In a previous post (December 9th) I wrote about the New General Service List (NGSL) and the New Academic Word List (NAWL) and in a later post (January 14th) I wrote about using Memrise and Quizlet to study these. I choose Memrise especially because it offers TOEIC words, but throughout I have been suggesting that the NGSL and NAWL are important core words for any kind of language learning. In the post in December, I noted that together with the 1200 words of the TOEIC words along with the 2800 words of the NGSL someone would have about 99% coverage of the vocabulary on the TOEIC test.
In the previous posts, I mentioned Memrise because it offers a way to study the TOEIC words and I focused on Quizlet because it also offers free resources to a range of vocabulary.
In this post, I'd like to point the reader to a couple free versions of the NGSL Builder and NAWL Builder that are available on Google Play and as Apple Apps. Both applications go through the words by starting with the most frequent and therefore most powerful words first (powerful because you are more likely to "meet" them in your reading precisely because they are more frequent).
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| NGSL Builder (Apple Store) |
The words are presented in frequency bands so you can start with the words you need to learn. Once selected, you are presented with either the word or the definition and you try to think of the answer. If you did remember correctly, you click "correct," and if not, you click "wrong." Whether you click "correct" or "wrong" the word is set aside so it appears at a scientifically selected interval of 1 week, 2 weeks, etc. When you see the word again, you indicate whether you know it or not. Once you have indicated a number of times that you know that word, it is listed as "learned."
Some students study words by making a column of words they need to learn with one language on the left side and the other language on the right. Then these are memorized by brute force. The problem with this approach is the words appear whether they are learned or not, and another is that there is an order effect, meaning you sometimes remember the words because they are in a particular order and you need to seek the meaning by going through the list.
For example, what is the 10th letter of the English alphabet? Did you have to go through A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I to get to the answer J? That's because you have memorized the letters in a particular order.
NGSL Builder is available free on the Apple App Store and on Google Play. It offers word prompts and definitions completely in English or with English prompts and Japanese definitions. I would recommend that the English-only version be used if possible, since you would be building deeper mental connection in English, but this depends on your level.
Remember that a larger vocabulary gives you power. The more easily you can understand the vocabulary in a TOEIC test or in a video, movie, book, or even video game, the more easily you can do what you need to do, for example, get a high score on an English test.
Below are the links to the English versions.
Apple App
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ngsl-builder/id892335804
Google Play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CB.NGSLBuilder_global&hl=en&gl=US
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