ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Volume 97, Issue 1, 1992

The present article wants to discuss advantages and limitations of word frequency counts for foreign language teaching and ways of putting them to good use. It will do so along a review of the Leuven English Teaching Vocabulary-list (the LET-list), (shortly also of) the author-ware A.D.A.M. & E.V.E. (Automated Document Analysis and Manipulation and Extensible Variety of Exercises) and the courseware CTP (Comprehension Training Package), and in a detailed presentation of the current E.E.T.-project in our department, the Extended English Teaching Vocabulary-List. The whole discussion circles around a sensible and responsible use and manipulation of an amount of objective data, combined with (inter-) subjective choices, into an instrument that allows teacher and learner to manage vocabulary learning from authentic text materials systematically and reliably.