Content Area Textbooks as Sources for Vocabulary Learning

Abstract

This study examines the potential of content area textbooks as a lexical environment for incidental vocabulary learning. The two questions proposed are how many rarely-used words content area textbooks contain within a particular number of words, and how different or similar the frequency of rarely-used words is in the linguistic studies and non-linguistic studies textbooks. This study concludes that content area textbooks contain a relatively high frequency of words within Nat3 and Nat4 levels. The high percentage of rarely-used words indicates that content area textbooks are rich sources for vocabulary learning. The findings also suggest that different kinds of textbooks in the content courses can be rich lexical environments for the study of second language vocabulary