Loading, distribution, and repetition patterns of the 2000 high frequency words of general English in an efl course book

Abstract

In this corpus-based study employing purposive sampling method; loading, distribution, and repetition patterns of the 2000 high frequency words of General English (West, 1953) were searched for in an EFL course book. For the analysis, the course book; Spot-On, Grade-8, used compulsorily in most of Turkish state schools, was selected and the `reading spots? (reading sections) of the book were examined by applying Range, a special computer programme, covering three ready-made base word lists; Word List 1 involving the first most frequent 1000 words of General English, Word List 2 involving the second most frequent 1000 words of General English and Word List 3 involving the academic words.`Reading spots? of the course book were examined to discover to what extent the 2000 high frequency words of General English are covered, distributed and repeated within distinct units, and within the course book. As for the vocabulary load, it was observed that the `reading spots? of the book involve 2200 tokens, 747 types, and 512 word families. When the vocabulary load was compared with the 2000 high frequency words of General English, the results suggested that Word List 1 asserts its dominance on the vocabulary coverage of the book, however, the book involves quite an insignificant number of words from the second most frequent 1000 words of General English, which reveals the limited vocabulary coverage in the book, and the number of infrequent words is small in the book. Concerning the distribution patterns of the 2000 high frequency words, it was observed that neither the distribution of two word lists nor the distribution of high frequency words within the book was balanced. In terms of the repetition, the results of this study revealed that the frequency values of the high frequency words of General English were low both within the units and within the book.Based on the results, this study aiming to investigate loading, distribution, and repetition patterns of the 2000 high frequency words of General English (West, 1953) in the course book; Spot-On, Grade-8, concludes that a considerable attention should be paid to vocabulary selection, distribution, and repetition in the course book. By examining unexplored dimensions in vocabulary of an EFL course book, this study hopefully contributes to future improvements in vocabulary coverage of EFL course books.