vocabulary acquisition

2021-22 Vocab Stats

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I wanted to write a short text using the most frequent words students have read so far this whole year. Although I might have been able to predict what most of those words were, the data was insightful. To be clear, this is a *minimum* amount students have read. I copied text from seven novellas we read as a whole class, as well as any class texts in the digital library, then ran it through Voyant Tools. What does NOT appear in the data is the day’s opening greeting I have on a Google Doc that has the date and some statements, as well as any short Type & Talk that didn’t make its way into an edited text for the digital library. The data also does NOT account for what’s heard in class, which is a considerable amount of the input students have received, especially at the beginning of the year. I can’t say including all that would double the stats for every word you see, but it might for some, and certainly would for the ones at the top of this list. Let’s start with the top words appearing at least 100 times:

  • 1225 = esse
  • 508 = in
  • 439 = nōn
  • 373 = et
  • 300 = velle
  • 265 = sed
  • 186 = habēre
  • 181 = placēre
  • 144 = iam
  • 129 = lutulārī
  • 105 = quoque
  • 100 = gladiātōrēs
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Specialized Vocab vs. High Frequency: “If You Need To Look Up A Word…”

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Jim Wooldridge, aka Senor Wooly, once lamented over having to teach a unit on different kinds of fabric. That was his all time low in terms of thematic vocab textbook teaching. Thematic vocab teaching is basically mini units of specialized vocabulary. However, our reality—in a genuine communicative sense—is that people start getting into specialized vocab when they choose to do something…special…beyond common daily needs and experience.

Since archery is my latest thing, let’s use that as an example. There are a lot of specific terms in archery. Of course, if the purpose is to learn about archery in the target language, I’d probably be using that specialized vocabulary. But do I need them all? In a first year class, maybe I wouldn’t have to go quite as deep into the topic, therefore less-specialized vocab could suffice (e.g. “can you teach me how to hold X?” will be more useful to a student than “can you teach me how to string walk after nocking with a finger sling?”). So, not all of that vocab is necessary when exploring a specific topic to learn about the topic. That is, a particular topic explored lightly doesn’t require the use of highly-specialized vocab otherwise needed when exploring it deeply. Think of the kind of learning that goes on in a survey-level undergrad course vs. a very focused grad course. And in terms of vocab, our students are more like kindergartners!

In this post, I’m asking you to consider something, but only consider it…

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Lance’s thoughts on Lance’s Criticism of “Can’t Read Greek…”

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Lance Albury just left a comment on my post, “Can’t Read Greek—Unsurprised but Angry.” I must say that I get a Highlander kind of feeling whenever I cross paths with another Lance—which is quite rare—so I’m not surprised that Lance and I hold opposing views. We have different definitions and assumptions about the nature of language, language teaching, and education, more generally. This post highlights those differences.

Not meaning to be insulting, but I believe your position on reading ancient Greek is simply naive.

Lance is not off to a great start. He thinks that I have a lack of experience, or poor judgment, which means any response I give is likely to be dismissed. This is the reality of supporting your practices when someone already believes you have no idea what you’re talking about—one of the greatest obstacles against mainstream acknowledgement of CI.

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