Sessions

The Coverage Comprehension Model: Matching learners with lexically appropriate meaning-focused materials

The features of existing vocabulary levels tests and lexical profilers are based on convention and have limited construct validity (Schmitt, Nation & Kremmel, 2019). Recent research (much of it from Japan) questions the appropriateness of the construction of vocabulary level tests and lexical profilers when used with Japanese learners (Stoeckel, McLean & Nation, 2020). Thus, this presentation introduces meaning-recall (English to Japanese) and form-recall (Japanese to English) vocabulary levels tests (vocableveltest.org) which allow teachers to estimate their learners’ lexical reading, writing, or listening level. Teachers can select the wordlist (SKEW-J, NGSL, JACET, SUBTLEX, NAWL, AWL, TSL), word counting unit (lemma, flemma, word family) the band size (1000, 500, 250, 100 words), word band range of created tests, and the number of questions to represent each band. Teachers can also select their own questions, to create none frequency-based tests. After completing tests, students are presented with a graph showing their lexical profile. Further, teachers can select for students are receive feedback and correct answers on all responses. Teachers can download automatically marked responses, actually typed responses, the time taken to complete each question, and lexical profiles for individual students and groups of students. Importantly, to match learners with lexically appropriate materials, parallel lexical profilers are introduced (nwlc.pythonanywhere.com).