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buzzwords What’s the Academic Word List (AWL) and what can it do for our students?
What is the AWL? • Developed by Averil Coxhead from Victoria University’s School of Linguistics and Applied Studies in 2000 • Contains 570 words/word families most used across the Academic Corpus Coxhead, Averil (2000) A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2): 213-238.
The Academic Corpus? • The Academic Corpus is a group of 414 texts with a total of 3.5 million running words from academic sources such as • Journals • Textbook chapters • Workbooks • Lab manuals • It is sorted into 4 sections and 28 subsections Coxhead, Averil (2000) A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2): 213-238.
The Academic Corpus Coxhead, Averil (2000) A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2): 213-238.
Back to the AWL • AWL word families have RANGE • Occur in all sections and over half of the subsections of the Academic Corpus • AWL word families have FREQUENCY • Occur over 100 times in the Academic Corpus • AWL word families have UNIFORMITY OF FREQUENCY • Occur minimum of 10 times in each section of the Academic Corpus Coxhead, Averil (2000) A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2): 213-238.
More on the AWL • Does not include the 2,000 most commonly used words in English (a, the, and, etc), proper nouns, or Latin forms • Further divided into 10 sublists ranging from most used (Sublist 1) to least used (Sublist 10) as relative to the AWL as a whole Coxhead, Averil (2000) A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2): 213-238.
Why is the AWL important? • The AWL is a list of the vocabulary words that will be most important, based on research, to our students in respect to future academic and vocational success. • These words must be taught AND put in context for our students to learn and master this vocabulary
How can we use the AWL? • Encourage students to stop and define words they aren’t familiar with within academic texts • Use the word in context to your subject as well as others • What does method look like in science vs. math vs. business? • Offer incentives for word study outside of class • Quizlet, graphic organizers, vocabulary.com, word ladders
Manipulate Words • Can you really have mastery of words or subjects without being able to manipulate them in new ways? • Could you determine the puzzle on the left was “foot in the door” without knowing that 12’’= 1 foot? • Or… “walk on water” without the knowledge that H2O=water?
Get students talking about AWL • Take time to incorporate AWL and domain specific words into your lesson • Word Read-Around can take only 5 minutes, but involves the whole class • Each student receives a slip of paper with one statement and one question that includes a vocabulary word • One student has the card labeled as the first and the game continues until all cards are used • EX: “I have the first card. Who has the word that means to devour or use up?” Next student: “I have consume. Who has the word that means to obtain money for?” Next student: “I have finance”…and so on
Other vocabulary Activities • Fact or Fiction • Each student is assigned one vocabulary word. They write 3 statements related to the word with one of them being false. The group must identify the false statement and fix the error to make it true • Make a Word Wall displaying all learned words • Vocabulary Bee • In Text • Find the target word in multiple texts (vocabulary.com) and compare uses
Other AWL resources • About the AWL • Victoria University Website • http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist • Dr. AverilCoxhead • http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/averil-coxhead • AWL Activities • AWL practice • http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/AWL/index.htm • AWL highlighter • http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/alzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.htm • AWL gapmaker • http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/alzsh3/acvocab/awlgapmaker.htm