Addressing the issue of assessing English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners: Developing and validating a word list and Vocabulary Levels Test for EAL learners

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K00793
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
• Research Institution: Nagoya University of Commerce & Business (2022); Kwansei Gakuin University (2020-2021)
• Principal Investigator: Brooks Gavin 名古屋商科大学, 国際学部, 講師 (10610818)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): CLENTON JONATHAN 広島大学, 人間社会科学研究科(総), 准教授 (80762434) ; Fraser Simon 広島大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 教授 (10403510)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: EAL / Vocabulary / Corpus Linguistics / Assessment

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Through this project, we collaborated with several Japanese international schools to create a comprehensive corpus and set of word lists aimed at EAL students studying in an EMI context. We are currently in the process of publishing the final word lists. These wordlists will help provide support for this group of learners as they cover between 9.5% to 22.6% of their respective subcorpora with between 481 - 845 lemmas. The extent of coverage offered by these word lists surpasses that of existing ones, indicating their potential as valuable resources for supporting EAL students in the classroom.

Free Research Field

Applied Linguistics

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

The wordlists that we have compiled with help to support EAL learners studying in the international school setting. The word lists will make it possible to evaluate materials, develop supporting materials, and assess EAL learners in this context.