support language learning and whether the content in them is relevant from a vocabulary perspective. This study investigates the vocabulary in seven English textbooks used in Swedish primary schools. A corpus has been constructed based on the words in the textbooks. By means of a concordancing software tool, the material has been analyzed by comparing the vocabulary between the books and to words on the New General Service List and in the VP-Kids corpus. The analysis shows that many words in the textbooks occur only occasionally in common everyday language use. It also demonstrates that there is great variation in the number and selection of words across the books indicating that there does not seem to be a common thought behind word selection in textbooks used in Swedish schools.
ISSN:	1798-4769 2053-0684 2053-0684