1. 1 Frequency
Put the words in to one of six groups according to frequency:
1 Top 100 2 Top 1000 3 Top 2500 4 Top 5000 5 Top 7500 6 Over 7500
allegation clay insist poster small
apple coal is potato sort (n / v)
arise contain kind (adj) provide sunburnt
bad-tempered component lamp purple sue
banana countryside list (n) recommend tan
been curly list (v) red tell
blonde electrician long relief test (n)
book exam meat relieve thriller
bus economy medium romance undermine
bored failure medium-sized sad upset
carbon fun mood said were
chair (v) garlic moody salmon yoga
chair (n) get pass serious
chilli go pear short term
cinema gold pleased silk
civil servant have policy skinny
2 Grammar as vocabulary at low levels.
Write an example of these words you might need / want to say at a low level.
been shall
can must
will could
should have to
would (NOT would like to)
3 Outcomes, usage and a frequency paradox
A Write an example for these words from the academic word list (subset 1)
available
contract
indicate
B Now think about examples of how you would use some of these words from an upper int book.
Paramedic ward
Paediatrician operating theatre
patient bandage
surgeon plaster
nurse self-diagnosis
midwife self-medication
4 Texts
What vocabulary / patterns might you highlight in this short text?
For me as a teacher (as well as language learner) the goal is to be able to communicate the same things in L1 as well
as L2. If I talk about serious accidents in my own language, I want to be able to talk about them in my new language
as well. You never know when a need for a word or chunk might come up – I was at a meeting at work recently and
found myself searching for the Chinese for “staff costume party”. Needless to say it had never come up in my
‘Business Chinese’ course.