Vocabulary in Greek Young Learners' English As A Foreign Language Course Books

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Vocabulary in Greek young learners' English as a foreign language course

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Article in Language Learning Journal · March 2012

DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2012.658222
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Vocabulary in Greek young learners'

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a b
Nikolaos Konstantakis & Thomaï Alexiou
a
Independent language consultant
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School of English Language and Literature, Aristotle, University
of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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To cite this article: Nikolaos Konstantakis & Thomaï Alexiou (2012): Vocabulary in Greek young
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The Language Learning Journal
Vol. 40, No. 1, April 2012, 35–45
Vocabulary in Greek young learners’ English as a foreign language

course books
Nikolaos Konstantakisa* and Thomaı̈ Alexioub
a
Independent language consultant; bSchool of English Language and Literature, Aristotle,
University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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Few studies focus on the instruction of vocabulary to very young foreign-

language learners. How useful, frequent or even interesting are the words that
Greek young learners have acquired by the end of their first couple of ‘junior’
years? This paper investigates the vocabulary used in five recent English as a
foreign language (EFL) course books currently used in Greece in the first two
years of primary EFL teaching which are expected to raise learners to the
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) A2 level.
Our research suggests that the books are insufficiently loaded with vocabulary to
achieve this aim and are very heavily focused on only the most frequent
vocabulary. It emerges, too, that the course books are extremely varied in the
vocabulary they present, which suggests that learners moving from one school to
another using different books will find the transition especially difficult. Further,
comparison with the word lists for the linked examinations suggests that the
content of the course books is not tied to formal exams at beginner’s level.
Background
Young learners and the vocabulary they need
Native five-year-olds are thought to have a vocabulary of 4000–5000 word families
(Schmitt 2000) and to add approximately 1000 more each year during childhood and
adolescence. Young second-language learners attending schools with English as the
language of instruction can also add approximately 1000 word families per year but
do not appear to reach native-like levels of knowledge. Nation (1990) reports that
after a period of five years of English-language learning they appear to have 1000–
2000 word families. We have very little information about the volumes of vocabulary
uptake which very young foreign-language learners can achieve. Vassiliu’s (2001)
study of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners suggests that they might
typically gain some 500 out of the 5000 most frequent word types per year from
classroom teaching (about five words per hour of formal instruction) and half of all
the words they are exposed to, although able learners might achieve substantially
more. Studies to confirm whether these results are typical are so far lacking. Older
learners, meanwhile, appear to make rather slower progress. Laufer (2010) mentions
uptake rates of approximately two to three words per hour of EFL instruction, and
Milton and Meara (1998) three to four words.
*Corresponding author. Email: nikonst@hotmail.com
ISSN 0957-1736 print/ISSN 1753-2167 online

Ó 2012 Association for Language Learning
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2012.658222
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36 N. Konstantakis and T. Alexiou
Research is now beginning to highlight the volumes of vocabulary that need to be

acquired if EFL learners are to progress beyond beginner level. Milton (2010a: 224)
suggests that learners will typically need over 1500 lemmatised words, out of the
most frequent 5000, to progress beyond Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages (CEFR) A1 level to A2, and approximately double this
to reach B1 level. Vocabulary will also be needed beyond these most frequent levels
to permit communication in a variety of thematic areas. Vassiliu’s (2001) learners of
500 words per year, therefore, might take three years to move beyond A1 if their
progress were consistent throughout instruction. This would, of course, depend on
the quality and quantity of the vocabulary input they receive.
Young EFL learners in Greece

Since 2003, EFL has been taught in the final four years of Greek state primary
schools (ages 8–12). Lessons take place three times weekly and last for about 45
minutes. Most primary learners also attend courses offered at private language
institutes. According to Matthaioudakis and Alexiou (2009), more than 70% of
young learners are instrumentally motivated and are aiming at formally certificated
examinations; a thought-provoking finding as it is generally expected that learning at
this age will be fun.
The first two years of primary foreign-language instruction, referred to as Junior
A and Junior B in both state and private schools, are said to correspond to CEFR
A1 (Pedagogical Institute of Greece 2011) and learners then progress to course books
at the A2 level. Based on Milton’s (2010a) suggestion above, the Junior A and B
course books should thus systematically prepare students to attain a lexicon of 1500
foreign-language words. Learners would need to progress about 50% faster in lexical
acquisition than those in Vassiliu’s study, despite fewer hours of classroom
instruction.
Vocabulary and the course book

