The Language Teacher
01 - 2001
What's Wrong with Monbusho's Prescribed Word List?
Michael Bowles
Osaka Gakuin University
The Ministry of Educations Course of Study Guidelines (Monbusho, 1989, p. 102-107, Table 2) includes a prescribed list of 507 word-forms that must be included in EFL textbooks approved by the Ministry for use in public lower-secondary schools. Discussions with EFL instructors in Japan reveal a broad skepticism among Japanese and native-speaker EFL teachers alike concerning Monbushos prescribed word list and its usefulness for EFL pedagogy. However, very little empirical evidence has been forthcoming on the subject of the effectiveness of the Ministrys list as implemented in Monbusho-approved EFL textbooks.
This paper, based on a comparison of corpora of level-one, lower-secondary school EFL textbooks approved by the Ministry for the 1998-1999 school year and an analysis of those corpora using Birmingham Universitys "The Bank of English," the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (CCED), and findings from corpus studies in the published literature, examines two prominent issues: the omission of explicit meaning priorities in Ministry Guidelines for word-forms on its list and the orthographic concept of word apparently informing its implementation by textbook writers. These two related factors, which oppose fundamental principles in the pedagogical treatment of lexis, have a number of detrimental effects for learners as word-forms from the Ministrys list are developed across Ministry-approved textbooks: the development of inconsistent and variable profiles of word-forms, exclusion of textually prominent meanings of word-forms, inclusion of meanings of very low textual prominence, and the substitution of prescribed word-forms for morphologically similar but semantically opaque and unrelated multi-word items (MWIs). These factors serve to undermine the pedagogical value of the Ministrys initial selection of textually prominent and useful word-forms.
The Usefulness of The Most Frequent Words
It has long been recognized that although a words frequency and range of textual occurrence are not the only criteria for its selection in EFL instruction, they are critical. All learners, particularly beginning ones "will certainly need a close acquaintance with the most frequent words" (Willis, 1999, p. 3). There is broad agreement among scholars that these complementary criteria are highly useful as lexical selection criteria for EFL pedagogy (Ogden, 1930, 1968; Palmer, 1931; Thorndike and Lorge, 1938, 1944; Bongers, 1947; and West, 1953; Richards, 1974; Carter, 1987; Sinclair and Renouf, 1988; Nation, 1990; McCarthy, 1990).
Limitations of Textual Frequency in Lexical Selection
Richards (1970, 1974) and Nation (1990), however, examine problems that make vocabulary selection based solely on these two criteria untenable. A major problem concerns the absence of useful and important words from the first or second, 1000 words of most frequency lists. These include words necessary for successful classroom operation and many useful concrete nouns. Additionally, McCarthy (1990, p. 25) points out that meanings which are perceived by learners as psychologically central may not necessarily coincide with the actual frequency of use of those items. Given the power of perceived central meanings in relation to storage in and the ability to retrieve from the mental lexicon and their transferability across languages, it may be useful to highlight these as well.
Furthermore, many teachers of beginning/near-beginning learners may rightly argue for the inclusion of some naturally occurring, lower-frequency uses of words that lend themselves to syntactic or structural simplicity. However, inclusion of such uses should not be done to the exclusion of more textually prominent meanings (compare Willis, 1990, p. 78-79). Moreover, serious concerns arise when the actual communicative value of lexis is subordinated to the use of artificially constructed language for the purpose of illustrating structural points. This process is largely responsible for the "traditional" division of lexis and structure in EFL materials. Twadell (1973, p. 63) refers to it as the "down-grading of vocabulary," unwittingly adopted by many textbook writers under pressure to develop materials around structural themes, and he warns that it can be harmful to FL learning. Additionally, Richards (1976, p. 80) argues that this division is in fact a "tenuous one" (see also Nilsen, 1971). By contrast, in real language use, "lexis and structure interact at the level of structure," as Willis (1999, p. 5-7), among others, has clearly shown. Willis cautions elsewhere that perpetuating the lexis/structure division in order to illustrate a simplified and idealized language is "unlikely to take us anywhere near the study of language in use." He further states that studies of real language argue that the strategy of highlighting textually prominent meanings and uses of words and phrases is more productive than teaching structural patterns (Willis, 1990, p. 12-19). This point seems particularly applicable to the production of language in "real time" which draws upon grammatically unanalysable "semi-preconstructed phrases" (compare: Widdowson, 1989; Skehan, 1992; Lewis, 1993, 1997; Sinclair, 1997). Corpus evidence regarding word frequency and range and frequency of use provides useful, objective data in establishing these priorities to ensure that what we are teaching young learners is highly useful and typical of the language as a whole.
