This week, I used two resources to develop my third and fourth lesson plans. Since this blog entry is quite long, I have split it into two parts. The first part of this entry discusses the resource that I chose to read and to develop my lesson plan for the vocabulary and reading class. The subject that I chose to investigate for this part of the entry is the General Service List. I chose this subject because I decided to teach a vocabulary lesson this week in the reading and vocabulary class. The course outline for this class specifies that the vocabulary taught is based on selected words from the General Service List, which I have never heard about this list in the TESL courses that I have taken throughout the past year. As such, I decided to do a quick search on the subject and to find additional resources to supplement my learning.

I found it difficult to find a general overview on the General Service List, so I am using materials from academic journals in addition to websites and online publications. The resource that I am using this week is called "A Primer on the General Service List." It was written by Leah Gilner and was published in an academic journal called "Reading in a Foreign Language" in 2011. Here, the author provides a historical background to the development of the General Service List, its influence on teaching ESL and EFL, and the lists that were inspired by it.

The General Service List was first published in 1953 by a researcher named Michael West. It was based on a list called the "Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection", published in 1936 by Faucett et al. It was a list of approximately 2000 words that were the result of two conferences (known as the Carnegie conferences) held in the mid-1930s. The conferences sought to examine the role that word lists had on the teaching of English as a Foreign Language and were influenced by the writings conducted by researchers earlier in the twentieth century. The researchers included Edward L. Thorndike, Ernest Horn, Itsu Maki, Lawrence Faucett, Harold Palmer, and Michael West. These researchers also participated in the forums held during the conferences, leading to the creation of the interim report and eventually the General Service List (Gilner, 2011).

Thorndike's book called "The Teacher's Word Book" (1921) presented the 10,000 most frequently occurring words from within a corpus (or collection of texts) consisting of 4.5 million running words from 41 sources. These sources included the Bible, children's story books, textbooks, trade manuals, and periodicals. Thorndike revised his list and published a book called "A Teacher's Word Book of 20,000 Words" in 1931. The revision included an analysis of 200 additional sources and five million words. Thorndike was aware that determining a list of the most important or frequently occurring words in the English language should be based on more than frequency counts. As such, he took into the account the occurrence of words among different texts and cross-checked his findings against lists that were compiled by other researchers (Gilner, 2011).

Horn's book called "A Basic Writing Vocabulary" (1926) presented the 10,000 most frequently occurring words within a corpus consisting of approximately five million running words from 65 sources. These sources included business and personal letters, minutes, newspapers, and magazines. His research was influential because it addressed the weaknesses of methodologies used in previous studies in how the results were tabulated. It also differed from Thorndike's research because it did not use word families and instead reported changes to the word form and derived forms separately (Gilner, 2011).

Lawrence Faucett was influenced by the work of Thorndike and Horn. He became interested in the clarification of objective criteria that could be applied to word lists and the designing of adequate materials that could be used to teach English language learners of different levels. While teaching in Japan in the early 1930s, Faucett collaborated with another researcher named Itsu Maki and combined Thorndike (1921, 1931) and Horn's (1926) lists to create the Faucett-Maki word list (1932). This list formed the scientific basis for objective criteria that was used in the compilation of the General Service List and was the starting point in the selection process in the Carnegie conferences (Gilner, 2011).

Palmer (1931) created a set of principles for selecting and listing words, determining their degree of utility and equability, and ensuring the consistency of word selection. These principles helped distinguish methods for selecting and listing words that went beyond the objective methods used by Thorndike and Horn. Palmer (1931) published his own list of 3000 words that were organized according to what he called headwords⁠—words that are used to represent a set of subwords that are included in word families⁠—rather than listing them individually. This ensured that words were selected and organized in a coherent way. Palmer's principles provided a subjective balance to the objective methods used in previous studies and other sources. As such, they greatly impacted the word selection process at the Carnegie conferences despite limits to their implementation (Gilner, 2011).

West (1927) created learning materials called the "New Methods Readers Series" that presented a new set of vocabulary. It was based on his teaching experience and intuition. By modifying texts, he decreased the density of new vocabulary in texts and sought to make reading materials more accessible to his students. In doing so, West identified a list of 1800 words that were key in language acquisition for English language learners. This list also contributed to the subjective balance mentioned above (Gilner, 2011).

The first Carnegie conference was held in 1934 and appointed a committee that would frame, classify, and itemize a new word list. This committee consisted of Faucett, Palmer, Thorndike, and West. The members drew upon their own expertise and used both objective and subjective criteria in coming to their conclusions. The objective criteria and selection were based on the Faucett and Maki (1932) frequency list (and thus the lists by Thorndike and Horn), while the subjective criteria were based on Palmer's principles and word list and West's definition vocabulary. The second Carnegie conference was held in 1935 where the word list was revised and issued for publication the following year. As a tentative list, the intention was to continue evaluating the list by encouraging criticism and experimentation. In the decades that followed, the interim report evolved into the General Service List and researchers continue to debate about its suitability for foreign language instruction (Gilner, 2011).

This resource helped me to understand what the General Service List is and how it was compiled. I appreciate the research that was used to develop the list and the dedication of the researchers to create a list that both represents the foundation of the English language and provides guidelines for teaching and learning English. This resource also helps me to understand why the list was selected by the curriculum developers for the vocabulary and reading strategies course where I am completing my practicum. The General Service list consists of words that the students must know in order to have a basic understanding and mastery of English. I think that the knowledge that I have learned by reading this resource will help me to appreciate the vocabulary textbook and the learning needs and goals of the students who I am teaching.


References

Gilner, L. (2011). A Primer on the General Service List. Reading in a Foreign Language, 23(1), 65-83.