The main teaching tool in the Greek primary classroom appears to be the course
book, on which teachers tend to over-rely at times (Alexiou 1999; Milton and
Vassiliu 2000). It is the main source of vocabulary for Junior A and B classes.
Picture/story cards and flashcards are typically used for vocabulary presentation and
practice, along with mime and gesture to describe or introduce a word, rhymes and
chants, songs, movement, storytelling and projects.
There is academic consensus that vocabulary input in sufficient quantities is
crucial for success in foreign-language learning. Wilkins (1972: 111) comments that
‘without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be
conveyed’, while O’Dell (1997) puts emphasis on vocabulary instruction in the early
stages of language learning, even at the expense of grammar teaching. Recent
research evidence supports this view but, as Schmitt (2008) notes, these insights have
yet to inform the pedagogical mainstream where grammatical and syntactical
patterns tend to be emphasised and vocabulary downplayed. Scholfield and Gitsaki
(1996), for example, report a preference among teachers in Greek language schools
to concentrate more on grammar than on vocabulary, and attribute this to the fact
that grammar is more amenable to description by rules than vocabulary, and rules
are seen as making teaching easier. Current teaching approaches, such as the
The Language Learning Journal 37
communicative approach, continue to sideline vocabulary as something which

cannot, and should not, be taught in a systematic way, and is thus incidental to the
teaching process (Brumfit 1984).
The academic literature on second-language vocabulary teaching, meanwhile, is
clear that vocabulary teaching should be systematic and that the large task of
learning a foreign-language lexicon should be broken down into smaller, manageable
pieces to be learned across the course of instruction. There are even figures for how
many words might be introduced per class: Gairns and Redman (1986) suggest 8–12.
In reality, however, few course books do this: for example, Folse (2004: 162–3)
points out that ‘except for the few vocabulary textbooks that explicitly cover
vocabulary, most ESL [English as a second language] textbooks do not system-
atically deal with vocabulary’. López-Jiménez (2009) also stresses that course books
lack systematicity regarding vocabulary selection. This is illustrated by Scholfield’s
(1991) study which plots the introduction of new words, class by class, for a number
of course books. His findings point to huge inconsistencies in the numbers of words
introduced by each course and the regularity with which these words are introduced.
Two recent studies highlight the additional problem of excessive focus on
frequent vocabulary in course books. Schmitt, Jiang and Grabe (2011) draw
attention to the importance of mid-frequency vocabulary, between 2000 and 10,000
words in frequency lists. Milton (2010b) makes the same point and emphasises the
importance of learning volumes of infrequent vocabulary beyond the 2000 word
range to achieve the size of lexicon needed for communicability. This might be
particularly relevant for younger learners where words that are infrequent in most
corpora, such as lion, zebra and giraffe, may plausibly form part of their world
picture and are thus important content for learning. Mid- or low-frequency
vocabulary, then, seems to be under-represented in course books. This may be a
washback effect from the emphasis that some exams place on knowledge of only the
most frequent lexis (Richards, Malvern and Graham 2008). Milton (2009) has
suggested that at beginner level, frequent and infrequent vocabulary might even be
introduced in equal proportions to ensure that the low-frequency vocabulary and the
volumes of vocabulary needed for progress are developed.
Aims of this study

In the light of the above discussion, this study set out to examine the nature and
extent of the vocabulary presented in Junior A and B course books, and specifically:
(1) the number of words presented in the course books;

(2) the degree to which these overlap at the same level and also across levels;
(3) whether high-frequency or infrequent words are presented;
(4) whether these course books prepare learners adequately for language tests of
the relevant level.
Methodology
Five Junior B course books, targeting EFL learners of around 8–10 years, were
selected for this research.1 These books are used in both state and private schools.
Each course book was part of a series, and the corresponding Junior A course book
had been used in Alexiou and Konstantakis’ (2009) study. These five series were
selected on the grounds that they are current and commercially successful for the
Junior A and B levels, and also because each comes from a different international
publisher.
The software used for the research was RANGE (Heatley, Nation and Coxhead
2002). This enables the comparison of texts with word lists, and can present results
for word types, tokens or families. The unit of measurement chosen for this study
was word types since, at this age and level, learners are only starting to familiarise
themselves with the inflectional and derivational system of English, and, as a
consequence, they treat every new form as a new word.
Results and discussion

