Thomaï Alexiou

Vocabulary Size and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

In its earliest stages of development the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) included vocabulary lists in its materials and these gave some indication of the scale of the vocabulary knowledge that the creators were envisaging at the various levels of the framework. More recently these have been removed and learners, textbooks and course syllabuses are placed into the framework levels according to skills-based rather than knowledge-based criteria (Council of Europe, 2003). The purpose of this chapter is to see what happens when vocabulary size measures are placed back into the framework and there are two reasons for wanting to do this. One is academic interest in seeing what vocabulary sizes emerge at the CEFR levels and considering how these compare across levels and across languages. The second reason is a practical one and is to help to make the framework more robust. The skills-based criteria have the virtue of making the framework flexible and highly inclusive, and almost any course, textbook or learner should be able to find a place in the system. However, the penalty for such flexibility is that the levels become imprecise; it is often possible to place learners or textbooks at several of the CEFR levels. This potentially devalues the framework and diminishes its usefulness. The British foreign language exam system in schools, for example, has been criticized for being misplaced within the system and, as a consequence, for misleading those who try to use it (Milton, 2007a).

Vocabulary input, vocabulary uptake and approaches to language teaching

This is the second vocabulary-themed issue of The Language Learning Journal to have appeared in recent years. The first call for papers in 2007 resulted in considerable interest from contributors s...

Vocabulary in Greek Young Learners' English as a Foreign Language Course Books.

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 beginners level.

Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Volume 1

This study examined the production of English intonation by Greek second language (L2) learners of English, specifically their production of polar questions and their pitch range in English. Productions of (a) comparable materials in Greek spoken by the same Greek speakers and (b) English materials spoken by native English speakers were used to assess phonological and phonetic native language (L1) transfer when learning an L2. The results showed that Greek speakers used their L1 (Greek) intonation in English polar questions. Greek speakers’ pitch span in English was narrower from both their L1 (Greek) and from the target (English) pitch span.

Lexical processing in second language learners: papers and perspectives in honour of Paul Meara

Lexical processing in second language learners: papers and perspectives in honour of Paul Meara, edited by T. Fitzpatrick and A. Barfield, Bristol, UK, Multilingual Matters, 2009, 200 pp., £23.96 (...