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Gavin BROOKS
Department Kyoto University of Foreign Studies Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Foreign Studies Position Associate Professor |
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| Language | Japanese |
| Publication Date | 2025/02 |
| Type | Academic Paper |
| Peer Review | Peer reviewed |
| Title | Exploring potential factors affecting reading comprehension in EAL learners: A preliminary corpus-based analysis |
| Contribution Type | Multiple author(s) |
| Journal | Languages |
| Journal Type | Another Country |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Volume, Issue, Page | 10(2),pp.1-22 |
| Total page number | 22 |
| Authorship | Lead author |
| Author and coauthor | ◎Gavin Brooks, Jon Clenton, Simon Fraser |
| Details | This study compares the vocabulary profiles of classroom textbooks with the vocabulary knowledge of 139 English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners enrolled in two international schools in Japan. Learners’ vocabulary knowledge was assessed using the New Vocabulary Levels Test (NVLT) and the Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT), and the results were compared against a 15-million-word textbook corpus. The findings revealed that EAL learners consistently scored lower than both first language English speakers and advanced L2 learners (PL2 group). Even by Grade 12, their mastery of the Academic Word List (AWL) remained below 25%. In addition, the vocabulary coverage provided by the most frequent 5,000 word families reached only 91–93% in biology and chemistry textbooks, suggesting that many EAL learners struggle to adequately comprehend these subject-specific texts. |
| DOI | 10.3390/languages10040081 |