ABSTRACT
Frequency is an objective criterion that can be used to prioritize words when learning a language for general purposes. However, instead of looking at individual word frequency, pedagogically it seems to be more useful to rely on frequency as a grouping criterion: to group words into high-, mid-, and low-frequency vocabulary and to approach these groups differently. For English, there seem to be around 3,000 most frequent word families that should be prioritized and focused on explicitly in a language classroom, as they cover the major part of any text a learner might encounter. If learners want to use English in a variety of contexts, they should aim for higher targets: the mid-frequency vocabulary, i.e., the 9,000 most frequent word families. Beyond this threshold, pedagogically, only the domain-specific words seem to be worth attention.
The chapter discusses the question of the boundaries for high-, mid-, and low-frequency vocabulary and potential problems of using word families as counting units.
