The Analysis Of Vocabulary In The Textbooks English By Yilin Press

Vocabulary plays an irreplaceable role in English learning. According to Ma (2006), vocabulary is of vital importance in second language teaching and learning. Learners can learn vocabulary either from natural environments or from classroom settings. However, in China, most learners learn English in school and classroom settings, where textbooks serve as the main source of language input. Junior high schools in Nanjing and most cities in Jiangsu Province have just put a new set of junior high school English textbooks into use. So far, no scholars have made an all-round research on these textbooks, especially on the vocabulary in the textbooks. This research makes an analysis on the textbook vocabulary from the perspectives of vocabulary size, frequency and range. The specific research questions are as follow.(1) What is the vocabulary size, frequency and range in the textbooks?(2) What is the curriculum vocabulary size, frequency and range in the textbooks?These textbooks are called English. They are published by Yilin Press. There are all together six volumes, namely 7A,7B,8A,8B,9A and 9B.After all the words in the textbooks having been typed into a word document, the data are extracted and then analyzed by Range EVC (English Curriculum Vocabulary), which includes nine word lists. Range EVC can divide the textbook vocabulary according to the word lists, and then sort out the primary school words, junior high school words, senior high school words and college words in the textbooks and list the frequency and range of each word. This software is also able to list the frequency and range of each word.The results are as follow. On the whole, the textbook vocabulary size is too large, the vocabulary frequency is not enough, and the vocabulary range is uneven.1) 2451 word lemmas appear in the textbooks, which is much more than the 1495 words listed the 2011 English curriculum standard. Among the 1495 curriculum words,14 of them have not appeared in the textbooks.2) In terms of junior high school vocabulary frequency,41% words have appeared in the textbooks for more than 6 times,25% words have appeared 3 to 6 times, and 34% words have appeared 1 or 2 times. For junior high school curriculum vocabulary frequency,59% words have appeared in the textbooks for more than 6 times,23% words have appeared 3 to 6 times, and 18% words have appeared 1 or 2 times.3) In terms of junior high school vocabulary range,48% words have appeared in 1 or two units,29% words have appeared in 3 to 6 units, and 23% words have appeared in more than 6 units. For junior high school curriculum vocabulary range,36% words have appeared in more than 6 units,35% words have appeared in 3 to 6 units, and 29% words have appeared in 1 or 2 units. The average vacancy value of junior high school curriculum vocabulary word is 12.2. That is to say, it takes about 12 units for a word to appear once in the textbooks. We should pay more attention to the low-frequency words and low-range words in classroom teaching.