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Academic vocabulary tests and free graded readers

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Emeritus Professor School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

BEdStud MA (Hons) DipTESL

Paul Nation is Emeritus Professor in Applied Linguistics at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His specialist interests are the teaching and learning of vocabulary and language teaching methodology.

He has taught in Indonesia, Thailand, the United States, Finland and Japan.

TUJ Readings

Recent Resources
Short videos of the most useful language teaching techniques
The Picture Vocabulary Size Test (PVST) is available free from Laurence Anthony's website. This test is intended for young native speakers of English (up to 8 years old) and young EFL and ESL learners of English. It can be used with preliterate learners. It tests the most frequent 6000 words of English and provides an estimate of receptive vocabulary size. The Help file which comes as part of the test provides detailed information about the test.

Recent books

A recent book What you need to know to learn a foreign language is available to download . This book is also available in translation.

The second edition of Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (2013) has now appeared from Cambridge University Press.

Two books written for teachers appeared in early 2013. They are called What Should Every ESL Teacher Know (available free in electronic form), and What Should Every EFL Teacher Know (for sale). For details go to Compass Media.

The number of free Mid-frequency readers on this web site continues to increase (see below). The plan is to eventually have at least fifty titles, each in three versions.

A book, Making and Using Word Lists for Language Learning and Testing, has appeared in 2016 from John Benjamins. A book written with Stuart Webb, How Vocabulary is Learned, will appear in 2017 from Oxford University Press.

Publications

View and download publications by Paul Nation in chronological order.

Most of Paul Nation's articles are available here for free download. You can also download the latest version of his extensive bibliography on the teaching and learning of vocabulary. The numbers in square brackets after each article in the bibliography refer to the area of vocabulary studies it fits into. The list of areas is available at the beginning of the bibliography.

Vocabulary Bibliography Database (October 2018)

Paul Nation's books include Teaching and Learning Vocabulary (Heinle and Heinle, 1990) and Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and. His publications include articles and books on teaching and learning vocabulary, language teaching methodology, and curriculum design. Most of his articles can be downloaded from this website.

Paul Nation's other books on vocabulary are: Teaching Vocabulary: Strategies and Techniques (2008) Heinle Cengage Learning, Boston; Researching and Analyzing Vocabulary (2011) (with Stuart Webb) Heinle Cengage Learning, Boston; Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (Cambridge University Press, 2013 second edition); and Making and Using Word Lists in Language Learning and Teaching (John Benjamins, 2016).

There are four books from Routledge Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking (with Jonathan Newton), and Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing, Language Curriculum Design (with John Macalister) and Case Studies in Language Curriculum Design (with John Macalister).

He was involved in the development of a set of course books with Casey Malarcher called Reading for Speed and Fluency and a six-book set called 4000 Essential English Words Compass Media, Seoul. The three level course Power Reading (with Casey Malarcher) appeared in 2016 from Compass Publishing.

He has written a web-based course on teaching and learning vocabulary for the ELT Advantage series through TESOL International.

Vocabulary Analysis programs

Download the Range program with either the GSL/AWL lists or with the British National Corpus lists, plus instructions for using the program.

The Range program is used for analysing the vocabulary load of texts. It can tell you how much and what vocabulary occurs in a particular text or group of texts. It used to be called VORDS, FVORDS, and VocabProfile. There is a set of instructions that comes with the program. A much simpler web based version can be found on Tom Cobb's website ( Compleat Lexical Tutor), and is called VocabProfile. AntWordProfiler is a much more modern version of the program with numerous extra features and is available from Laurence Anthony's Website. AntWordProfiler will also run on Macs and can work with any language providing there are word lists.

The Frequency program turns a text or texts into a word list with frequency figures. It is in the zip file with the Range program.

Vocabulary lists

Survival vocabulary

The survival vocabulary lists available here are based on Nation, P., & Crabbe, D. (1991). A survival language learning syllabus for foreign travel. System, 19(3), 191-201 (available under Publications on this web site). They provide a beginning list of useful words and expressions for someone who is going to spend some time in another country and who wants to quickly begin speaking the local language to greet and thank people, to go shopping, to travel, and to deal with common problems. It takes around a total of four hours of using bilingual word cards to learn most of this vocabulary for a particular language. Read the Nation and Crabbe article to get advice on learning the vocabulary.

