University Word List

If you are English learner and want to understand and use academic words, learning University Word List is definitely beneficial. So, what is University Word List?

International student who enter academic program as undergraduate or graduate students in the U.S. face considerable hurdles, not least of which is the daunting amount of and type of vocabulary they are likely to encounter in their academic fields, and be expected to use in their academic writing. Student with advanced proficiency in English may generally be expected to have acquired a minimum productive English vocabulary of 2000 head words (plus derivatives) along with a larger receptive vocabulary, while an average American undergraduate is estimated to have a vocabulary of about 20000 words. This wide gap in vocabulary knowledge would seem likely to penalize international students from the beginning by slowing down their rate of reading and compromising their comprehension of study material overall. In wiring, it has been noted that international student tend to use less academic vocabulary than their native born peers.

Studies of vocabulary reported by Paul Nation (1990) have shown that a basic 2000 words vocabulary of high frequency items actually comprise 87 percent of words in an academic text. A further 800 words academic words have been identified which comprise an additional 8 percent (95 percent of total) of textual items. Three percent (98 percent of total) of remaining words are technical items, which differ from on field to another, generally consisting of 1000 to 2000 items, which are usually taught or acquired in the academic program. The remaining 2 percent (100 percent of total) of words in any text are considered to be low frequency words, numbering up to 123000 (they may be mentioned only once in a given text).

So that, knowledge of a further 800 academic words can significantly boost the comprehension level of academic text and activities. Nation combined these word lists into 800 items University Word List (Xue & Nations, 1984), with the aim of having the lists into serve as a guide and focus for teachers and as a check list and goal for students. The University Word List consists of vocabulary that students are likely to encounter across all academic fields, concentrating on the language of research, analysis, and evaluation. Students who activate this vocabulary and use it in their academic writing will be more successful in effectively communicating their ideas as students and scholars.

You can practice these words.
http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/AWL/index.htm

University Word List divides into the sublist. So let’s learn with me on this blog step by step!!