The Value of Computer Corpora
Scholars agree that computer corpora are highly useful in identifying the most textually prominent words and their meanings and uses (Carter, 1987; McCarthy, 1990; Nation, 1990; Sinclair and Renouf, 1988; Leech, 1997). Lists of the most common words of English, identified through corpus evidence, have been largely "reduplicated by most corpus studies going back to Wests (1953) manual count up to the Cobuild Bank of English" (Willis, 1999, p. 3).
The Ministrys List of Word-forms for Lower Secondary School EFL Instruction
In terms of the inclusion of textually prominent and useful word-forms, the Ministrys list is to be applauded. Ninety-two percent of the word-forms on Monbushos prescribed list could be found among the 1,900 most frequent words of English, according to the CCED, based on textual evidence of multi-million word corpora. The remaining word-forms of lower textual frequencies could arguably be considered necessary to classroom operation (e.g., pen, dictionary, notebook); useful to descriptions of domestic reality (e.g., afternoon, snow, sick); or otherwise pedagogically useful or necessary (e.g., hers, excuse, good-bye). Textual frequency and range have obviously been critical criteria in the formation of the list. (This is hardly surprising given the history of pioneering work in vocabulary control undertaken by Harold Palmer as Director of the Institute of English Language Teaching in Tokyo from 1923 - 1936.)
The Effect of English Polysemy on Pedagogical Word Lists
What is surprising, however, is that established meaning priorities for the word-forms on the Ministrys list are omitted in its Guidelines. This omission undermines the Ministrys initial selection of useful, high frequency word-forms because a "simple list of words in not nearly explicit enough to constitute a syllabus," (Sinclair and Renouf, 1988, p. 146). In addition to deciding which words to teach, it is necessary to decide "what it is about a word that we want to teach, and what counts as a word" (ibid.). A principled EFL syllabus, therefore, requires explicit guidelines concerning polysemous words. Carter (1987, p. 185) states emphatically that English polysemy necessitates decisions as to which meanings to teach first. Richards (1974, p. 79) lists "meaning priorities -- the meanings most commonly associated with words" as an essential principle in the construction of pedagogical word lists.
In making decisions about which uses and meanings to focus on, the "distinction between the possible and the typical is of the greatest importance" (Hanks, 1987, cited in Wills,1990, p. 40). Given the daunting task that EFL vocabulary acquisition presents to learners, care must be taken so that the language to which learners are exposed is "typical of the language as a whole," Willis (1990, p. 41). Concerning the most common words, Sinclair and Renouf (1988, p. 154) state that they "have a few very common uses and a number of minor ones that can be given a low priority in the selection of items to be taught."
The Inadequacy of an Orthographic Description of "Word" to EFL Pedagogy
The concept of word informing a list bears directly on selection of which meanings and uses to teach. Despite their common-sense appeal, some concepts are too limited to be useful to EFL pedagogy. For example, an orthographic description, which defines a word as any sequence of letters and possibly characters bounded on either side by a space or punctuation mark, is inadequate for EFL pedagogy. Carter (1987, p. 4-5) states that an "orthographic definition is. . . . not sensitive to distinctions of meaning or grammatical function. To this extent it is not complete." It is, therefore, unhelpful for making distinctions in the meanings of polysemous items.