The BNC/COCA headword lists

The BNC/COCA lists with all their family members come with the Range program. The following lists contain only the headwords of the 25,000 word families. The first 2000 or 3000 of the BNC/COCA lists are an alternative to the General Service List. The lists are described in a file that comes with the lists - Headwords of the first 10,000 words

The general service list

This classic word list by Michael West of the most useful 2000 words of English is now out of print.

Headwords of the General Service List

Vocabulary tests

There are two kinds of proficiency tests on this web site - those that measure total vocabulary size (How many words someone knows), and those that measure knowledge of particular frequency levels of words (for example, the first 1000 and second 1000 words). The Vocabulary Size Test which covers 20,000 word families can be used with native speakers and non-native speakers. The 14,000 version is best used with only non-native speakers. There are some bilingual versions of the tests and these should be preferred ahead of monolingual versions especially for lower proficiency learners. See Nation, P., & Beglar, D. (2007). A vocabulary size test. The Language Teacher, 31(7), 9-13 for information on the test (available under Publications on this web site).

The Vocabulary Size Test is also available from Tom Cobb's website. The 2007 article by Nation and Beglar (available under Publications on this web site) describes the making and use of this test.

Vocabulary Size Tests

Answers for Vocabulary Size test

There are online versions of the Vocabulary Size Test at VocabularySize.com and Compleat Lexical Tutor.

The Vocabulary Levels Test is the most suitable test for measuring the vocabulary size and vocabulary knowledge of elementary and intermediate learners of English as a foreign language. There are two recent versions of the test and these are the best ones to use.

Vocabulary Levels Tests

The Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (Webb, S., Sasao, Y., Ballance, O. (2017). The updated Vocabulary Levels Test. ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 168(1), 33-69.)

The New Vocabulary Levels Test (McLean, S., & Kramer, B. (2015). The creation of a new Vocabulary Levels Test. Shiken, 19(2), 1-11.)
McLean Kramer New Vocabulary Levels Test Bilingual Japanese.pdf
The 1000 level True/False test can be used as an oral test for learners who cannot read. See Nation, I. S. P. (1993). Measuring readiness for simplified material: a test of the first 1,000 words of English. In M.L.Tickoo (Ed.), Simplification: Theory and Application. RELC anthology series no. 31 (pp. 193-203). Singapore: SEAMEO-RELC (available under Publications on this web site).

Readers and speed reading

This part of my web page contains reading material written in a controlled vocabulary. It includes the Mid-frequency readers adapted for learners with vocabulary sizes of around 4000, 6000, and 8000 word families, out-of-print graded readers, and a speed reading course written within a 1000 word family vocabulary. To learn more about Mid-frequency readers, read Nation, I.S.P. & Anthony, L. (2013). Mid-frequency readers. Journal of Extensive Reading, 1(1), 5-16. To learn more about speed reading, read Nation, I.S.P. (2005) Reading faster. Pasaa 36: 21-37.

Research has shown that if a consistent measure of reading speed is needed when reading different texts, then the number of characters (letters, punctuation, spaces) in each text needs to be the same (Carver, 1976; Kramer & McLean, forthcoming). This version of the 1000 level speed reading course has been adapted so that each text is exactly 3000 characters long (500 standard words).

A Speed reading course at the 1000 word level. All PDF documents require Acrobat Reader.

Other speed reading courses at different vocabulary levels can be found on Sonia Millett's profile page.

Free graded readers

The following graded readers are now out of copyright and are available free for anyone who wants to use them. They must not be offered for sale, but can be distributed free.

Mid-frequency graded readers

(Click here for more information about mid-frequency readers)

The following mid-frequency readers are available free for anyone who wants to use them. They must not be offered for sale, but can be distributed free. Each book is available in three levels - one for learners who know 4000 words, one for learners who know 6000 words, and one for learners who know 8000 words.

