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A paradigm shift in EFL material development for
young learners: Instilling pedagogy in teaching practice

Thomaï Alexiou and Marina Mattheoudakis

1. Introduction
This paper aims to present a paradigm shift in the design and development of EFL material
for young learners. In particular, the rationale underlying the design of two new course
books for 3rd graders of primary school (8–9 years old) will be presented; the books are
groundbreaking as they revolutionize the way English is taught at early levels, not only at
state schools but also in private language schools. More specifically, the chapter discusses
three major innovations that Magic Book 1 and Magic Book 2 have introduced into the
field of EFL material design.
We will present the criteria on the basis of which the selection of the vocabulary was made as
well as the principles of the lexical approach, which dictated authors’ choices regarding the
emphasis on lexical phrases and the ensuing implicit teaching of grammar. We will also
describe the implementation of the approach to literacy, which combines elements from the
phonics approach with those of the whole language approach. Finally, we will discuss the
design of activities which aim to promote young learners’ English language and cognitive skills.
The most important innovation of the books pertains to the fact that choices regarding the
teaching methodology and material design have been informed by research evidence; the
books combine a strong pedagogical orientation with recent research findings related to
foreign language acquisition by young learners.

2. Magic Books 1 and 2: Features and innovations

Magic Books 1 and 2 have been developed within the framework of the National Strategic
Reference Frameworks (NSRF) Programme: ‘New Policies of Foreign Language Education
at Schools: English for Young Learners’. More specifically, the books were created under
the English for Young Learners (EYL) project (http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/peap/en) under the
supervision and coordination of the scientific coordinator, Professor Bessie Dendrinos of
the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Magic Book 1 specifically targets the
needs of Greek young learners in the 3rd grade of primary school who have never received
English instruction before, while Magic Book 2 targets 3rd graders who have been exposed
to EFL in the first and second primary school grades.

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The teaching materials include:

i. Course Books Magic Book 1 (MB1) and Magic Book 2 (MB2)
ii. Activity Books Magic Book 1 and Magic Book 2
iii. A Teacher’s Book for each course book
iv. 2 CDs with the sound files of the texts and activities
There are also resource materials with karaoke, animated videos, extra activities (memory
games, puzzles), and interactive flip books. There are complementary and differentiated
materials accessible online.
With regard to the structure, Magic Book 1 consists of 8 units and Magic Book 2 consists
of 10 units. Each unit introduces a different story and each story has a different plot.
Usually the stories carry a moral message and include an element of surprise (see Table 1).

Magic Book 1: Title and moral Magic Book 2: Title and moral
Unit 1: In the fairytale forest Unit 1: Kelly
Moral: School is fun! Moral: Friends don’t fight
Unit 2: The story of Bella the cat Unit 2: Captain Cook
(Aesop fable) Moral: Adventure is the treasure
Moral: The power of the weak
Unit 3: The story of Pinocchio Unit 3: The ant and the cricket (Aesop fable)
Moral: Lying is wrong Moral: No pain, no gain
Table 1: Stories and morals in the books

The teaching framework selected for the writing of Magic Books is story based. Narration
and storytelling constitute the basic techniques deemed appropriate for this age group, as
children are already familiar with the narrative context of stories in their mother tongue
(Ellis and Brewster, 2002). Stories enrich the learning process, cultivate imagination and
constitute a shared social and multicultural experience. The stories are usually based on well-
known fairytales, fables or myths with well-known characters as their heroes e.g., Daedalus
and Ikarus, so as to enable learners to feel familiar with the plot of the stories; this also
allows teachers to expand on the story if they or the children wish. Rixon (1991) claims that
the use of well-known universal fairy tales, which the learners are most likely to know in
their own language, facilitates comprehension and results in natural language acquisition.
Narration and storytelling are powerful techniques as they allow children to use their
imagination and develop cognitively, linguistically and emotionally (Ellis and Brewster,
2002). Stories allow children to focus on the meaning and plot of the story rather than on
language structures. Emphasis is thus placed on the development of inferencing skills and
discovery learning, since parts of the stories are already known, but other parts are new.