The volumes of vocabulary presented
Table 1 shows the total number of word types (including numbers and proper
names) for both Junior A and B levels. There is clearly some variation between the
books selected: at Junior A level, for example, the course book with the most types
(Series 5) has 55% more words than that with the fewest (Series 4) while at Junior B
level, Series 3 has over 80% more types than Series 1. There is no indication in any of
the course books to explain how the volume of vocabulary items is chosen or why it
should vary in this way. Nor is it clear why vocabulary input should differ between
levels, although in every case the vocabulary loading of Junior B is higher than
Junior A. Conceivably, Junior A vocabulary, which will include structural and
functional vocabulary, will need to be deliberately recycled in Junior B to aid
learning. Some of the differences, as in Series 1 and 5, appear slight; conversely,
learners using Series 3 and 4 conceivably face a harder time handling the significantly
increased number of words at Junior B level.
The learners using these course books are likely to have a minimum of around 84
contact hours of English, assuming they have no other source of input. Based on the
findings given in Table 1, they would be presented with between 4 and 6.5 words per
contact hour in Junior A (a relatively low rate), and between 5.5 and 10 words in
Junior B (closer to the rate suggested by Gairns and Redman 1986). Obviously,
however, the presentation of a number of words does not necessarily mean that they
will be acquired by learners, as many factors at play during a lesson may help or
prevent their learning.
Degree of vocabulary overlap between the two levels

It is important to note that the ‘real’ rate of input in Junior B will be influenced by
the degree of overlap and repetition of words from Junior A. Table 2 shows the
numbers of new words in Junior B course books and the proportion of overlap with
Junior A course books: the total indicates the overall number of new word types
presented in both Junior A and Junior B course books in each series.
Table 1. The total number of types in the selected Junior A and B course books.
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4 Series 5

Junior A 402 401 438 343 532
Junior B 447 493 808 567 582
Table 2. New word types introduced in Junior A and B course books.

Junior A 402 401 438 343 532
Junior B 362 223 558 380 419
Overlap 85 (10%) 270 (30%) 250 (20%) 187 (21%) 163 (15%)
Total 764 624 996 723 951
These figures show only a relatively small percentage of overlap, from 10% in
Series 1 to 30% in Series 2. The majority of repeated words were content words,
which probably results from the authors using similar themes in both levels.
Recycling vocabulary from one level to the next provides learners with the
opportunity to remember and learn words which were not learnt correctly or at all in
the previous book. Milton (2009), however, points out that recycling in course books
is not an essential condition for a word to be learned as words which are not often
recycled are also learned, presumably because they are encountered elsewhere, for
example, in homework or in preparation for an exam. Further, it is not feasible for
authors to recycle all vocabulary; new vocabulary needs to be introduced not just to
ensure vocabulary growth but also to maintain the interest and motivation of
learners. In this view, the 30% of common words recycled in Series 2 is probably
quite high: it may help learners to learn the repeated words but may also restrict
opportunities for new vocabulary to be introduced. In contrast, the 10% in Series 1
seems quite low, but may allow plenty of room for new words to be presented; 15–
20% of recycling of common words between the two levels would seem to be
optimum, ensuring a solid foundation of vocabulary while at the same time allowing
enough room for new words.
If we exclude recycled vocabulary, there are only two cases (Series 3 and 4) where
there is an increase in number of new word types presented from Junior A to Junior
B. The general pattern thus seems to be for the introduction of new words to
diminish at Junior B; indeed, in the case of Series 2, the rate per contact hour comes
down to fewer than three new words. If this rate were continued through a learner’s
course of instruction, then it might take more than 500 hours of instruction to
achieve the size of lexicon needed to progress beyond A1, the most elementary of
levels. This observation is clearly at odds with the ambitious aim of the programme
which is to raise learners to A2 level in two years, and 160 hours of instruction.
The most significant conclusion to be drawn from Table 2 is that none of the
series examined in this study – and they are widely used course books produced by
publishers with an international reputation – contain sufficient lexical loading to
raise the targeted learners’ language proficiency to A2 level. This is not just a
problem of the course books per se; they appear very similar in content and structure
to those used in Vassiliu’s study (2001) and the school involved in that study was
characterised as very successful (Milton 2009). Rather, it suggests over-ambitious
goal setting, with insufficient time and materials made available to achieve the
intended levels of progress and achievement. Only two series, Series 3 and Series 5,
contain vocabulary loading that offers learners the chance to master around 1000
types, a level which is probably appropriate for the time available for study. And of
course, it should be borne in mind that most learners will not achieve mastery of all
the words in a course book; in Vassiliu’s study (2001), the uptake rate was about
50% on average. Thus, even higher lexical loadings in course texts will probably be
required for most learners.
The frequency of the vocabulary presented

