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Vocabulary frequency: playing with the MultiLingProfiler tool

I thought I would try out the MultiLingProfiler tool linked from the ncelp.org website. You can find it here:

https://www.multilingprofiler.net/

The idea is that you can test a text you have sourced or written to see how many words fall outside the 2000 most frequent words NCELP use for their vocab frequency bank. I copied and pasted a French text from frenchteacher.net, one I wrote for Higher Tier GCSE pupils. It's an interview with a female astronaut, adapted from an online source somewhere.

The tool highlights in orange any words which don't feature in the top 2000. Have a quick look at the text below. You'll note that the tool doesn't deal easily with verb chunks such as "avez-vous", so you can discount examples like that. Frequency counts (corpora) always produce surprising anomalies. So in the case below, words which you might be surprised to be in the top 2000 might include:

formation, partenaire, exigences, recueillir, fonctionner, quotidiennes, s'entraîner, affecté

Whereas words which ARE NOT in the top 2000 which might - stress might - surprise you are

mathématiques, ingénieurs, secondaire, mécaniques, pilote, incroyable

Now, we know that the sources of vocabulary frequency lists vary and may bear only partial resemblance to the language teenagers might encounter or want to know. So it would be surprising if there weren't apparent anomalies, when looked at from a teacher's point of view.

One thing which stands out to me (and this applies strongly the French) are the number of cognate words which help with comprehension. So the following words which are NOT in the top 2000 are nevertheless easy to work out from an English speaker's point of view. (The same would not necessarily apply to a speaker of a different language.)

astronaute, mathématiques, secondaire, navale, aviation, océanographique, mécaniques, pilote

This is based on an assumption that the teenager would know these words in English. They may struggle with aviation or océanographique.

Should we keep in mind the presence and frequency of cognates?

It seems to me that, while frequency is a very important factor to keep in mind when curriculum planning, you have to handle it carefully. You need to factor in the needs of the target audience, the availability of cognates (NCELP understandably decided to include them) and the thematic material you want students to hear, read, speak and write about.

The fact that NCELP is reluctant to specify topics or themes means that the frequency list they use may be too random or inappropriate in some ways for secondary learners. They rightly point out that texts largely contains high-frequency words (80% of words in a typical text would be from the top 2000), but you may still get anomalies.

NCELP have also mentioned that teachers should not be too slavish to frequency lists. This is true. Interesting material often contains rarer words and you'd be crazy not to teach them. Whether the 2000 words allow examiners to produce interesting, usable texts in papers remains to be seen. NCELP seem to think this will work if a small amount of glossing is allowed (up to 2% of the words in a text).

In the example below, you would need to gloss around a dozen words (not including highlighted chunks such as travaillez-vous). Copied into Word, the text comes out at 368 words. My maths suggests that I would need to gloss just over 3% - not too far off the NCELP figure. I could have simplified the text further too.

All this assumes that pupils would understand the high-frequency words, which of course they may or may not.

Anyway, just a bit of fun! You might like to try out the profiler yourself.

No one doubts that, for beginners especially, it's better to focus on common words rather than rare ones, but using published frequency lists can lead to some peculiar outcomes.


1. Depuis combien de temps travaillez-vous pour la NASA?

Je suis à la NASA en tant qu'employé du gouvernement depuis 13 ans.

2. Quel type de formation est nécessaire pour devenir astronaute?

Bien sûr, pour être considéré comme astronaute, on recherche non seulement des bases forts en mathématiques et en sciences, mais aussi une bonne éducation générale car on doit être capable de bien communiquer avec les ingénieurs et scientifiques. En plus il faut parler d’autres langues pour parler avec nos partenaires internationaux.


3. Y a-t-il des qualités physiques nécessaires pour être astronaute?

Vous ne pouvez pas être trop grand, ni trop petit. A part cela, il y a des exigences médicales. Il ne faut pas avoir une condition qui ne peut pas être traitée dans l'espace.

4. Comment êtes-vous devenue astronaute?

Eh bien, j’ai eu de la chance. Dès ma sortie de l'école secondaire, je suis allée à la US Naval Academy et je suis entrée dans l'aviation navale. J'ai volé avec une équipe de recherche océanographique où nous avons voyagé pour faire des expériences et recueillir des données océanographiques. Alors, j'ai quitté la Marine et suis allée travailler au Centre spatial Kennedy en tant qu'ingénieur et j'ai travaillé sur les systèmes mécaniques des navettes spatiales, avant d’être choisie pour être astronaute.

5. Combien de fois avez-vous été dans l'espace?

Je n’ai fait qu’un voyage jusqu'à présent sur la navette spatiale Columbia.

6. Quand vous êtes allée dans la navette Columbia, quelles ont été vos responsabilités?

J'étais spécialiste de mission et j'ai travaillé avec le pilote pour aider à faire fonctionner les systèmes de la navette spatiale, mais nous avons également transporté 25 expériences auxquelles j’ai participé.

7. Quelles sont vos responsabilités quotidiennes quand vous n'êtes pas dans l'espace?

Quand les astronautes ne sont pas dans l'espace, l'une des principales choses que nous faisons est de continuer à s'entraîner pour être prêt à être affecté à une autre mission dans l'espace.

8. Quelle est la partie préférée de votre travail?

C’est travailler ensemble en équipe. Quand on va dans l'espace, sur la navette spatiale en particulier, vous pouvez avoir sept membres d'équipage. On s’entraîne ensemble depuis des années et on développe une amitié incroyable avec ces personnes.

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