The question I asked my students
When I asked my class about their 2 greatest needs for learning English and getting a good score on IELTS, I got many answers. However, there was one realization that nearly everyone acknowledged. They want to know more vocabulary. They want to know the meaning of words and how to spell them. Students who take the IELTS or TOEFL tests must know a lot of vocabulary to be successful.
How much do I need to know?
Some experts say that a minimum of 2000 English words is necessary. Others say knowing around 3000 words helps a person function well with reading and communication.
Which words should I learn?
In 1953, a list of approximately 2000 of the most commonly used English words was published in a book by Michael West. This list is known as the General Service List (GSL). Almost all of the words in the list, referred to as headwords, represent a word family. For example, the words in the word family for the headword “accept” are accepts, accepted, accepting, and acceptings. These words are organized in families because it is assumed that if someone understands the meaning of the headword, then he/she can probably also understand the words in the word family.
In 2013, this General Service List was updated by Dr. Charles Browne and his colleagues, Dr. Brent Culligan and Joseph Phillips. This New General Service List (NGSL) is really useful for learners of English as a second language because knowing the meanings of all these words and their families enables a learner to understand about 90% of conversational English and even about 80% or more of common written texts. This is great news for English language learners!
In addition to the vocabulary of the GSL and the NGSL, the Academic Word List (AWL) was developed by Averil Coxhead. The AWL is a list of 570 word families and is designed specifically for students entering university level academic studies. Since this list is focused on university level academic studies, it assumes that students already have a working knowledge of the GSL.
In my own experience of teaching international students and helping them prepare for entrance into an American university, I’ve seen many feel overwhelmed with studying for IELTS or TOEFL as well as dealing with the challenges of reading English and writing essays. However, many students grow in their confidence with the increase of vocabulary knowledge. Check out the NGSL and the AWL to see how many words you already know.
Do you have any thoughts about this? Do you have special strategies for learning new vocabulary? Please leave a comment for me. You can also write me at jerry@learnenglishwithmrjerry.com.