CLER Conversation Series with Dr Yen Dang

Exploring the nature of vocabulary in academic spoken English

Understanding academic spoken English such as lectures, semi-nars, lab sessions, and tutorials is an important but challenging task for many second language (L2) learners. Vocabulary knowledge plays a significant role in enhancing comprehension. However, little is known about the nature of vocabulary in aca-demic spoken English. In this seminar, I will discuss the findings of several studies of mine, which are among the very few attempts to address this research gap. The talk will focus on :
(a) the number of words needed to comprehend academic spo-ken English,
(b) EAP learners’ knowledge of these words,
(c) the extent to which academic written word lists cover the vo-cabulary in academic spoken English, and
(d) the core vocabulary in academic spoken English. The findings of these studies might be of interest to EAP practitioners and re-searchers who are interested in academic vocabulary.