Presenting the most frequent words in a language is generally accepted as a
requirement of successful teaching. This is advocated by Gairns and Redman (1986),
Sinclair and Renouf (1988) and O’Dell (1997). Nation (2001) also supports the
teaching of high-frequency words because they form the basic vocabulary, and he
puts emphasis on the 2000 most frequent words level. The importance of this level is
also shown by its large coverage in texts: Nation (2004), in a comparison of various
corpora (academic, technical, spoken, fiction), found that the British National
Corpus (BNC) 2000 word list2 provides a coverage ranging from 83.9 to 91.1%.
However, this vocabulary is insufficient for anything but the most basic form of
communication. If learners are to achieve higher levels of independence and fluency

then, as Schmitt, Jiang and Grabe (2011) and Milton (2010b) indicate, less-frequent
vocabulary beyond the 2000 word range is required. This infrequent vocabulary is
also required to permit themes and content relevant to learning to be developed;
Milton and Vassiliu (2000: 447) comment that ‘frequency lists are not conveniently
organised according to themes or ideas, and if a teaching text is to have any coherent
thematic and linguistic content then the vocabulary will have to be selected from a
range of frequency bands’.
Alexiou and Konstantakis (2009) established that the Junior A course books
contained a large number of high-frequency words, based on BNC 2000. In this
study, we also assessed the vocabulary content of the Junior B books against BNC
2000 (Nation 2006). Table 3 presents the number and percentage of types which
figure in the BNC 2000 for each Junior A and Junior B series.
Like the Junior A course books, the Junior B books contain mostly high-
frequency words. It is understandable that authors wish to provide young learners
with the basic vocabulary in English to enable them to use the most frequent lexical
patterns in writing and reading. However, even if we were to add together the BNC
2000 types in both the Junior A and the Junior B course books for each series, the
total would still not exceed 1000 types – under half the amount required for a basic
communicative level – and that is before taking into account word types that are
common to both Junior A and Junior B.
Further, no course book approaches the 50% frequent–50% infrequent ideal that
Milton (2009) suggests, though learners do still meet infrequent vocabulary; in Series
5 at Junior B level, for example, infrequent words comprise as much as a quarter of
the book’s vocabulary. It should be stressed that learners at this age have no
awareness of a word’s frequency and, consequently, will treat every word in the same
manner; learning a word will depend on factors such as its recycling rate, phonetic or
spelling difficulty, similarity with words in mother tongue, and how concrete it is
Table 3. BNC 2000 coverage for the A and B Junior course books.

Junior A 342 (85.08%) 341 (85.03%) 351 (80.14%) 277 (80.76%) 429 (80.64%)
Junior B 349 (78.07%) 423 (85.8%) 631 (78.09%) 460 (81.12%) 431 (74.06%)
(Milton 2009). The implication arising from our findings is that for these learners the
remaining 1000 high-frequency words, as well as more words of lower frequency, will
need to be focused on in subsequent stages of learning.
However, a further observation emerges from the analysis of this material.
Despite the focus in every course book on the most frequent words in English, there is
still huge variation between the courses in the themes they tackle and the lexis they
introduce. It might have been expected that the books would share many words since
they are of the same level and address learners of the same age. However, the word
types in Junior A which are common to all five books only number 108, or 10% of all
the lexis introduced, and in Junior B, only 54 types are common, or 3%. This suggests
that the course book authors each chose different sets of both high-frequency and
infrequent words for learners of the same age and level. A practical implication of this
is that children at the same level but in different schools may learn totally different
words. At this introductory stage, this may not be very alarming, but it certainly
indicates that in order to attain the level required for language examinations some
years later, these young learners will have to acquire a large amount and range of
vocabulary in the subsequent stages of their learning. This finding confirms a study by
Milton and Benn (1933) who found only 19 words in common in 29 French course
books, and with Milton and Vassiliu (2000) who showed that three Junior level course
books shared only 328 types out of a total of 1710.
Course book content and exam word lists