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The books adhere to the principles of communicative language teaching but they also
follow the eclectic approach (Kumaravadivelu, 1994). This choice was based on the need to
employ methods and techniques that aim at the language development of young learners,
always keeping in mind their cognitive level, and the importance of developing their social
literacies and maintaining their motivation. Thus, both books feature elements of various
teaching methods and approaches, such as total physical response, task-based learning,
content-based instruction and the lexical approach (Figure 1).

Total physical response activity Lexical approach activity

Task based activity Content based activity

Figure 1: Examples of activities based on different methods and approaches

The learning outcomes include fluency in oral communication at a basic level, as well as an
ability to understand and respond to oral input based on simple everyday language related
to particular themes: socializing, talking about school, food and healthy habits, weather
and clothes, helping people and caring for the environment. Children are also expected to
develop basic literacy skills and the ability to recognize and read lexical chunks and items
they have been orally taught. The goal is to increase language input and encourage young
learners to experiment with the new language in the classroom within a playful and
stimulating context.

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The books do not follow the traditional approaches commonly adopted in the commercial
course books available, i.e. explicit focus on grammatical structures, grammar and
vocabulary activities or drills, use of metalanguage, choice of vocabulary based on authors’
intuitions. In this respect, MB1 and MB2 introduce a new philosophy to the way English
should be taught at early levels. The new philosophy actually relates to our firm belief that
EFL course books should be designed and written on the basis of solid research regarding
foreign language acquisition and, in our case, in particular, foreign language acquisition by
young learners. As a result, the following choices were made and these represent some of
the most important changes and innovations the books have introduced into the Greek EFL
teaching context:
1. emphasis on the teaching/learning of contextualised lexical phrases and not merely on
the teaching of individual, decontextualised lexical items
2. implicit teaching of grammar through the emphasis placed on lexical phrases
3. selection of vocabulary informed by research-based criteria related to frequency,
appropriacy of thematic areas, and age
4. combination of elements from the phonics approach with those of the whole language
approach
5. development of cognitive skills through the use of specially-designed activities that aim
at L2 development
6. rejection of the idea that learners’ output should be a replica of teacher’s output

3. Aim and research questions

As mentioned above, the main aim of the chapter is to discuss major innovations
introduced in the books that form a paradigm shift in EFL material development for young
learners. These concern: (a) focus on formulaic language, (b) vocabulary selection,
(c) approach to literacy, (d) development of cognitive skills.
The research questions of the study only pertain to the vocabulary selection and are as follows.
• What is the number of types and tokens presented in Magic Books 1 and 2?
• Are the words presented in Magic Books 1 and 2 frequent according to Nation’s
frequency word lists and base word lists?
• What is the percentage of common lexical items between Magic Books and the English
Vocabulary Profile?

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4. Choices informed by theory

