journal of linguistic studies

THE WORDLISTS PROJECT: AN EXAMPLE OF EP RESEARCH
There are a number of strands of research in the English Profile programme, and one
of our challenges is to pull them into a coherent whole during the next several years. One
example is a vocabulary project, the EP Wordlists.
The Wordlists provide a complete searchable listing of the words and phrases in
English that are considered to be within the CEF’s first four levels: A1 to B2. Levels C1
and C2 will be researched and compiled during 2010-11. The Wordlists offer reliable
information at word and sense level, based on analysis of word frequency and learner use,
using corpus data, as well as other sources including Cambridge dictionaries, the
Cambridge ESOL vocabulary lists and classroom materials. There are two versions, one
in British English and one in American English. They have pronunciation audio support,
and are fully searchable by usage, grammar, prefix / suffix and topic within a single CEF
level or across levels.
The Wordlists will be available on subscription in January 2011, and Cambridge
University Press is developing materials that are informed by the Wordlists that will be
available then as well. In the meantime, a preview version of the Wordlists (letters D, J
and K) is available on the website, as well as a new Word of the Week feature.
COMMUNITY
The English Profile community involves a wide range of educational establishments
(schools, universities, private language schools), as well as publishers, assessors, research
centres and key education professionals. These various organisations hold a wealth of
experience and knowledge of all aspects of language teaching and learning from the
classroom to the exam situation to the workplace. However we always need more
members! In particular we are looking for people with access to students who can help us
collect the data we need.
Teachers from around the world are contributing samples of their students’ written
and spoken output to English Profile. At the same time we are collecting information
about the learners and their educational contexts (teachers, class materials etc.) that will
help us understand the relationship between, for example, the age when students start
learning English and their progress through the CEF levels.
EP has developed an innovative online data collection tool to collect this data.
Teachers who sign up for data collection are given an account on our website, so that
their students can sign in, fill in a questionnaire about their background in English
language learning, and also complete between 2 and 4 short written tasks. This process
can be completed as a classroom activity, or as homework. It takes around 50 minutes,
and each student who completes the process has their name entered in a monthly prize
draw to win 50 Euros, or 50 Euros worth of books from Cambridge University Press.
Each school, university etc that signs up for data collection becomes a member of
English Profile, and teachers there will be kept informed about our progress; the latest
developments in EP research, and new products (such as the Wordlists) as they become
available. They will also be invited to attend EP events where they get the chance to give
us feedback and make comments and suggestions about EP’s future activities. These
events take two forms; firstly we will be running a series of workshops across Europe,
where we’ll be looking at issues such as how to assess a student’s work in terms of the
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