Additionally, orthographic description is also incompatible with using textual frequency as a criterion for lexical selection because "from a lexical point of view, it is not always desirable to imply that there is an identity between the forms of a word" (Sinclair and Renouf: 1988, p. 147), and "with the commoner words of the language, the individual word-forms are so different from each other in their primary meanings and central patterns of behavior that they are essentially different words and really warrant separate treatment in a language course" (ibid., p. 147). Moreover, what "counts" as a word may be restricted by orthographic description, which tends to exclude from the concept of "word" some high-frequency items, such as Mr, Mrs, Miss, and Ms and high-frequency MWIs, such as of course and all right.
Overall, it is clear that a more inclusive concept of "word" is necessary than an orthographic one. Studies of real language, therefore, call for descriptions of words based on their typical meanings and patterns of use observed in naturally occurring texts. It is unfortunate, therefore, that an orthographic concept of "word" apparently informs textbooks writers implementation of the Ministrys word list in its approved textbooks.
The Negative Impact of these Factors on the Implementation of Monbushos Prescribed Word-forms in Textbooks as Evidenced in the Data.
An examination of which words actually occur in level-one Ministry-approved textbooks illuminates the ill effects of the absence of explicit meaning priorities in Ministry Guidelines and the use of orthographic description by textbook writers. Before reviewing some of these, however, a brief explanation of the collection of the data is in order.
Method
Findings here are based on corpora developed by a manual listing of words in the written texts of each of the level-one EFL textbooks approved by Monbusho for use in public lower-secondary schools for the 1998-1999 school year. Those corpora were the empirical basis of a dissertation submitted by the author to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Birmingham, UK for the degree of MA in TEFL/TESL, subsequently accepted and awarded a mark of academic distinction. It is the premise of that work that only by ascertaining which words actually occur in the textbooks can an accurate and objective assessment of the effectiveness of the Ministrys list as implemented in its approved textbooks be made. Therefore, a manual listing of distinct lexical items in each of the books was done. This was a laborious and exceedingly time-consuming process, the end product of which was over 40 appended pages of word lists to the original dissertation. The parameters outlined below applied to the construction of those lists.
The Texts
All written texts from each of the above textbooks, including the meta-language or rubric of the textbooks, practice drills, realia incorporated therein, songs, poems, and so on, were examined in the listing of lexical items. The effect of including the entire texts of the books was to increase the number of lexical items under consideration.
Concerning the textbooks own word lists, Sinclair and Renoufs (1988, p. 142) observation that it "is not clear what is signified by the presence of a word in the published word list of a course book" was applicable. Therefore, such lists proved largely unhelpful to the purposes of the dissertation, and many lexical items appearing on its appended lists would not appear on the textbooks lists. The resulting difference being that the dissertations list were, again, far more inclusive than those found in the textbooks. That paper, however, did take exception to including items not incorporated into the main body of the texts that are confusingly or misleadingly illustrated for learners without benefit of L1 translation. The illustrative treatment of "verbs" seems especially problematic in this respect for some of the textbooks. For example, of the fifty verbs illustrated at the back of Everyday English, 50 percent could not be correctly elicited from native English-speaking EFL instructors by looking at the associated pictorial representation. Additionally, personal and place names were excluded from consideration as were numbers not appearing on Monbushos list.
The Manual Listing of Lexical Items
The objective, manual listing of items reflected the primary purpose of the review, namely to ascertain what distinct lexical items occurred in the textbooks. In the initial compilation items were generally listed as "headwords." (For example, the word-forms "bring," "brings," "bringing," and "brought" were listed together under the headword BRING. However, where textual evidence of prominent usage warranted separate treatment, items were distinguished as such. (For example, although the word-forms "do," "does," "doing," "did," and "done" would be included under the headword DO, the forms DIDNT, DOESNT and DONT are listed as distinct headwords. Additionally, morphologically related word-forms may be recognized as distinct headwords where prominent textual use justifies. (For example, CERTAIN, CERTAINLY and CERTAINTY would be listed as three distinct headwords.)
