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Bilingual Centers Classroom-based Research Regular Presentation (30 min)

Vocabulary Demand for Science Curriculum

Sat, Dec 4, 15:30-16:00 Asia/Taipei Room B (Google Meet)

This study is a lexical analysis of spoken discourse supporting vocabulary development for English as a foreign language students who are learning science in English. The study analyzed bilingual science lesson from grade 4-6 grade, a lesson from each grade level. The AntWordProfiler was used to analyze the transcripts of the lessons. AntWordProfiler is a “freeware tool for profiling the vocabulary level and complexity of text” (Anthony, 2014, n,p.) that lists the words that occur in a text according to their frequency. Naiton’s (2006) BNC word family list of fourteen 1,000 word lists were used with AntWordProfiler software to show the percentage lexical coverage of the 14 groups of 1,000 words at which the words in the science lessons occurred. The study shows that L2 learners need to know 4000-5000 word families to understand 95% of the words in science lessons.

  • Jane Chien

    Dr. Jane Chien is an assistant professor in the Department of Children’s English Education at the National Taipei University of Education. During the past 16 years, she has been engaged in pre-service EFL elementary school teacher training and in providing professional development to in-service teachers. As the Director of the Center for Research on Bilingual Education at NTUE, She has dedicated her work to promoting bilingual education through CLIL, supervising several elementary schools’ bilingual programs in the northern part of Taiwan. Her most valuable experience actively participating in the international TESOL community has been from serving on the TESOL’s CALL-IS Electronic Village Online coordination team since 2018 and as TESOL International Association Computer-Assisted Langauge Learning Interest Section Chair-Elect 2021-2022.