The CATESOL Journal

Within the communicative approach, often the assumption has been that with the right exposure, students will simply “pick up” the vocabulary required for learning and using English, and thus there is no need to focus on or teach it. Yet, as many teachers can attest, this is frequently not the case, and there have been recent efforts to reemphasize vocabulary learning and teaching in both research and practice. This article surveys the literature on word lists for vocabulary teaching in English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL), especially for adults, briefly summarizing their potential for learners and teachers in learning and teaching English vocabulary. After discussing general and academic word lists, it introduces contributions from recent corpus research resulting in 2 lists of English formulaic expressions and 8 subject-specific English word lists, in fields varying from agriculture, business, and engineering to medicine and theology. Finally, it offers suggestions for their potential in vocabulary teaching.