Fiction
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka More William by Richmal Crompton The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Non-Fiction

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Dang, Coxhead, and Webb's (2017) Academic Spoken Word List and sublists are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/gwk45/ and the IRIS digital repository at https://www.iris-database.org/iris/app/home/detail?id=york%3a932690&ref=search

Take the Word test. This is a test of vocabulary size used by researchers in the University of Ghent. You will find it interesting and you can help them in their research by sitting the test.

Personal

This section of my web site contains family history relating to the Nation and Ashwell families. My nominal great-grandfather (William Charles Nation) wrote his family history in the 1920s and this handwritten document is reproduced here as a pdf file and has also been transcribed into computer readable form. His account of spiritualist events in his home is described in a book he published called The Unseen World.

My grandmother on my mother's side (Harriet Ashwell) wrote her family history and I transcribed the several hundred handwritten pages and had 125 copies published. An electronic copy of this book is on this web page along with an MS-Word version with minor errors corrected. Hard copies of the book are held by each of her descendants as well as the Raetihi Public Library and the New Zealand National Library.

I am writing a history of my immediate family starting with my grandparents, and will keep this file on this web site as I make progress.

Synopses of Mid-frequency graded readers

Fiction

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

This is a novel written in the 19th century. It tells of the transformation of a mean-spirited man, Scrooge, into a generous and kind one. The transformation occurs when one Christmas he is visited by three ghosts who show him visions of Christmas in his past, present and future. Dickens writes in the style of his time and uses sentence structures and punctuation in ways that may not be familiar to the modern reader. He also uses a lot of descriptive language and some of the comparisons he makes might be unfamiliar. However the story is clear and enjoyable.

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

This is a satirical essay, written in 1729. It is a bitter attack on the poverty of Irish Roman Catholics under the rule of Protestant England. Its full title is "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public."
Swift's shocking proposal is intended to arouse disgust against the English government's lack of concern for the starving children of Ireland.

Jonathan Swift is also the author of the famous " Gulliver's Travels ".

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

This famous children's story written in 1865 is an early example of the fantasy or nonsense genre. The story plays with time, imagination, logic and language and for this reason remains popular with adult readers as well as children. You will meet many strange kinds of talking animals as well as characters from the pack of cards, and you will encounter unusual and interesting ways of using English such as 'curiouser' and 'uglification'.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre is a classic story of the treacherous path to happiness. After she loses her parents, Jane has a miserable childhood, first under her aunt's cruel care and then at a harsh boarding school for the poor. However, by gaining an education, Jane enjoys her early adult life working as a governess. Falling in love with the master, though, brings her both joy and terrible heartbreak. Only after facing many difficult choices and overcoming secrets, lies and deception, does Jane eventually find the life she deserves.

This famous novel is written in an intensely descriptive and poetic style, in the gothic tradition. It is set in 19th century rural England.

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Metamorphosis was written by German writer Franz Kafka in 1912. It begins: One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke, he found himself transformed into a horrible giant insect.

While Gregor's physical body has changed, he is still the same person inside. In the book, Gregor describes his changing relationship with his family and his surroundings, his feelings about his changed state and his final acceptance. While the situation is ridiculous, Kafka writes about it as if it is perfectly normal. This is what has made the story a classic of early 20th century literature.

More William by Richmal Crompton

This book is about a very amusing set of stories about a young English boy who is always getting into trouble. The original (available from Project Gutenberg) contains a lot of deliberate mis-spellings to represent dialect pronunciation and children's writing errors. These have been regularised in this adapted version. I really enjoyed reading this book when I was young and enjoyed reading it again to adapt it.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This is a collection of twelve stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish doctor and writer. The stories were first published together as a book in 1892. Sherlock Holmes is famous for his ability to use logical reasoning and science to solve difficult and unusual crimes, and also for his ability to take on any disguise. The stories are told by Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes' colleague in crime detection.

