Sunday, June 5, 2016

AWL



     The AWL is a list of words which appear with high frequency of English language academic texts. Averil Coxhead compiled this list at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The list contains 570 words within 10 sub lists. The sub lists are organized in less frequent by chronologically.  The AWL is useful to all second language learners who wish to study in English-speaking institution without concern about what their field of study. The AWL does not include technical words. It does not contain generally used words and very high frequency words also. It will help to improve the comprehension of academic texts.

    The AWL home page contains the several options on right hand to create or practice the exercises easily. Those are Home, Learning, AWL Highlighter, AWL Gapmaker, Teaching, Word Lists, Texts, Exercises, Concordances and Links. In every option, there are detailed instructions and information, also several links of useful sites. That’s why very easy to access.

Learner:

    Learners need to know this academic vocabulary for their English-speaking institution. These words are very common and useful which have frequently shown in newspaper, magazine, novel, television or movie conversations. At first, learners should know the GSL (General Service List) which contains 2000 basic words in English and then learn the AWL, which will increase the understanding of vocabulary 10% in academic texts.
AWL home page contains around 285 gap-fill exercises and these can be found on each sublist page. Gap-fill exercises help to recycle vocabulary through different contexts in an excellent way. It can be used to broaden the learner’s range of understanding the meaning of vocabulary. Learners can get the immediate feedback for their answers because it’s online based. Learners can tell teacher to check their writing.


Teacher:

    Vocabulary exercises on this website were created by using Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher(www.cpr4esl.com/gerrys_vocab_teacher/).  Teachers can download the demo from this website. The program will allow quick and easy review on AWL vocabulary in depth. In a matter of minutes teachers can create the exercises for use on their own website and also can use hard copy in their classroom for study or homework. Students will benefit through the review of target vocabulary in each sentence in context and using gap-fill exercises on this website. Teacher can contribute also on this website if they want to.

    In AWL, using English for academic purposes. The specific words are presented as a heavy list without having any definitions or neither have any hyperlink towards dictionary definitions. Beginner learners can easily misinterpret the meaning of the word or subject. I'm not sure how much useful it is for learners mainly beginners. 



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