Measuring Vocabulary Use in Chinese Tertiary Textbooks: Potentials for Incidental Vocabulary Learning

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Asian Journal of English Language Teaching ›› 2023, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (1) : 131-154.

Research Articles

Measuring Vocabulary Use in Chinese Tertiary Textbooks: Potentials for Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Chen WANG¹, Yuhua LIU²

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Abstract

This article explores the underresearched area of single words and collocations in English textbooks for Chinese tertiary students. The present study is based on a corpus of English tertiary textbooks consisting of texts from the three most widely used materials in Chinese universities covering two years of English learning. By examining a range of indexes of single words and collocations, this study reveals interesting findings for EFL learners. Our results show that text- books might not provide enough opportunities for students’ incidental learning of vocabulary. In this case, students’ current level of vocabulary size would have to be enough to achieve acceptable comprehension of the texts. Our analyses showed that the majority of single words and collocations appeared only once in the textbook series. In addition, the results showed that the overlap between the single words and the required vocabulary list issued by the Ministry of Educa- tion in China is relatively modest. Relevant implications are discussed based on the findings.

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Chen WANG, Yuhua LIU. Measuring Vocabulary Use in Chinese Tertiary Textbooks: Potentials for Incidental Vocabulary Learning[J]. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching. 2023, 32(1): 131-154

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