Research Forum: Which Words? A Comparison of Learner and Teacher Choices for Lexical Study

Lexical study often sits at the periphery of English lessons and textbooks in
Japan, meaning that learners and teachers alike fail to give lexis the attention
that it deserves. What this suggests is that learners fail to utilize these fundamental
building blocks of the language which could offer widespread benefits to their
holistic English development. This limited exploratory study looks at the choices
and selection criteria that various groups of learners used to select lexical items
from a set text. These are compared with choices and criteria used by teachers,
as well as the recommendations of scholars in the field. The author found that
not only did choices vary considerably between learners and teachers, but also
that these choices often did not correspond to an informed understanding of the
nature of lexis.