Download 2 - Primary Science Teaching Trust

Developing your vocabulary size and comprehension of language
Did you know that the 1,000 most frequently used words in English make up more than 70% of the words you
see in texts?
Researchers studied texts totalling one million words and found that if someone knows the words which occur
with the highest frequency, they will quickly know most of the words in a text:
Vocabulary size
0 words
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
10,000
Written text coverage
0%
72.0
79.7
84.0
86.8
88.7
89.9
95.0
Adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary_size
By knowing the 2,000 words with the highest frequency, someone would know 80% of the words in those texts.
The numbers look even better than this if we want to cover the words we come across in an informally spoken
context; here the 2,000 most common words would cover 96% of the vocabulary. What do you think the
differences are between informal speech and formal written communication?
But before you start thinking you would learn a language in no time, think about how well you would understand
a book in your own language if every fifth word was blacked-out! We cannot always guess meanings from
context when that many words are missing and with academic and subject language, guessing incorrectly can
have serious consequences.
To be fully confident - we need to understand about 95% of a text – research shows that we need more than
10,000 words to be able to do that!
This raises massively significant issues – if you don’t have a good range of academic language then
you cannot achieve top grades. The 10,000 word level is more-or-less what is required for undergraduate
study, so what can you do in the meantime to develop your language for academic purposes?
Most of you are probably very good at informal communication, so we can assume that you have a secure
understanding of the most common 2,000 words - we call this the common core. However, the 1,000 highest
frequency words account for more than 70% of individual words in texts and the common core does not include
much of the formal language required for high achievement.
Research has identified an Academic Word List (AWL), which relates to the words needed by students to
access and understand academic texts. It comprises 570 word families that are not in the common core but
which occur reasonably frequently over a very wide range of texts in many different subjects.
The AWL words are useful for studying any curriculum subject and consist of formal vocabulary with words
such as access, authority, define, environment, assume, criteria, imply.
Each of the 570 headwords has a family of words attached to it (e.g. access has accessed, accessibility,
accessing, accessible, inaccessible). When added to the 2,000 word-level list this provides access to
approximately 90% of words in all texts.
Learning the AWL will give you most of the language you need for writing across your subjects, meaning that
you can spend your time focusing on subject language with more confidence that you have the words to
support yourself.
The REAL Project has developed a profiling tool that enables you to highlight the academic language in any
www.realproject.org.uk
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electronic text and to research its meaning and application. You can find this at http://awl.londongt.org.
Example - subject specific language in science
Before we look at the AWL in practice, let’s look at how language works in a specific subject – Science. You will
be used to organising words according to which topics they are part of, for instance cells. We often use lists of
topic-based lists of terms to help us revise, but what other ways are there that can help with your learning?
Scientific words are used in different ways. Some are common, like cell; others more technical like cytoplasm.
Some words are very similar to each other but mean different things like ‘skin’ or ‘membrane’. Some words
like ‘tissue’ have a distinct meaning in science and another in everyday English (we call these specialist
language).
We also need to be careful in reading language that relates to learning in science such as ‘variable’ or ‘sample
size’ as these words have specific implications, often with a technical meaning or process attached to it or may
work like instructions.
The exercise will help you to develop your understanding of how scientific language can be classified and gives
you a framework which you can use in all subjects, not just science.
The text below is the first section of an abridged version of a news story BBC News – the Mother of all flu
pandemics (The full version of the article can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8024718.stm)
BBC NEWS - The mother of all flu pandemics
1
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
The flu virus is a survivor. It must continually evolve in order to evade its biggest threat - the immune system.
Mammals, including humans, make antibodies, which recognise and target the virus. "So it has to keep
mutating to escape being destroyed," explains David Morens from the US National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
Despite these tactics, most of the strains that make people ill during the eponymous "flu season" are sufficiently
similar to infections most of us have been exposed to before.
Our immune systems recognise common parts that these new strains share with their ancestors, and can launch
an effective defence.