4.1 Focus on formulaic language

Research suggests that at least one third to one half of language is composed of formulaic
language (Howarth, 1998; Erman and Warren, 2000; Foster, 2001). Sinclair (2008: 407)
argued that the unit of language is ‘the phrase, the whole phrase, and nothing but the
phrase’. Much of the communicative function of language is closely linked with those
phrasal expressions (Conklin and Schmitt, 2008). Such phrases are often linked to a single
meaning or a pragmatic function and this allows them to have significant semantic or
pragmatic utility. They accomplish recurrent communication needs and they may encode
cultural ideas or carry a register marking. Given this utility, it is not surprising that their
use in the language is widespread.
The view of language as being primarily lexical and consisting of phrasal units, rather than
single words, presents a major challenge not only to language analysts but also, and most
importantly, to language learners and teachers (Granger, 2011). Wray (2002) argues that
learners do not seem to pay attention to collocational relationships, while Siyanova and
Schmitt (2008) suggest that it is important for teachers to make these relationships more
salient and explicit by moving from a focus on individual words towards a focus on phrasal
elements. In their research they found that, although L2 learners are capable of producing a
large number of appropriate collocations in context, their underlying intuitions and fluency
with collocations – even at advanced levels of proficiency – do not match those of native
speakers. Granger (1998) also found that many grammatical sentences generated by
language learners sound unnatural and foreign. Schmitt (2004) argues that the difficulty L2
learners have in attaining native-like formulaic idiomaticity and fluency, raises issues of
instruction as teachers need to be trained to view vocabulary teaching in a different way
and move from item teaching to teaching lexical phrases and formulae. Within the language
learning and teaching context, Nattinger and De Carrico (1992) point out the need for the
lexical phrase as the pedagogically applicable unit of prefabricated language. In their
seminal work they demonstrate convincingly that the teaching and learning of lexical
phrases will facilitate learners to recognise and reproduce discourse-structuring frames and,
thus, promote a more pragmatic approach to the teaching and learning of vocabulary.
Finally, Ellis, Simpson-Vlach and Maynard (2008) argue that English language practitioners
need to understand the psycholinguistics of formulaic language and try to integrate it into
the learning curriculum as well as instruct its use. The growing lexicalisation of teaching
materials for both adults and young learners over the last decades has been noted by
Granger (2011), who also calls for more research into the processing and storage of
multiword units and urged materials designers to heed the conclusions drawn from
psycholinguistic experiments.
From a psycholinguistic point of view, lexical phrases are processed more fluently than
openly constructed language (Ellis, Simpson-Vlach and Maynard, 2008). Conklin and
Schmitt (2008) found in their research that this processing advantage was in place for both

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L1 and L2 English speakers. Lewis (2002) argues that lexical phrases and chunks are also
easier to learn because it is easier to deconstruct a chunk than to construct it. He even goes
one step further and addresses teachers by giving them the following advice: ‘Don’t break
language down too far in the false hope of simplifying: your efforts, even if successful in the
short term, are almost certainly counterproductive in terms of long-term acquisition’
(Lewis, 2000: 133). Another important advantage of lexical phrases relates to their
memorability. Porto (1998), among others, refers to the fact that lexical phrases are highly
memorable for learners.
The above findings suggest that a focus on the teaching of lexical phrases and prefabricated
units would allow us to give fluency a higher priority in teaching (Nattinger and DeCarrico,
1992); if mastery of lexical phrases allows learners to express themselves more fluently,
then this is also expected to boost their motivation (Porto, 1998). These research findings
actually underpinned our decision to include a large number of lexical phrases in MB1 and
MB2. Their selection was based on their relative frequency in English and dictated by the
plot of the story presented in each unit. Phrases like ‘let’s see’, ‘you’re back home’, ‘sure we
can’, and collocations such as ‘brush your teeth’, ‘sweep the floor’, ‘recycle paper’, ‘plant a
tree’, etc. are always presented in the context of the story and thus become part of its plot
aiming to facilitate both comprehension and retention. The book adopts implicit teaching
techniques in order to guide and encourage learners to comprehend and assimilate the
information presented. In line with these teaching choices, the lexical phrases are not
analyzed, broken down, or translated into learners’ mother tongue. Based on relevant
psycholinguistic research findings (Ellis, Simpson-Vlach and Maynard, 2008; Conklin and
Schmitt, 2008), we promote the teaching and learning of those chunks as if they were one
lexical unit; storage, memorization and retrieval at a later stage are thus expected to be
facilitated (Porto, 1998).
It is interesting to note here that several grammatical structures are implicitly taught
through those phrases, e.g., ‘this is our classroom’, ‘plant a tree’, etc. The teaching aim in
those cases is not the explicit presentation and teaching of the corresponding structures
(e.g., the possessive adjectives or the imperative form), but the comprehension of their
meaning and the development of learners’ ability to use them in discourse. In fact, grammar
as explicit presentation of structures, features nowhere in the books. The reasons behind
this choice are twofold: (a) the age group that the books target and their expected lack of
both metalanguage and analytic skills, and (b) our firm belief that a focus on lexical
phrases and formulaic expressions will allow learners to both expand their vocabulary
knowledge, incidentally acquire some grammatical structures through the learning of this
vocabulary and spontaneously use it in oral speech. Our decision and consequent choices
were based on Lewis’ view (1993, 2002) that lexical phrases can be used to introduce a
large number of phenomena that are commonly treated as part of sentence grammar. As
Ellis (2005) has similarly pointed out, formulaic expressions may serve as a basis for the
later development of a rule-based competence.
As the rationale of the books rejects drilling, rote learning and decontextualized
memorization, it was important to adopt techniques that would help learners practice the

