Discusses the importance of vocabulary acquisition in second language instruction, viewing it as central to the learning process. The interplay among words, meanings, and situations is considered, and various types of exercises are examined to determine when and how vocabulary can best be brought into focus. (MES)

This word list includes more than 43,000 items, each identified by a simple word meaning. For each item, the list provides a grade level (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, or 16) and a percentage score that indicates what percentage of students at that grade level understand the word. Each word-familiarity score was obtained by administering a three-choice…