Abstract-Despite the fact that textbooks are central in foreign language learning, only limited research has explored to what extent L2 textbooks support language learning and whether the content in them is relevant from a vocabulary perspective. This study investigates the vocabulary in seven English textbooks used in Swedish primary schools. A corpus has been constructed based on the words in the textbooks. By means of a concordancing software tool, the material has been analyzed by comparing the vocabulary between the books and to words on the New General Service List and in the VP-Kids corpus. The analysis shows that many words in the textbooks occur only occasionally in common everyday language use. It also demonstrates that there is great variation in the number and selection of words across the books indicating that there does not seem to be a common thought behind word selection in textbooks used in Swedish schools.
Vocabulary is a core feature of language proficiency, requiring explicit attention in the language classroom. As teachers' conceptualizations influence their teaching, their understanding of vocabulary deserves closer attention. Yet, few teacher cognition studies focus on vocabulary, and even fewer on non-native teachers' conceptualizations of vocabulary. This paper presents an interview study with Swedish EFL teachers at secondary school level. Fourteen teachers were interviewed about their beliefs and practices in relation to vocabulary development in the classroom. The study shows that despite a general understanding of the importance of vocabulary in language learning among the teachers, vocabulary was not seen as a learning objective in its own right. Closely connected to this understanding, the teachers showed a great reliance on incidental vocabulary learning, where words were understood as "picked up along the way" while doing other things, such as reading and playing games. It was also found that although the teachers showed an awareness of the many aspects involved in word knowledge, they mentioned few methods to work with them. The study suggests a need for a more explicit focus on vocabulary instruction in the language learning classroom.
This study is a corpus-based analysis of the verbs own and possess, which are two of the verbs that are used to express possession and ownership in English. The results show that there are areas of overlapping use as well as areas where only one of the two is a valid option. It has also been shown that own has a legal feature at its core and is predominantly used to express ownership. The most frequent usage of possess, on the other hand, is that of describing that someone or something has a quality or property of some kind. This difference also has consequences for what kinds of entities appear as the subject and object arguments of the verbs.
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