The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
These stories are thought to be based on recollections of her childhood in New Zealand. There are fifteen stories in the collection. They are available for download in the table above as zip files. The name of the person kindly adapting the stories to be mid-frequency readers is listed on the first page of reach story.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

One of the most popular 19th century novels, Wuthering Heights is a dramatic and horrifying story of passion and revenge, racial and social discrimination. This is quite a difficult work, but one which rewards the patient and attentive reader. The relationships between characters and the similarity of many names may cause some confusion for readers. A useful diagram on the genealogy of Wuthering Heights can be found on the website, The Reader's Guide to Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Switching angles of narration and the time span of this novel are also quite complex, so this summary of the novel may also be useful.
Readers who are new to the works of the Brontë sisters, are advised to start with Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. This has a more accessible style, a single narrator, a more linear plot, and provides a good introduction to the life and times of the Brontë novels.

Non-fiction

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

This is a non-fiction text subtitled how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity.

Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn visited Japan in the1890s and fell in love with the country. There is a statue of him in Matsue where the house where he stayed is preserved as a tourist attraction. This book is about his stay in Japan, the places he visited and the people he met. In addition to his book he wrote English versions of Japanese folk tales. The book contains quite a few Japanese words but these are explained in the text.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglas was born into slavery into the USA before the civil war that made it illegal. He escaped his slave masters at great personal cost and moved to the North where black people could live more freely than in the South. This is his autobiographical story.

It came as a shock, even to the 'liberal' world in 1845, that a man with almost no formal education could leave the horrors of slavery and write such a literate, literary, horrifying and detailed account of his ordeal. The scenes described here are disturbing, but perhaps ought to be read about so that we do not forget. Be prepared for graphic accounts of physical abuse perpetrated on slaves. His account includes insights on human nature that are still, sadly, applicable today. Students of language may be interested to learn how a man in his position learned to read and write and what effect his new found literacy had on him. The process of 'becoming' initiated by new learning can be painful.

This book is an adaptation of a translation from the original in Chinese. It consists of very practical advice on how to conduct war. Recently, the book has been studied so that the general principles can be adapted to the world of business. For further information see the Wikipedia entry, The Art of War

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (4000 level only)

The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli is an important text in literature (it influenced many Elizabethan writers like Shakespeare), political science, history, and psychology. It is a partly ironic description of how a leader should behave. Because the advice is largely given for practical purposes, Machiavelli gained an undeserved reputation for giving little consideration of morality.

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Emeritus Professor School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies BEdStud MA (Hons) DipTESL Paul Nation is Emeritus Professor in Applied Linguistics at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His specialist interests are the teaching and learning of vocabulary and language teaching methodology.

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Free downloads!

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In addition to his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was the custom of the time, and then collected into several volumes) he also wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire, the only book published under his own name; a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a Parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland), and When William Came, subtitled A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, an early alternate history.

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Read and Listen

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NEW:
NAOMI OSAKA
YUJA WANG

Help Support This Web Site

Recommend my site on blogs, forums and other sites.

E-mail me to say hello and give feedback: info at breakingnewsenglish.com

Consider buying my 1,000 Ideas and Activities book.

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NEW: NAOMI OSAKA YUJA WANG Recommend my site on blogs, forums and other sites. E-mail me to say hello and give feedback: info at breakingnewsenglish.com Consider buying my 1,000 Ideas and Activities book.

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Short stories

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American Folklore: Famous American folktales, tall tales, myths and legends, ghost stories, and more.

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Retellings of American folktales, tall tales, myths and legends, Native American myths, weather folklore, ghost stories, and more from each of the 50 United States of America. Great for school children and teachers.

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Various topics

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Often when you visit a website there is a link for a newsletter, so why not sign up for newsletters to get interesting things to read delivered to your email?
For example:
http://www.adwonline.ae/
http://www.dubaiweek.ae/
If you are travelling, you can sign up for TimeOut for the city you are planning to visit:
https://www.timeout.com/

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Lots of magazines available but downloading can be slow!

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ReadTheory | Reading Comprehension Exercises

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Reading comprehension exercises — online, free, & adaptive. Fits K-12, ESL and adult students. Easily track progress for the entire class.

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Welcome

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom.

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Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified.

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Weird News, Strange Stories - All True | Ripley's Believe It or Not!