There is a danger where specification is made for examinations that the content of
course books and teaching is skewed towards these exams rather than to the general
development of the learners’ foreign language. The narrow focus of French foreign-
language courses described in Milton (2010b) is likely in part to be a product of the
emphasis placed in exams on knowledge of only the most frequent 1000 words in
French (Richards, Malvern and Graham 2008). In order to see whether the
vocabulary presented in the course books under scrutiny here matches the
vocabulary requirements of a language test of the same level, the books’ vocabularies
were compared against the proposed vocabulary of the Cambridge Young Learners
English Tests (CYLET 2010). These are language tests for young learners between
the ages of 7 and 12. The tests are administered at three levels: Starters, Movers and
Flyers, with papers in listening, reading and writing, and speaking. Starters and
Movers correspond to CEFR A1 level, while Flyers corresponds to CEFR A2.
Vocabulary lists are provided for tests at all three levels in the handbook for
teachers. Only the word lists for Starters and Movers at A1 level were considered
here. The Starters word list comprises 426 words and the Movers word list 304
words, both excluding proper names and numbers. Both lists contain a mixture of
function and content words but are not intended as an exhaustive list of the
requirements, rather a minimal guide to the structural and thematic lexis likely to be
included in the exams.
The Starters and Movers word lists were first checked against BNC 2000: 82.62%
of Starters vocabulary and 81.9% of Movers vocabulary came within the 2000 most
frequent words in English. Each course book at Junior A and B was then checked for
the number of words appearing on these two lists respectively, as shown in Table 4.
The results displayed suggest that the course books do not provide the required lexis
for the language tests at this level. The Junior A course books include on average just
Table 4. The overlapping vocabulary of the five book series with the tests’ vocabulary lists.
Starters (426 words) Movers (304)

Junior A Junior B Junior A Junior B
Series 1 208 (49%) 131 (31%) 70 (23%) 93 (31%)
Series 2 238 (56%) 227 (53%) 74 (24%) 115 (38%)
Series 3 243 (57%) 265 (62%) 66 (22%) 175 (58%)
Series 4 212 (50%) 233 (55%) 74 (24%) 145 (48%)
Series 5 279 (65%) 136 (32%) 108 (36%) 121 (40%)
over half (55%) of Starters’ 426 required words; the Junior B course books include
just under half (47%). Of Movers’ 304 words, the Junior A books contain on average
about a quarter (26%) while the Junior B books contain 43%. These course books,
then, could not prepare learners adequately for tests of the same level. This may, of
course, be a somewhat unfair conclusion: course book authors are not obliged to
orientate their materials towards a specific language test and, consequently, the
above figures should be treated as indicative only.
Conclusion
This study attempts to draw a detailed picture of the vocabulary presented in the
course books for young EFL learners aged 8–10 in Greece. The main conclusion is
that while course books vary in the volume and choice of vocabulary they present,
none of those examined contained sufficient vocabulary to permit learners to achieve
the vocabulary acquisition that would be required to reach A2 levels of performance.
They do not appear to match the stated aims of the curriculum.
The problems uncovered by this analysis lie not only with the qualities of the
course books themselves but also with the curriculum structure in which the books
are used. Series 3 and 5 appear to present vocabulary at a rate of about eight words
per contact hour, which is in line with the rate suggested by the academic literature.
The other series present vocabulary rather more slowly than this. In addition, it
appears that insufficient time is available for the volume of learning that is required.
Even if course books were to include the 1500 or more words required as a minimum
for achieving A2 level, this would imply a learning rate approaching 10 words per
contact hour, a rate that has not been observed among young learners anywhere in
the literature.
The relationship between classroom time and progress appears to be stable
(Milton and Meara 1998) and language learning is not something that can be short-
cut. The required levels of vocabulary input could be achieved if more than one
course book were used, as in Vassiliu’s (2001) study; given the high variation found
between the series examined here, each extra course book could provide a lot of extra
vocabulary. But time would, presumably, have to be made available for the content
of these additional books to be taught, and the conclusion that every individual
course series examined here contains insufficient vocabulary to raise learners to A2
level is inescapable.
It was also observed that most of the vocabulary provided in these series comes
from the 2000 most frequent words in English, even though a considerable number
of infrequent words were also observed, reaching as much as 25% of a book’s total
vocabulary, and more infrequent words were used in the Junior B course books
than in the Junior A books. The authors of the course books are clearly aware that
emphasis on the most frequent words is crucial to language development, but they
do also have in mind the need to introduce young learners to infrequent words at
an early stage. Yet not all of the 2000 high-frequency words are presented in these
course books, which has serious implications for vocabulary selection at higher
levels. The emphasis on the most frequent vocabulary in these early courses means
that it is essential that later course books are much more heavily loaded in
infrequent vocabulary if the lexical growth needed to achieve fluency is to be
attained.
A further conclusion is that although A1 level exams such as Starters and Movers
are now well established and are widely used, the content of the exam syllabus has
yet to impact in any obvious way, let alone a negative way, on the selection of lexis in
course books at this level. The kind of washback effect implicit in the observations of
Richards, Malvern and Graham (2008) on French foreign-language exams in Britain

