Geschiedenis Van Leerstofselectie Voor Het Vreemde-Talenonderwijs

A short history is sketched of the selection of vocabulary in foreign language teaching. The author briefly touches on the position and function of Latin in classical times and the changes thereof in the Renaissance.Gradually, from the end of the Middle Ages French took over as an international language. So French had to be taught. And vocabulary to be selected. Frequency of occurrence as a principle of selection was not consciously applied, however, before the 20th century. The remainder of the article deals with the history of the frequency lists in this century and explains the methods used, the difficulties, the advancement since computers assist the selector, and the appli-cations to foreign language teaching. The author concludes with a short discussion of why selection is still a problem and according to him still necessary.