Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

48
Position
Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
1
time
say
new
2
people
know
good
3
way
get
old
4
year
go
different
5
government
see
local
6
day
make
small
7
man
think
great
8
world
take
social
9
work
come
important
10
life
use
national
11
part
give
British
12
number
want
possible
13
children
find
large
14
system
mean
young
15
case
look
able
16
thing
begin
political
17
end
help
public
18
group
become
high
19
woman
tell
available
20
party
seem
full
Table 3.1 The 20 most frequent nouns, verbs and adjectives in English
Box 3.1 Test how many words you know
Complete these definitions, then look at the answers at the end of the chapter
on page 65.
1 a round object often used as a toy is a b__________
2 something you carry and put things in is a b_________
3 a pipe or channel through which things flow is a c__________
4 to give way to someone is to y__________
5 a person who works without being paid is a v__________
6 a preparation for preventing infectious disease is a v__________
7 a heavy glass with a handle is known as a t__________
8 a type of brain chemical is s__________
9 a sailor’s word for a clumsy fellow is a l__________
10 the effects of wind, rain, and so on, on objects is w__________
11 a heavy wheel used to store power is a f__________
12 something engraved on stone is l__________

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and module 1 of New Cutting Edge is far from frequent, in fact number 19,467 on
the BNC list, but it is certainly available to speakers and, quite rightly, needs to be
taught in the very early stages, particularly when the naming systems differ
between languages and it is unclear which of a person’s names might count as
their surname in English; the use of ‘last name’ in Unit 1 of Touchstone (McCarthy,
2005) seems particularly dubious given that family names come first in Chinese.
Carter (1988) has proposed that a language has a ‘core’ vocabulary found in all its
uses, plus ‘subject’ cores specific to specialist subject matters, and a non-core
vocabulary.
Influential as frequency has been in teaching, it has not played a major role in
SLA research. It belongs more to the descriptive Lang
3
sense of ‘language’ as a col-
lection of sentences. It is true that you are more likely to remember a word you
meet every day than one you only meet once. But there are many other factors
that make students learn words. A swear word ‘****’ said accidentally when the
teacher drops the tape recorder is likely to be remembered by the students for ever,
even if it is never repeated. Common words like ‘because’ and ‘necessary’ are still
spelt wrongly after students have been meeting them for many years.
Frequency of vocabulary has been applied in teaching mainly to the choice of
words to be taught. In a sense, the most useful words for the student are obviously
going to be those that are common. But it is unnecessary to worry about fre-
quency too much. If the students are getting reasonably natural English from
their coursebooks and their teachers, the common words will be supplied auto-
matically. The most frequent words do not differ greatly from one type of English
to another; the commonest five words in Jane Austen’s novels are ‘the’, ‘to’, ‘and’,
‘of’, ‘a’; in 7-year-old native children’s writing ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘I’, ‘to’; in the BNC
‘the’, ‘of’, ‘and’, ‘a’, ‘in’; and in Japanese students of English ‘I’, ‘to’, ‘the’, ‘you’,
‘and’. Any natural English the students hear will have the proper frequencies of
words; it is only the edited texts and conversations of the classroom that do not
have these properties, for better or worse.
Knowledge of words 49