Every so often, however, a different strain emerges and infects people - one that contains new genes from an
animal virus.
Its novelty is its most effective weapon against our immune defences. And if it is infectious enough to find its
way easily into a new host - perhaps via an innocent sneeze - it can spread rapidly and cause a global epidemic
- or pandemic.
All the bold highlighted words are scientific vocabulary. These words are classified in the table below:
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Abridged content from www.bbc.co.uk. Used with kind permission of Victoria Gill. © BBC 2009
www.realproject.org.uk
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Common scientific words
This may not be the target language
for the lesson – prior knowledge of
meaning may be assumed.
More technical scientific
words
These may be the target language
for the lesson
Technical words with similar
meanings, but which need to
seen and understood to be
different, to enable higher
achievement
Specialist words with
different meanings in
science to their everyday
context
Words and phrases relating
to learning and processes in
science
Examples from section 1
Mammal
Ancestors
Allergy
Disease
Infections
Animal
Evolution
Flu
Mutating
Words from the rest of the text
Antibodies
Immune system
Genes
Epidemic, Pandemic
Flu, Flu season
Immune system, immune defences
Virus
Strain
Host
System
Cause
Defence
Have a look through the rest of the article to find interesting examples of other words to classify in each of the
categories. Which words are trickiest to classify? Why is that?
Using the AWL
Let’s look at the use of academic or formal language within the same text. Copy the first section of the article
into the AWL highlighter as below:
Click submit and the tool will reproduce the text below, highlighting the words in the AWL and the ‘sub-list’
within which the word appears:
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The academic word list is divided into 10 sub-lists according to how often they are used. The extract from the
pandemics article contains AWL words from Levels 1 – 8 (there are no words found in levels 2, 6, 8, 10). For
example, a group 1 word ‘similar’ occurs more frequently than ‘via’ which is a group 8 word.
Checking the meaning of a word
Now that we have highlighted the academic language within the article, the next stage is make sure that we
are clear of its meaning in the context in which it is used in the text.
The AWL tool helps you do this using the define function in Google. Click on the blue links in the AWL window
to check the meaning of a specific word.
For example, if you select the Level 7 word, ‘global’ the following screen will automatically appear:
This presents a collection of definitions of ‘global’ and related words from the web. Some of these are
reproduced below.
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Choose one or two that are likely to be useful in helping you to understand the meaning of ‘global’ in the context
in which it is used in the article:
it can spread rapidly and cause a global epidemic - or pandemic.
The word global helps us to be accurate in our understanding of the meaning of epidemic or pandemic, two
science words that have similar but distinct meanings.







involving the entire earth; not limited or provincial in scope; "global war"; "global monetary policy";
"neither national nor continental but…
ball-shaped: having the shape of a sphere or ball; "a spherical object"; "nearly orbicular in shape"; "little
globular houses like mud-wasp nests"- Zane Grey
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
A globally scoped identifier; spherical, ball-shaped; of or relating to a globe or sphere; concerning all parts
of the world; of a variable, accessible by all parts of a program
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/global
globally - throughout the world; "this is globally significant"
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Globally - Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or
regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the
world are unified into a single society and function together. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globally
globally - In all places or situations; Over the entire planet
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/globally
As distinct from "Global Coordination," a "Global" organization is simply one which has sales
internationally, but doesn't necessarily coordinate work globally. The company isn't a multinational
company either, in that it doesn't have a big presence in multiple nations.
http://ccs.mit.edu/21c/iokey.html
You may wish to follow these three steps:
1. Match. Try to find a simple match, which helps you to establish a fix on meaning.
2. Check. Check this with other definitions to establish that the meaning is correct in the context in which
the word is used in the text.
3. Develop. Look for a more complex definition that may help you to strengthen your ability to use this
word.
[should find an acronym or a mainstream EAL term for this to avoid unnecessary duplication.]
