School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Te Kura Tātari Reo

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Prof Paul Nation

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.

Publications and resources

Paul Nation's publications and applied language resources have been moved to the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies website.

Recent books

A recent book What you need to know to learn a foreign language pdf798KB is available to download . This book is also available in translation.

Learn vocab in anotehr lang

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

EFL Teacher

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.

Making word lists

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 (May 2020) pdf 365KB

Teaching and Learning

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.

Research and Analysing

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).

Covers of Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking, Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing, Language Curriculum Design and Case Studies in Language Curriculum Design

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.

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.