Official Website of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)

Word Power

Do your students understand your lectures?  Can they understand their textbooks?  New research by Associate Professor Dr Nor Azni Abdullah and Associate Professor Dr Hj Ahmad Mazli Muhammad from the Academy of Language Studies found that 57 per cent of respondents needed more vocabulary to facilitate reading proficiency in particular and academic achievement in general.  This finding is not surprising given that most university text-books are written for native speakers of English who have a vocabulary of up to four times as large as the average Malaysian university student who learns English as a second language (ESL).

Anyone who has mastered the 2000 highest frequency words of general English is able to communicate adequately in an English speaking environment, but general English is not sufficient to ensure success in university content courses.  Students are also more likely to know technical vocabulary than academic vocabulary. Technical, discipline-specific vocabulary usually amounts to fewer than 1000 words per subject and students become familiar with these words through class lectures and discussions.  On the other hand, they are expected to already know the meanings of academic words or to acquire such vocabulary from reading their textbooks.