The most straightforward meaning above is from wiktionary ‘globally - In all places or situations; Over the entire
planet’.
We then need to add this to our scientific knowledge of the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic.
If we look at another of the definitions above, we see that globalisation is ‘… the process of transformation of
local or regional phenomena into global ones’. For the flu virus, the meaning of global relates to the virus
spreading around the world. The difference between epidemic and pandemic might relate to how far? Or, how
fast?
An epidemic is defined as a virus showing up in more cases than would normally be expected. However, in the
case of a pandemic, even more of the population is affected than in an epidemic. This has two dimensions.
First a pandemic is normally used to indicate a far higher number of people affected than an epidemic, and a
pandemic refers to a much larger region affected. In the most extreme case, the global population is affected by
a pandemic. In official terms the scale is determined by criteria set by the World Health Organisation, which
has a rating system, which scales up as a virus spreads.
What are the implications for achievement?
The ability to understand and use academic language with precision can make a huge difference to your
chances of achieving an A/A* grade.
This example shows how easy it is to lose marks in tests when we lack a precise understanding of meaning. If
we are not precise, examiners are instructed to infer how much we know or understand, which for them, is
partly an educated guess. The more accurate we are, the less is left to chance.
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The AWL highlighter will enable you to develop your academic vocabulary to ensure that your understanding is
accurate and your ability to select and use formal vocabulary is more precise. After only a few weeks you
should start to notice the impact on your achievement – using specific words in response to specific questions
in all your subjects.
Measuring your academic vocabulary
You can use an online test to measure your knowledge of the AWL words. You can take the test at
http://awl.londongt.org/questions.
Each question asks you to select from six different words to match three potential definitions. The test provides
a reliable indication of how well you know the AWL words and takes about 20 minutes to complete.
Once the test is complete, click submit to get a score and find out words for which you may still need to check
your understanding. The tool provides definitions using the Google define function, to enable you to research
meanings for yourself.
You can also save your results or print to provide a copy of your test for your school.
If you have any questions about the use of the AWL email [email protected].
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BBC NEWS - The mother of all flu pandemics (Abridged version)2
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
The flu virus is a survivor. It must continually evolve in order to evade its biggest threat - the immune
system.
Mammals, including humans, make antibodies, which recognise and target the virus. "So it has to
keep mutating to escape being destroyed," explains David Morens from the US National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Despite these tactics, most of the strains that make people ill during the eponymous "flu season" are
sufficiently similar to infections most of us have been exposed to before.
Our immune systems recognise common parts that these new strains share with their ancestors, and
can launch an effective defence.
Every so often, however, a different strain emerges and infects people - one that contains new genes
from an animal virus.
Its novelty is its most effective weapon against our immune defences. And if it is infectious enough to
find its way easily into a new host - perhaps via an innocent sneeze - it can spread rapidly and cause
a global epidemic - or pandemic.
Overdue
"These events seem to be cyclical - they've occurred about every 20-40 years," says Mark
Honigsbaum a researcher at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University
College London.
"And all of these pandemics have been associated with just a few strains," he says.
But beyond what is currently speculation that only a few strains may be transmissible among
humans, the structure of flu gives us almost no clues about how it might behave and change.
"History teaches us to take these pandemics very seriously," says Howard Markel, director of the
Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. "But it also teaches us that they are
predictably unpredictable."
The first of the four pandemics was Russian flu - each takes its name from the country where the first
case was reported - which emerged in 1889.
This was well before the science of virology had even been conceived.
It rapidly spread through Europe, and reached North America and Latin America, lasting until 1892
and eventually killing an estimated one million people.
Although at its early stages, work is already progressing on a universal vaccine - one that would
stimulate human immune systems to recognise, and raise antibodies against parts of the influenza
virus shared by all strains.
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Abridged content from www.bbc.co.uk. Used with kind permission of Victoria Gill. © BBC 2009
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'Mother of pandemics'
But, during the last century, the virus has shown a deadly ability to change beyond recognition.
