TAIPEI TIMES》 Study urges wider vocabulary use in English textbooks

A study cited by Taipei Times says Dutch elementary English textbooks introduce a wider vocabulary range and more advanced words earlier than Taiwanese materials. Researchers from Taiwan’s National Academy for Educational Research compared English textbooks used in Taiwan and the Netherlands, using the English Vocabulary Profile (EVP) to assess vocabulary difficulty and topic distribution. The findings reported about 2,300 unique vocabulary words in Dutch books versus roughly 1,200 to 1,500 in Taiwan. Using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), Dutch materials span A1 to B1, while Taiwanese focuses mainly on A1. Dutch A1 accounts for about 32% versus 41–46% in Taiwan, while Dutch B1 is about 22% compared with 16–18% in Taiwan. The study also found Dutch coverage of native-speaker vocabulary use is roughly 75%, against less than 70% in Taiwan.