The English Language Institute (now the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) at Victoria University of Wellington has a long history of corpus-based vocabulary research, especially after the arrival of the second director of the institute, H. V. George, and the appointment of Helen Barnard, whom George knew in India. George's…

Describes a computer-based methodology that obtains simple timed responses to sets of words and word-like nonsense items, then presents pilot data depicting estimated vocabulary knowledge and relating it to word frequency and decision response time. (FL)

Describes the process for generating, from a text, three types of multiple-choice vocabulary cloze tests: one based on n-th word deletion, one using user-specified frequency ranges, and one based on a particular word class. The article discusses the extent to which good test material can be produced realistically by computer-aided systems and the…