In 1918, an influenza pandemic started that became a global disaster - eventually killing more people
than the Great War.
Estimates of the death toll from the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu range from 20 million to 40 million.
Some historians argue it could have been as high as 100 million.
"There was a mild wave in the spring, but the very serious, lethal wave was in the autumn to the
winter," says Professor Markel. "Then a third wave in January to April 1919, and a fourth wave in the
winter of 1920."
This tendency for "waves" of infection and re-infection makes the virus yet more unpredictable.
Dr Morens refers to the 1918 H1N1 strain as "the mother of all pandemics".
"In the category of Influenza A, which is the category of virus that has caused all human epidemics
and pandemics, every virus circulated since 1918 has been a descendent of this virus in one way or
another," he says.
"Descendants of the 1918 pandemic are still infecting human beings, but they have mutated again
and again and again to be able to survive."
Hybrids and mutants
The 1918 influenza pandemic gripped a vulnerable, unprepared human population, but its ability to
"reassort" - or exchange its genes with other viruses - was what made it "dangerously novel".
"Every species has its own flu - when those species live together, and they can transmit their flu to
different species, the virus itself changes its structure," says Professor Markel.
But how exactly the virus adapts to enable it to attach to receptors on the cells of a different species,
is an "unanswerable" question, says Dr Morens.
"We don't know where the 1918 virus came from, but the evidence is that it was a new virus.
"At the same time that it infected humans, it also infected pigs. And at that point, we began to have
two lineages of that disease - the human virus, and the pig virus, which persisted too," he adds.
The progeny of the 1918 influenza strain evolved and mutated as they were transmitted from one
host to another.
And on two further occasions, these strains incorporated completely new genes and spread globally
once again.
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Controlled outbreak
"That's what happened in 1957 and 1968 - a hybrid formed of the 1918 virus with genes that were
never part of it before," says Dr Morens.
In the case of the 1957 Asian flu outbreak, a human H2N2 virus combined with the genes of a strain
found in wild ducks.
The pandemic killed an estimated one million people worldwide.
An outbreak of H3N2 Hong Kong flu in 1968, when avian and human virus genes combined once
again, claimed another million lives.
In both cases, the impact was minimised by health authorities, who identified the virus, and made
vaccines available.
"Now, every year, around summer time, a group of flu experts get together and see what strains are
circulating so they can design an appropriate vaccine," says Dr Markel.
And in the last few years, principally because of the global concern about avian flu, anti-viral drugs
that target influenza, such as Tamiflu, have been introduced.
But Professor Markel points out that, despite having reached new levels of medical preparation, "we
live in a world of emerging infectious diseases".
"We have learned to take avian flu very seriously, and we have learned to take the animal kingdom
very seriously," he says.
But in the rare event that a virus does develop that is able to cross the species barrier, he points out
that the close proximity of domestic farm animals to humans provides an opportunity for human
infection.
"Human beings travel farther and faster than ever before. All of this means that we are set up for a
potential epidemic or pandemic," concludes Professor Markel.
"We learn more every time, but the story of flu pandemics is still very much a story in progress."
The full version of the article can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8024718.stm.
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Classifying scientific language
Examples from section 1
Common scientific
words
Mammal
Infections
Ancestors
Allergy
Animal
Diseases
More specialist
scientific words
Evolution
Genes
Mutating
Flu
Antibodies
Immune system
Words with similar
but distinct
meanings
Epidemic, pandemic
Flu, flu season
Immune system, immune
defences
Specialist words
with different
meanings in
scientific and
everyday contexts
Virus
Strain
Host
Words and phrases
relating to learning
in science
System
Cause
Defence
Examples from the rest of the text
1. What are the issues that arise from classifying language in this way?
2. What are the implications for learning and teaching EAL students? How are these the same/different when
compared to students with English as their first language?
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