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formulaic language learned and thus promote incidental learning. To this aim, a variety of
activities have been designed based on the plot of the stories; these aim to recycle the
formulaic language and structures presented through it in playful and meaningful ways, not
only within the same unit but also, and more importantly, from one unit to the next or
even after several units (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Unit 1 and Unit 10: Recycling of phrase ‘Friends don’t fight’

4.2. Criteria for vocabulary selection

Vocabulary is viewed as the core component of all language skills. Research evidence
suggests a strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading ability (Nation
and Coady, 1988), writing skills (Laufer and Nation, 1995) and listening and speaking
(Joe, Nation and Newton, 1996).
For the two books, several criteria were taken into consideration when selecting
vocabulary. Moreover, the authoring team performed a needs analysis regarding why and
where children at this age are learning the language. Appropriacy of words and thematic
areas were considered along with young learners’ interests and daily life activities. Each
unit introduces vocabulary thematically developed and this is systematically recycled
throughout the book as, according to Cameron (2001), learning a word takes a long time
and many exposures to the word in different situations. Biemiller and Boote (2006) found
that repeated reading of a storybook, and thus repeated exposure to the same words,
resulted in greater average gains in word knowledge for young children.
Concrete, not abstract lexical items were to be included as these are appropriate for young
learners’ cognitive level; concrete items can be visualised and consequently internalised and
recalled much easier. Then frequency issues were considered; thus, high-frequency words
were selected to be included in the book as these would enable learners to comprehend and
start producing vocabulary that is commonly encountered in everyday situations. This is
good for their self-esteem as the ability to use the language gives them an immediate sense
of satisfaction. To this aim, the English vocabulary profile (EVP) was taken into
consideration as well as Nation’s frequency word lists. According to recent literature,
elementary foreign language course books include large quantities of the most frequent

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vocabulary at the very outset of learning (O’Loughlin, 2012). However, these same course
books also include considerable quantities of infrequent vocabulary (O’Loughlin, 2012).
This is to be expected as words such as fairy, zebra or kite may be highly infrequent but
quite relevant to young learners’ world and interests. Studies also note surprising
discrepancies regarding the common words presented within the same course book series
and very limited amount of common words between course books of the same level
(Konstantakis and Alexiou, 2012). Therefore, it appears that course-book writers are highly
idiosyncratic in their choice of infrequent vocabulary (Milton and Vassiliu, 2000).

4.3 An eclectic approach to literacy teaching

English is an exceptionally-inconsistent alphabetic language. This inconsistency is obvious

in both reading and spelling. As regards the former, the inconsistency derives from the fact
that one symbol (letter or letter cluster) in English can be mapped to different sounds and
thus have multiple pronunciations. As for spelling, the inconsistency derives from the fact
that a single speech sound (phoneme) can have multiple spellings (Goswami, 2005).
Perhaps we can understand this better if we point out that there are 26 letters in the
English alphabet but there are 42 main sounds in the language e.g., ‘tch’, ‘sh’, etc. Because
of this reduced consistency of the writing system in both reading and spelling, English-
speaking children take more time to learn how to read than children who acquire reading
in languages with consistent spelling systems, e.g., Greek, Italian and Spanish (Goswami,
2005). In particular, research has indicated that those children perform better at reading by
the middle of first grade, irrespective of age, than English-speaking children who seem to
develop a variety of recoding strategies when reading. Thus, some words are read as wholes
(e.g., people, choir, etc.) and some by employing rhyme analogies (e.g., light, fight, etc.)
(Goswami, 1986).
MB1 and MB2 target 8-year-old learners who are already familiar with the reading and
writing conventions of Greek, a highly transparent language. Both books actually introduce
young learners to the English spelling system, as even those learners who attend EFL classes
during the first and second grades of primary school are not taught how to read or write in
English. Thus, the main consideration was learners’ expected difficulty with the
inconsistencies of the English writing system combined with their tendency to transfer their
reading skills from Greek into English (see Schmitt, 2000). Both books include a common
section that aims to introduce young learners to the English letters and their sounds rather
than their names. These particular sections follows the principles of phonics instruction. This
choice significantly differentiates the particular books from other course books for young
learners of the same level. Traditionally, these books present the letters of the alphabet in a
linear fashion and require learners to learn it by heart and recite it. Although young learners
can accomplish the task fairly easily, this has very little impact on their actual ability to
master the sounds corresponding to the letters, or to recode and spell new words.
Phonics instruction imparts three kinds of knowledge: (a) mastery of sounds related to
common letter combinations such as ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘tch’, etc., (b) recognition and

