Korean Job Discussion Forums

[stevemcgarrett]

I've perused the MOE and KEDI sites but could not locate any document in English that specifically provides the benchmarks for vocabulary learning at different educational levels.

What I urgently need to know is the minimum number of target words (not collocations) Korean high school graduates are expected to have.

I have heard figures as high as 6,000 to 7,000 words but I find that incredible as it would be double what is expected of even the best academically prepared high school students in some other Asian nations.

Any guidance will be much appreciated.

[Darkness]

3,674

[tomato]

I don't know if this helps but I'll try:

I have a copy of the Korean word frequency chart published by Yonsei University.
The first 3000 words comprise 85% of written Korean.
I would like to claim 90%, but that would involve learning the first 6000 words.
So I settled for 3000, and I still have a long way to go.
And I have been studying that list for 6 years.

[blynch]

about 5000 (according to my coworkers)

[Woland]

For English, the first 2,000 most frequest word families account for about 79% of a typical text. Averill Coxhead's Academic Word List, which covers another 650 word families (approximately) that occur frequently in academic texts but not in other genres, would add another 8% in coverage for about 87% coverage total for academic texts.

Paul Nation has suggested that this is the limit of what should be taught directly. Beyond this level, individual words are so infrequent that teaching them may not be the most productive use of our classroom time. This is not to say that students should not be exposed to them, only that direct instructional time should not be spent on them; students will need exposure and potential incidental learning in order to become proficient readers.

See, here's the catch. In order to read independently, learners need to know 95% to 98% of the words in the text (these estimates come from both Nation and Batia Laufer; I believe the variation may relate to familiarity with genre). At about 90% knowledge, students can read with assistance. Below this is what is called 'frustration level' - students are reading too slowly, looking up too many words, to effectively deal with the content of the reading.

You can see the problem here. What is teachable is not enough to get beyond frustration. To get students to the level of being independent, high level readers is going to require lots of exposure to texts that are adjusted to the level of the students, with help provided in getting content. (Friends of mine recently published a study in Foreign Language Annals showing how limited incidental vocabulary acquisition from a single text is; look up the Ferrell Tekmen & Daloglu article last year for details). With considerable exposure like this, plus encouragement of extensive reading, students can become independent readers.

So, how many words should Korean high school students know? I don't know (so I can't answer your question about what is expected; whatever it is, I imagine it's too much). It should depend on the overall hours of English instruction in the curriculum. Given what I do know (which is limited), here's what I would suggest. First, let us assume a systematic curriculum structure and one that is lexically-based (as opposed to structurally-based)*. I would propose that the first 2,000 words be taught by the end of high school, with exposure, expecially in the later years to high school to a wider ranger of vocabulary. This would leave the required English classes at university to focus on the Academic Word List.

An approach like this, which is rational, has some features that would likely be opposed in Korea. First, it would suggest that learners should not be taking the TOEFL or TOEIC until high school or, better, later, and not expecting high sccores until in university or later. I would hope the public could educated about appropriate expectiations*, but I also understand the limits of reason. Second, it would suggest that materials that are manageable for students be developed in line with this teaching plan, rather than assuming that we can just stuff more and more things above the students heads (read: "authentic" texts) down their throats*.

I've written this off the top of my head, based on a lecture that I give in my SLA class. The exact figures may be off a bit, but the general idea is correct. gang ah jee actually knows more about this than anyone here. I'll try to get him to contribute to this thread.

For those interested in knowing more about the word lists and how to teach with them, please go to either of these places:

http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nation/nation.aspx (Paul Nation's webpage)

or http://132.208.224.131/ (Tom Cobb's invaluable Compleat Lexical Tutor)

Batia Laufer's webpage is also worth a look for bibliographic purposes: http://english.haifa.ac.il/batia.htm

For people who are interested in teaching collocations, they should see Shin DongKwan's recently completed dissertation (done under Paul Nation's supervision), which looks at what the most valuable collocations in English are. If you want it, pm me and we can work out a way to get it to you.

* Yeah, wishful thinking, I know.

EDIT: Fixed typos, clarified, cut a speculative paragraph, added some stuff.

[tomato]

[Chamchiman]

[tomato]

There seems to be disagreement over how many words the average preschooler knows.

According to a Google search which I just ran, the average 3-year-old knows 200-300, 500, 900, or 2000-4000 words.

The average 4-year-old knows
1200, 1500, or 4000-6000 words.

According to Krashen (1997: 22), comic books in English employ a vocabulary of approximately 2000 words ).

If Krashen is right and the Parma City School Website is right, then comic books are below the level of the average 4-year-old!



Krashen, S. D. 1997. Foreign language education the easy way. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates.

[tomato]

Hello, Chamchiman!

A few other people have asked me before, so I scanned the first four pages of the list:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/yonsei1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/yonsei2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/yonsei3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/yonsei4.jpg

You can get a bigger chunk of this list--about 2000 words--by going to http://groups.yahoo.com, joining the group named EnglishKoreanExchange, clicking on the word "Files," and clicking on the first item on the list.

[PimpofKorea]

just 4

KISS MY WHITE NUTZ.

When I say that to them on the street....they should comprehend it thoroughly.

[Woland]

[ipsofacto]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[The Dude from Canada]

who cares. most of them will end up as taxi drivers or cleaning ajummas anyway.

[tomato]

Woland, are you sure you didn't read into implications which were not in my last post?