The TED word list : an analysis of TED talks to benefit ESL teachers and learners

Abstract

To enhance TED Talk usability in ESL classrooms, I created a TED Talk corpus and determined a list of high-frequency vocabulary unique to the TED corpus. The investigation also determined the percentage of General Services List (GSL) and Academic Word List (AWL), New General Services List (NGSL) and New Academic Word List (NAWL) vocabulary and revealed an abundance of off-list vocabulary. Proceeding with the off-list vocabulary from the GSL and AWL, this exploration narrowed it down to 421 high-frequency word families and 2502 total word types, called the TED Word List (TWL). Finally, I assigned a TED Number to each TWL headword to assist in labeling the distribution across the corpus and determined the TWL vocabulary coverage across the TED corpus. The TWL can assist English language learners in determining how appropriate TED Talks are for study and help teachers determine what vocabulary may need special instruction.