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pronunciation of common spelling patterns, such as ‘ain’, ‘tion’, ‘ight’, etc; and (c) ability to
use this information to decode and spell new words (Shanahan, 2012: 23). Contrary to
other course books, the alphabet section of MB1 and MB2 includes, apart from the English
letters, some common clusters that are expected to create difficulty to Greek learners (e.g,
‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘ee’, ‘ey’). At the same time, care was taken, throughout the book, to include
several rhyme activities; such activities aim to help learners discover that orthographic
consistencies at the rhyme level may help them unlock some spelling irregularities and
recode new words with similar spelling (Cook, 2002).
Apart from this introductory phonics-based section, the book adopts an eclectic attitude to
the teaching of reading. The benefits of this attitude were asserted by Resnick (1979) and
by Vellutino and Scanlon (1991). Their research indicated that the combination of both
whole word/meaning-based methods and phonics methods had an advantageous effect on
learners’ word identification skills. Thus MB1 and MB2 actually immerse learners into the
language by exposing them to written texts right from the first unit. At the same time,
learners are encouraged to rely on whole-word recognition and use meaning-based
strategies (Goodman, 1967; Smith 1978). This choice was also based on Tsiadimos’
research (2012) carried out in two state primary schools. He aimed to compare the oral
reading accuracy and fluency of two groups of young Greek EFL learners: one group was
exposed to phonics-based instruction and the other to whole-language approaches. The
results indicated significantly higher oral reading accuracy for the phonics group. Overall,
his research showed a clear advantage for the phonics condition, as a consistent trend was
found in all measurements in favour of the phonics group.

4.4 Promotion of cognitive skills

According to research (Alexiou, 2005), certain cognitive skills seem to enhance and/or
facilitate language-learning aptitude. This is why there is ample use of memory, observation
and logical reasoning games in the books. Recent research results support the idea that
there is a relationship between achievement in young learners’ cognitive skills and their
success in foreign language learning. Anderson (2000) claims that cognitive skills are
trainable and may be plastic (flexible) in young learners; therefore, the specific tasks we
used serve both linguistic but primarily cognitive aims. More specifically, research findings
indicate memory and analytical skills as crucial for later EFL success. The idea of learners’
trainability is met in many studies (Vecchi, Phillips and Cornoldi, 2001).
In MBs 1 and 2, tasks that promote cognitive skills that could facilitate foreign language
acquisition are included throughout the two books. In particular, there are different types
of memory games.
1. Short-term immediate memory for pictures (Figure 3). Learners with strong short-term
memory appear to have an advantage, especially, when learning new words in a foreign
language (Milton and Alexiou, 2006).

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Figure 3: Rote memory game

2. Associative memory tasks (Figure 4). These develop the capacity to retain sign pairs as
this can be related to the ability to retain foreign language vocabulary (Esser and
Kossling, 1986). This comes in line with Carroll’s studies and Aitchison’s (1987) claim
that language learning includes a certain re-labelling of things, words, etc. (all cited in
Alexiou, 2009).

Figure 4: Associative memory game

There are also analytic tasks that appear to facilitate foreign language learning and such
activities were included throughout the books.
1. Inductive learning tasks (Figure 5). Inductive learning ability relates to language learning
as it impacts on organizing parts of speech in the mind and mapping thematic concepts
of words. According to Cameron (2001), simple categorization accounts for meta-
linguistic abilities that are important for language learning.

