Lexical Component of the Young Learners’ English Syllabus in Turkey

Year 2018, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 308 - 316, 30.09.2018

Meral Öztürk Kevser Banu Çetin

Abstract

A lexical syllabus in a foreign language program is a first step in providing adequate input to L2 vocabulary as it dictates what goes into the course material. The present study evaluates the lexical component of the Turkish Education Ministry’s (MEB) English language syllabus for primary and middle grades revised in 2017. As the official MEB syllabus does not contain a separate vocabulary list, one was worked out in the present study from the MEB’s published English language programme document and the validity of the list was evaluated against other vocabulary lists as well as against findings of vocabulary research with other EFL learners. The comparison lists were Cambridge Young Learners Exams word lists (Starters, Movers, Flyers), word lists based on large English corpora of adult language users (BNC-COCA-25 lists) and children’s word lists based on oral language use of native-speaking English children (VP-Kids lists). The results have indicated rather poor coverage of native speaker word lists (both adults’ and children’s) by the MEB syllabus. The syllabus also envisaged a rather low input in terms of the number of words to be introduced to learners per class hour in comparison to the input received by EFL learners in other contexts. On the other hand, the list was at a comparable level with the Cambridge YLE lists with respect to overall size, but overlapped to a lesser extent in content. Only 60% of the words in YLE lists were covered in the MEB lists. The specification of clearer targets for grade levels and compilation of official vocabulary lists based on empirical data has been recommended.

Keywords

EFL, lexical syllabus, MEB, word lists, young learners

Lexical Component of the Young Learners’ English Syllabus in Turkey

Abstract

Keywords

EFL, lexical syllabus, MEB, word lists, young learners

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