Headwords were typically treated as polysemous, "as single lexical items with multiple senses" (McCarthy, 1990, p. 23); however, there are numerous exceptions. (For example, the headword DOWN has four distinct headword entries with separate textual frequencies.) Polysemous items were assessed as to frequency according to their use in the textbooks. The overall tenor of the manual listing was to effectively lean towards inclusion of a greater number of distinct items (as descriptions of words according to their actual use warrants).
While no method of textual analysis is error-free, (not even computer textual scanners, as concordance lines, too, must be reviewed and analyzed by humans), no effort was spared to ascertain an accurate and objective assessment of distinct items in the textbooks. Checks and rechecks were necessitated because of the development of various types of lists concerning important aspects of the dissertation, such the degree of compliance of individual textbooks as to inclusion of Monbusho-prescribed word-forms, comparison of textbooks inclusion of non-Monbusho word-forms, lexical reinforcement, comparisons of the grading of items, and so on.
There may in fact (inevitably) be an odd citation of a word that was included in a textbook that was overlooked in the analysis; however, this would prove to be the exception, not the rule. The author would welcome any detailed scrutiny and textual analysis of the textbooks and any critical dialogue such scrutiny might produce.
Findings
One of the negative impacts of the absence of meaning priorities is that lower frequency uses of word-forms occur to the exclusion of more useful and textually prominent ones. This fact is obvious when one assesses the textual frequencies of the specific meanings and uses of word-forms developed in the Ministry-approved textbooks using the CCED. (Note: in the CCEDs scale 5 = most frequent / 1 = least frequent -- see Appendix B).
For example, the item fall is included in all the textbooks, but five of the books include only its sense of autumn (CCED: fall #19), omitting the more common meanings associated with the verb form. Low-frequency uses of the adjective form of the item kind (2) are also found to the exclusion of its more common noun uses (5). One of the more striking examples of the exclusion of high-frequency uses of word-forms for lower-frequency ones is seen in the treatment of the item over in One World: over is omitted from the list of prepositions (p. 87) but included five times in its rather esoteric, pragmatic use of "ending a radio communication and waiting for a reply" (CCED: over #3.8), contextualized in a nautical setting (p. 90). Such esoteric uses of word-forms are difficult to justify while common, pedagogically accessible uses are excluded.
Lower-frequency uses occur in the textbooks more often than uses that are far more common textually. For example, all the textbooks include the item watch; however, its noun form (2) occurs far more frequently in the textbooks than does its verb form (5). Similarly, the item make can be found in all the textbooks, but its most common delexical uses (CCED: make # 1:1) are omitted entirely.
The orthographic concept of "word" which characterizes the implementation of Monbushos list in the textbooks also allows for substitution of semantically opaque MWIs for morphologically similar but semantically unrelated prescribed word-forms. These MWIs, which may be comprehended by learners without reference to or knowledge of their constituent lexical parts through illustration or direct L1 translation by teachers, are cited and indexed in the textbooks as exemplifying inclusion of the prescribed word-forms. For example, Everyday English (p. 32) includes the MWI take off (CCED: take off #1, "an aeroplane takes off"). In its index of words, Everyday English lists this semantically opaque MWI as representing Monbushos prescribed word-forms take and off. Semantically, however, it cannot be said to appropriately represent either. The far more frequent and textually prominent delexical uses of take (CCED: take # 1:1-2) are omitted from the textbook, as are its high-frequency verb uses. Additionally, Everyday English omits off from its list of prepositions (p. 122) and adverbial and phrasal uses of off are omitted altogether from the textbook. Similar treatment of MWIs are evidenced in Sunshine (p. 66) and One World (p. 101) in connection with the MWI give up (CCED: give up #1, 2 "quit"). Both textbooks list this semantically opaque MWI as representing the far more frequent lexical item give, although give is not, in fact, included in either textbook. New Crown treats the MWI get up in the same way, to the exclusion of the prescribed, high-frequency get.