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Figure 5: Inductive learning tasks

2. Visual perception tasks like ‘spot the difference’ games (Figure 6). These tasks identify
learners’ ability to recognise the presence, absence or change in information (Alexiou,
2005).

Figure 6: Visual perception task

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3. Reasoning ability tasks, such as story sequencing (Figure 7) and logical reasoning
(Figure 8). These are analytical tasks that require both perceptual and conceptual skills.

Figure 7: Story sequencing

Figure 8: Logical reasoning tasks

4. Spatial ability such as jigsaw puzzles (Figure 9). These appear to train visual perception
but require also certain processing tasks which are essential to language use, such as
analysis by synthesis (Alexiou, 2005).

Figure 9: Jigsaw puzzle task

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5. Research methodology of the study

For the purpose of this study, we extracted a subcorpus for each book (MB1, MB2) and a
wordlist was created. In the subcorpora created, we included the pupil’s books as well as
the preunit on phonics instruction; we did not include the audio material or the activity
books. We similarly excluded symbols like ticks and crosses and other items, such as email
addresses.
The software used for the corpus analysis was AntConc (ver.3.2.4), AntWordProfiler
(version 1.3.0) and Range (BNC version). By using Range, we estimated the Lexical
Frequency Profile (LFP) of the corpora created. Nation developed LFP as a way of assessing
the suitability of particular texts for learners at specified levels of proficiency. LFP takes a
text as raw input and creates a profile that describes the lexical content of the text in terms
of frequency bands (Meara, 2005). The frequency bands were created by Nation (2004) who
developed 14 lists (1,000 words each) based on the British National Corpus (BNC). We also
compared the course book subcorpora against the base word lists and against the English
Vocabulary Profile (EVP) (http://www.englishprofile.org/index.php/wordlists). Base word
lists are made using family frequency figures from the 10 million token spoken section of
BNC. Thus, the first base word list contains the 1,000 most frequent words and their
families, the second contains the second 1,000 most frequent words and their families and so
on. The EVP offers reliable information about which words – and which meaning of those
words and phrases – are known and used by learners at each level of the Common European
Framework of Reference (CEFR). For the purpose of our study, all EVP words that belong
to the A1–A2 CEFR level were collected in order to create the EVP A1–A2 level list.

6. Results and discussion

6.1 What is the number of types and tokens presented in Magic Book 1 and 2?

Table 2 provides an overview of the types and tokens presented in the two course books.

Types Tokens
Magic Book 1 637 5698
Magic Book 2 779 7353

Table 2: Overview of lexical items in MB1 and MB2

Cameron (2001) states that at this age children are able to learn about 500 words per year.
Both course books cover this amount and actually exceed it, thus providing richer input
and more opportunities for learning. The higher number of types and tokens in MB2 is
expected and understandable since the particular course book includes 10 units, as opposed
to 8 in MB1, and addresses learners who have already had some EFL input in grades 1 and
2. Also, what is interesting to note is the large difference between types and tokens within
each course book. The Type-Token Ratio (TTR) measures vocabulary variation within a

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text and thus the TTR in the particular subcorpora provides us with an indication of the
recycling rate of vocabulary in each text. The TTR is about 11% for MB1 and about 10%
for MB2, both of them quite low. Such low TTR’s indicate little lexical variation and,
therefore, high recycling rate.

6.2 Are the words presented in Magic Book 1 and 2 frequent according to Nation’s
frequency word lists?

MB1 MB2
Frequency bands Types (%) Tokens (%) Types (%) Tokens (%)
1k 16.22 49.75 61.6 82.5
2k 47.56 29.64 17.13 6.86
1k+2k 63.78 79.39 78.73 89.36
Table 3: Frequency according to Nation’s frequency bands

