THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNERS’ LEXICAL COVERAGE AND THE READABILITY LEVELS OF THE ALGERIAN ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS

Abstract

In Algerian schools, textbooks provide the major if not the only written lexical input for students in classrooms. This study examined th e seven English as a Foreign Language textbooks in use in these schools in order to investigate their lexical coverage and readability. The research project was designed to i) compile a textbook corpus ii) compare lexical coverage of the textbooks, and iii ) assess readability. The main concern was to determine whether learners‘ lexical coverage was at the textbook readability level (Independent Reading Leve), above it (Instructional Reading Level), or below it (Frustrational Reading Level). Furthermore, th e list of all lexical items occurring in the seven textbooks was compared to West's General Service List , and Coxhead‘s Academic Word List to assess whether textbooks provide sufficient, useful and appropriate vocabulary items. Another purpose was to provi de English teachers and educationalists in general with a means (computer software) for comparing the vocabulary levels of reading materials and textbooks destined to Algerian learners of English in order to determine what the readability and vocabulary le vels are, and what additional vocabulary is required for students to reach the 95% rate of comprehension. The methodology adopted to explore the lexical coveragewas characterised by a multi - instrument computer - based approach involving computer software. The sets of textbooks were processed to generate textbook word lists. Results have shown that all the EFL textbooks in use have low lexical coverage and readability, putting them at the frustrational level. Moreover, except for the first three textbooks t here was a total discrepancy in terms of lexical coverage between the other four textbooks as the rate of common vocabulary across the textbooks was very low. Comparison of the lexical coverage of the seven textbooks to standard vocabulary lists have reve aled that Algerian students are not learning sufficient, useful and appropriate vocabulary, as Algerian learners are exposed to a low proportion of high frequency words. The study ends with implications and recommendations as to how remedy to the problem