Comparing the Textbooks Treatment of Word-forms with Corpus Studies
The exclusion of the most common uses of high-frequency items or the skewed prominence of their lower-frequency uses is evidenced in a consideration of the textbooks treatment of a few specific lexical items. Figure 1 compares the textbooks treatment of the item like, perhaps the most prominent lexical/full item occurring in all the textbooks, with the uses of like evidenced from findings in corpus studies.
As Figure 1 shows, five of the seven textbooks omit the two most textually common uses of like altogether. New Crown and New Horizon include these senses to a very limited degree. Like #4 is similarly omitted from all the textbooks, although it, too, is somewhat more common than Like #3, which accounts for virtually all the occurrences of the item like in the textbooks. Like #3 "to enjoy" / "be fond of" is an important sense of the item and highly useful for young learners when talking about things they enjoy; however, the exclusion of the more textually prominent uses of like, particularly given the comparatively excessive recurrence of the item in the textbooks, does not expose learners to the most common uses of the item like or reflect a principled lexical treatment of the item overall. Table 1, on the following page, presents a similar comparison concerning the item by.
Figure 1 (a): profile of item like in Willis, 1990 & CobuildDirect (current)
like 1: "resembling"; "similar" ; "same way as": you can't walk around like youre lost/punching the air like some demented soccer player
like 2: "such as" : Instead we have a lightweight like Warren Pitt . . . / Games like this absorb the . . .
like 3*: "enjoy": I like anything with tofu in it.
like 4*: "would like": I would like to suggest the . . .
like 5**: misc. : I mean, like, you know . . . /
Like, take this book . . . / my contribution, if you like my protest . . .
*Shown together in Willis, 1990; In CobuildDirect: "enjoy" = 10% / "would like"= 11%
**misc. uses of like unaccounted for in Willis, 1990
Note: CobuildDirect represents a limited search for the item like of 100 random lines from each of the twelve sub-corpora of CobuildDirect.
Again the findings show that the most common sense of the item evidenced in corpus studies is omitted from the textbooks. Of the textbooks that include the second most common use of the item by (by #2, "how"), all do so only in reference to modes of transport (i.e., "by train," "by bike," "by car," etc.). However, this use of by #2 is relatively infrequent compared with the use of by + . . . ing, which accounts for the majority of occurrences of by #2 found in the evidence of the three corpus studies in the table. Columbus includes only instances of by #3. Sunshine includes the word-form by only in the phrase "by the way" (CCED: way #34), which is semantically unrelated to the most common uses of the item by and echoes the confusion about word meaning inherent to orthographic description noted above.
Figure 1(b): Treatment of item like
Type (like senses 1-5) Token
(occurrences) in Textbooks
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Table 1. Comparison of Corpus Findings for Item by with its Treatment in Textbooks
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By #1: stories read by Hollywood stars. . . / intervention by the Bank of Japan. . .
By #2: they earned money by selling jewelry / teenagers being killed by guns. . . (*references to modes of transport, i.e., by car, by bike, by train, etc. represent only 4% of by # 2 in CobuildDirect)
By #3: Mombasa, by the Indian ocean coast. . .
By #4: when: on the market by 1998. . ./ . . .are returned by 3 pm today / by then, a group of. . . other: drive-by shootings / by itself /play-by-play / stop by / fine by me
* all instances refer to means of transport
Note: CobuildDirect represents a limited search for the item by of 100 random lines from each of the twelve sub-corpora of CobuildDirect.