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Get your daily dose of Weird News, Strange Stories, and unbelievable oddities from around the world at Ripley's Believe It or Not!

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Film and Print stories (for kids, but a good starting point for practice for anyone).

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Do you like listening to and reading stories? Reading stories is a great way to improve your vocabulary and we have lots of great stories for you to watch. Watch stories, print activities and post comments!

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Links to different pages of the same main website

https://www.rong-chang.com/reading.htm

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This site helps children learn English through reading simple short passages. They are free to use as teaching materials or extra homework.

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Lots of books to download and read!

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Bibliomania - Free Online Literature and Study Guides
Bibliomania brings you the internet's best collection of classic texts and study resources.

The fiction section has the complete, fully searchable texts of hundreds of novels.

The Poetry section has world famous poems by everyone from Blake to Keats, together with the Oxford Collected English verse and Collected French verse.
In the Drama section we have the complete works of Shakespeare, and many other plays from the Elizabethan, restoration and modern periods.
Bibliomania has created Literature Study Guides to more than 100 of the most studied texts. These will help students to get top grades, and non-students to get more out a reading of the text or a visit to a play.

Bibliomania's Reference books include Webster's Dictionary, Hobson Jobson, Brewer's Phrase and Fable, Soules Synonymes and many other useful books.

Our Non-Fiction section includes Das Capital, Culpepper's Herbal, and many more.

We are building a collection Biographies. Or if you are looking for Religious texts, we have the King James' Bible and The Koran.

Enjoy our books. Much more information and our a huge short story collection can be found on the frames version of Bibliomania.

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Bibliomania - Free Online Literature and Study Guides

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800+ texts of classic literature, drama, and poetry together with detailed literature study guides. Large reference book and non-fiction section

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Stories

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ESL English Language Learning - Adult Literacy - Listening & Reading - Audiobooks - Stories

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ESL English - Adult Literacy - Listening, Reading, Audiobooks, Short Stories, Songs, PET exam

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Extensive Reading Central is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing an Extensive Reading and Extensive Listening approach to foreign and second language learning.

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Digitalbook.io | Find free mystery audiobooks and eBooks

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Find free mystery audiobooks and ebooks on our mystery bookshelf. Classic thrillers, detective, and crime novels that will keep you in suspense.

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Welcome to the Golden Age of Piracy. In this section, you can learn about who the pirates were, how they operated and the types of ships and weapons they used.
If you have listened to the Pirate Jack book, this area will expand on the book's historical setting and many aspects of life among the pirates.

The pirate area is for ages 13 and higher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A map of the Caribbean, where the Golden Age
of Piracy occurred.
Introduction to Pirates
We most often think of pirates together with tropical islands in the Caribbean. This is because the Caribbean, which is comprised of the islands of the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands, was the perfect place for pirates to hide or to attack merchant vessels.

There were hundreds of safe anchorages where pirates could clean and repair their ships. There were many islands with fresh water streams, turtles, fish, hogs and cattle to provide pirates with food and water. Merchant ships from Africa, loaded with ivory, gold and slaves passed through. Spanish treasure ships loaded with silver from Central America made their way out into the Atlantic and were the greatest prize for a pirate crew. The Caribbean was a pirate paradise and was home to at least two thousand of them in the 1700's.

Piracy was not limited to the Caribbean waters. It was practiced throughout the world. In the Mediterranean, shipping was at the mercy of the Barbary Corsairs who sailed out from the African coast. In Northern Europe, wherever merchant ships sailed between islands or through straights, pirates were ready to pounce.

Many pirates were very fine seamen and often made long voyages across oceans to try their luck in new areas. Their charts were usually inaccurate, so they relied on good lookouts and their knowledge of local waters to stay clear of reefs.
Next: The Romantic Image of Piracy

Play Sea Pirates, our new pirate action game. Sail the seas as a pirate captain.

The entire novel as a free weekly podcast

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Welcome to the Golden Age of Piracy. In this section, you can learn about who the pirates were, how they operated and the types of ships and weapons they used. If you have listened to the Pirate Jack book, this area will expand on the book's historical setting and many aspects of life among the pirates.