was not observable here.
This study draws attention to the need for course book writers and curriculum
designers to include vocabulary loading in their considerations when creating their
courses. Some of the course book series here appear to be thinly loaded and could
potentially limit the progress that learners make by restricting the volumes of
vocabulary available to them. Learners cannot make progress if they are not given
the opportunity to grow large vocabularies in their foreign language. Other course
books in this study appear more fully and appropriately loaded and suited to the
time available for study. The issue here is for curriculum designers to make available
the time necessary for learning. A key finding from recent research (Milton and
Alexiou 2009) linking CEFR levels and vocabulary levels is just how much
vocabulary is needed to make progress even at the most basic levels. Time and the
opportunity to learn has to be built into the system, otherwise learners will simply
not make the progress desired.
This study cries out for continuation: to examine the progress learners really
do make when taking these courses; to examine whether course books at
subsequent levels provide the range and depth of lexis necessary for progress; and
whether learners are taught the vocabulary required to reach the level of the
exams which they intend to sit. It would also be interesting to investigate whether
the authors of beginner-level course books put more emphasis on syntactic and
grammatical structures rather than on vocabulary. Despite recent interest in
vocabulary studies, we still seem to have very few good studies of vocabulary
input to learners and so little understanding of the way learners handle this
material and progress.
Notes
1. Series 1: Perrett, J. 2004. Big Heart (Junior A and Junior B). Athens: Macmillan Hellas.
Series 2: Brooks, A. and L. Palmer. 2006. Ace from Space (Junior A and Junior B).
Athens: Burlington Books. Series 3: Bruni, C., A. Worall and S. Zervas. 2005. Wonderland
(Junior A and Junior B). London: Longman Pearson. Series 4: Skinner, C. 2005. Dippy’s
Adventures (Junior A and Junior B). Hellinikon, Greece: New Editions. Series 5: Dooley,
J. and V. Evans. 2003–4. Sail Away (Junior 1 and 2). Newbury, UK: Express Publishing.
2. This word list of the 2000 most frequent words in English was developed by Nation (2004)
based on frequency counts from the BNC, a 100 million-word corpus of texts from a
variety of sources.
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Vocabulary in Greek young learners' English as a foreign language course

Article in Language Learning Journal · March 2012

Nikolaos Konstantakis Thomaï Alexiou

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Vocabulary in Greek young learners'

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Vocabulary in Greek young learners’ English as a foreign language

Few studies focus on the instruction of vocabulary to very young foreign-

*Corresponding author. Email: nikonst@hotmail.com

ISSN 0957-1736 print/ISSN 1753-2167 online

Research is now beginning to highlight the volumes of vocabulary that need to be

Young EFL learners in Greece

Vocabulary and the course book

communicative approach, continue to sideline vocabulary as something which

Aims of this study

(1) the number of words presented in the course books;

Results and discussion

Degree of vocabulary overlap between the two levels

Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4 Series 5

Table 2. New word types introduced in Junior A and B course books.

Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4 Series 5

The frequency of the vocabulary presented

communication. If learners are to achieve higher levels of independence and ﬂuency

Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4 Series 5

Course book content and exam word lists

Starters (426 words) Movers (304)

Richards, Malvern and Graham (2008) on French foreign-language exams in Britain

Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pedagogical Institute of Greece. 2011. Equivalent levels of language. http://www.pi-schools.

Language Teaching, ed. R. Carter and M. McCarthy, 140–60. London: Longman.

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