Some teachers might be inclined to argue that the presence of lower frequency uses of by #2 in these examples is justifiable since it enables learners to construct sentences like, "I go to school by train," without having to deal with more complex grammar forms, such as past tenses of irregular verbs. However, the argument is unconvincing, as learners can just as easily construct sentences like, "I take the train," "I take the bus," or "I take my bike" that do not involve past constructions, and yet employ a very high frequency use of a Monbusho-prescribed word (delexical uses of "take" are among the most frequent uses of the verb), which more accurately reflects the way the language is in fact used, whereas the lower-frequency use of "by" does not. If it is a matter of wanting to avoid introducing passive constructions necessitated by the most frequent use of "by," then this concern begs the question of grading the syllabus and whether "by" should be introduced at this stage at all. Is it really making the most judicious use of time and effort to require learners to unnecessarily learn lower-frequency uses of items, when their high-frequency uses could easily be introduced at a later stage when the structure required is deemed appropriate? (Level-two textbooks are replete with passive constructions, many of which would not be used in naturally spoken English. "By" #1, on the other hand, is most definitely representative of actual English use.)
Table 2. Comparison of Corpus Findings for Item any with Its Treatment in Textbooks
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any 1: ready to answer any questions / this kit can be made by any 11 year old
any 2: he could not find them in any shop / Let's not take any chances
any 3: did they give you any explanation? / are there any questions? /
any 4: and do not in any way represent. . ./ In any event, we. . ./ In any case, we may. . ./ I didn't feel like I even knew myself any more
*any 2 & 3 shown together in Willis, 1990, with only 5% of sample "recognizable as questions"
**phrasal and misc. uses of any unaccounted for in Mindt, 1997
Note: Findings from CobuildDirect represent a limited search of 100 random lines for the item any from each of the twelve sub-corpora of CobuildDirect.
Table 2 presents a final comparison of the textbooks treatment of the item any with its uses evidenced in corpus studies. Willis (1990) notes that the common EFL view of the use of the item any is that it is typically used in negative and interrogative sentences, and this is the picture presented to many language learners. It was anticipated, therefore, that the textbooks under consideration would likely reflect a similar treatment. As Table 2 shows, despite the overwhelming textual prominence of any in affirmative sentences, such uses are omitted from the textbooks. Additionally, any #3 occurs more often or in equal proportion to any #2 in five of the seven textbooks, despite its lower textual frequency. Total English omits the item any entirely. The treatment of word-forms seen in the above findings illustrate the inadequacy of orthographic word description for EFL pedagogy and the necessity of establishing meaning priorities.
Conclusion
Although the corpora on which these findings are based involve only level-one lower-secondary school EFL textbooks, the evidence strongly suggests that the absence of meaning priorities and the reliance on orthographic word description undermines the pedagogical value of Monbushos list. Inconsistent and variable treatment of word-forms has be found throughout textbooks, and some prescribed word-forms are replaced by semantically unrelated MWIs. Young learners, using different Ministry-approved textbooks, receive differing exposure to word-forms on the Ministrys word list.
Are we providing young learners with the adequate resources to meet the learning demands placed upon them? This question is all the more pressing given the status of the EFL textbook in lower-secondary school instruction and the fact that Monbusho-approved textbooks are required in all public schools. Are young public school learners being disadvantaged in the very difficult task of EFL learning and vocabulary acquisition because of the lack of appropriate guidance in the principled treatment of lexis?
The establishing of meaning priorities for word lists is a fundamental principle in EFL pedagogy, yet any such priorities are missing from the Minstrys Guidelines. This basic issue needs to be addressed. (It is quite remarkable that it has not been taken up before now.) This imperative seems particularly urgent with the advent of new Ministry Guidelines in 2002. Without attending to the basic lexical issues of word description and meaning priorities, Monbushos prescribed word list may prove ineffective.
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Michael Bowles has been teaching EFL in Japan for nearly ten years. Before that he taught in Budapest, Hungary. He has his BA in English language and literature from the University of Virginia, USA and his MA in TEFL/TESL from the University of Birmingham, UK.
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