As can be seen from Table 3, more than 60% of all the word types included in each of the
books belong to Nation’s 2000 most frequent words; in particular, 63.78% of types in
MB1 and 78.73% of types in MB2. As Read (2004: 148) has pointed out, ‘There is an
obvious payoff for learners of English in concentrating initially on the 2000 most frequent
words, since they have been repeatedly shown to account for at least 80% of the running
words in any written or spoken text’. The rest of the words belong to frequency bands 3–8
in a decreasing quantity: more words are from the 3rd frequency band compared to the 4th
one and more words from the 4th band than from the 5th one and so on. Finally, there are
also words that do not belong to any frequency bands but these are mainly proper names
(e.g., Aesop) and compound words like ‘schoolbag’, ‘fishbowl’, etc. There is an interesting
point to be made with reference to these findings. The relative majority of types in MB1
belong to the second frequency band (47.56%) whereas the majority of types in MB2
belong to the first frequency band (61.6%). This means that MB2 includes more words
than MB1 belonging to the 1k most frequent band; overall MB2 covers a larger number of
high frequency words than MB1 (78.73% vs 63.78%) according to Nation’s frequency
bands. It should be pointed out here that Nation’s frequency bands include lists of words
and not word families (see below), this may partly explain the lower coverage of the 1k
frequency band in MB1 (see Table 4).

MB1 MB2
Types (%) Tokens (%) Types (%) Tokens (%)
Base word list 1 57.77 77.45 78.16 57.12
Base word list 2 17.11 9.42 17.84 7.51
Base word list 1
+base word list 2 74.88 86.87 96.00 64.63

Table 4: Frequency according to the first two base word lists

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As the results indicate, the overwhelming majority of word types in both books (74.88% in
MB1 and 96% in MB2) belong to the first 2000 most frequent base word lists. It is
interesting to comment on the differences between the results in Table 3 and Table 4. These
differences are mainly due to the differences between Nation’s frequency bands and base
word lists against which the comparisons are made. The former contains lists of words,
whereas the latter include word families. The high percentage of types found in both books
indicates that the books contain several cases of highly frequent words with their inflected
forms and/or derivatives. In fact, the difference between the results in Tables 3 and 4 may
actually mean that the two books place more emphasis on developing learners’ depth rather
than breadth of vocabulary knowledge, since the figures indicate that the books include a
good number of high frequency words (see Table 3). What is more important is that they
use these words in a variety of contexts in their inflected or derived forms. This finding is
quite encouraging as it indicates that young learners are exposed to several high frequency
words in a variety of forms (inflected or derived) and this has two major benefits: first, it
increases the number of exposures to words of the same word family and thus facilitates
acquisition and retention (Bauer and Nation, 1993); secondly, it helps learners categorize
those words according to their form and/or meaning and thus allows them to retrieve them
faster and more effectively (Schmitt, 2000).

6.3 What is the percentage of common lexical items between Magic Books and the
English Vocabulary Profile?

Types (%) Tokens (%)

Common words between EVP (level A1–A2) and MB1 61.85 81.34
Common words between EVP (level A1–A2) and MB2 60.21 80.31
Table 5: Common words between course books and EVP (level A1–A2)

Regarding EVP, results show that more than 60% of the lexical items in both books belong
to the EVP, level A1–A2, which is appropriate for both the cognitive and linguistic stage
learners are at. The particular findings are quite encouraging; as EVP is a reliable reference
source of all the words that A1–A2 EFL learners actually know and can use, we may safely
assume that young learners using the MB1 or MB2 will be exposed to a significant
percentage of vocabulary that they are expected to know as A1–A2 learners.

7. Conclusion
Magic Books are innovative English language course books targeting young learners of
EFL. The most important element of the books is that they are research based; therefore
choices made are not random but well studied and clearly thought out. The main
innovations concern the focus on formulaic language and the selection of vocabulary,
according to the lexical approach, the approach to literacy and the design of activities
which aim to promote both young learners’ English language and cognitive skills.

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Consequently, there were specific criteria borne in mind while selecting lexis, lexical chunks
and grammatical structures, which led to specially-designed activities with a balanced
emphasis on cognitive and linguistic development. Both books carry a strong pedagogical
orientation placing the child at the heart of the learning process.
Children learn by head, hand and heart.
J. Pestalozzi

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