Qiuqu Qin, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA

Nation, I. S. P. (2016). Making and using word lists for language learning and testing. John Benjamins.

Making and Using Word Lists for Language Learning and Testing, written by Paul Nation, utilizes past and current research to answer a series of questions about vocabulary lists that are based on definitions, criteria, and applications. Although the book mainly focuses on English, it is a useful resource for teachers of any language who are interested in vocabulary teaching, course design, and materials development for reading and writing courses.

After a short overview, the remainder of the book is organized into five section. In Section I (Chapter 1), Nation defines the central role of word lists in various teaching contexts and clarifies the common factors affecting the design of word lists. Section II (Chapters 2–9) focuses on how to determine the basic word unit counted in word lists based on word categories. The categories that these chapters illustrate include the differentiation of word units (types, lemmas, and word families), homoforms and polysemys, proper nouns, hyphenated and compound words, multiple word units and acronyms, marginal and foreign words, and function and content words. Those chapters which compare two similar types of word may require close attention when counting them in word lists. The book also suggests creating separate word lists for some categories. When choosing the basic unit for word lists, Nation suggests list creators should also take word meanings, frequency, and target learners’ needs into consideration. This section provides very condensed explanations on word categories and how to incorporate them into word lists.

After acquiring a comprehensive understanding of word units being counted in the lists, Section III (Chapters 10–11) investigates how to appropriately use corpora to collect vocabulary words. Chapter 10 suggests considering the types of text and corpus size to choose suitable corpora. Chapter 11 offers step-by-step directions for preparing word lists. The last two sections involve creating and using word lists. Section IV (Chapters 12–15) highlights creating lists for specific genres and proficiency levels and critiquing existing word lists based on the previous three sections. Ultimately, Section V (Chapter 16) outlines the application of word lists in course design, language teaching and learning, and vocabulary testing.

Although Nation has explicitly indicated the instructional purpose of the book, there is still a large quantity of theoretical research included; indeed, the application portion of the book seems overshadowed by the theoretical content. Considering this feature, this book seems more appropriate as a resource for experienced language teachers who have basic knowledge of vocabulary lists. Novice teachers may find this book overwhelming. Nevertheless, the progressive elaboration of topics facilitates the reading even for those with limited knowledge of word lists. The book is also supplemented with appropriate examples extracted from existing word lists and corpora in the main chapters and appendixes to provide comprehensive illustrations of those theoretical studies. Overall, it is a useful resource for seasoned language instructors looking to utilize appropriate word lists in their teaching practice.