How to Create Textbook Vocabulary Lists

—A Preliminary Survey to Help Development of New Intermediate Materials —

YANAGISAWA Emi KUDO Kanako

The Japanese Language Center for International Students, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (“JLC TUFS”) is in the process of developing new intermediate materials. With the goals of creating the best vocabulary lists for the target learners and determining vocabulary teaching policies, the following steps were taken: 1) a comparative analysis of vocabulary lists in existing intermediate materials was undertaken; 2) a survey was created to find out more about the learning behaviors and attitudes of intermediate students using textbooks that featured vocabulary lists.

First, five existing intermediate textbooks were compared and analyzed. It was found that the common information in all vocabulary lists was glossed words and their Kanji readings. The trend seemed to be away from including any corresponding translation or information on usage.

Next, in a survey of intermediate learners, the following learning behaviors were observed:

1) The task of looking up the meaning of words in the vocabulary lists was not particularly burdensome.

2) Words were looked up in electronic dictionaries or in online dictionaries over the Internet.

3) The learners used their native languages for writing the word meanings.

Third, the following ideas became clear in follow-up interviews:

1) Having the readings of Kanji of the glossed words in advance made look-up in the dictionary easy.

2) Putting particles with verbs made it easier to put the forms into practice.

3) Putting vocabulary entries together around a relevant topic helped make them easier to remember, find and produce.

4) The learners consider that they can learn vocabulary the most through look-up in the dictionary by themselves.

The results of this research indicate that for vocabulary learning at the intermediate level students should look up the words in the dictionary by themselves. In the future, when considering vocabulary lists and vocabulary learning, it is necessary to support and encourage this sort of autonomy.