Quotes from Keith S. Folse

Positive words are easier to remember than negative words (Ludwig, 1984).

categories are more difficult to learn than others. Nouns seem to be the easiest; adverbs—the most difficult; verbs and adjectives—somewhere in between" (p. 298).

Abstract words seem to be more difficult than concrete words.

Knowing a word can also mean that the learner knows the frequency of occurrence of that word. Though this aspect of a word may seem almost trivial, the frequency of a word is often cited as a major factor in a given word's difficulty. In fact, Haynes (1993) claims that word frequency is probably the major component in word difficulty.

Liu's [2003] idioms commonly used in spoken American English.)

Perhaps the single most important aspect of knowing a word for nonnative learners—besides or in addition to the obviously requisite synonym or denotation meaning—is the

collocation(s) of a new vocabulary item. The meaning of collocation is apparent in its constituent parts: co (together) + location (place). A collocation is a word or phrase that naturally and frequently occurs before, after, or very near the target vocabulary item.

Semantic sets actually hinder and impede learning (Tinkhan 1993, 1997; Waring 1997).

In Tinkham (1993), two experiments compared the learning rates of the same ESL learners who were learning semantically related and then semantically unrelated target vocabulary items. Results of this study showed that the learners were able to learn the semantically unrelated target items much more quickly than they could do with the semantically related items.

vocabulary is actually more important than grammar.

Though Olsen's (1999) descriptive study of Norwegian EFL learners focused primarily on cross-linguistic influences on learner errors, one interesting conclusion was that external factors such as teaching confusing pairs such as sea and see, by and buy, want and won't, or lose and loose at the same time actually causes errors. Olsen recommends that each word be taught in its own context at different times.

Vocabulary knowledge is critical to any communication. Wilkins (1972) summarizes the situation best: "While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed" (p. 111).

This emphasis on grammar is surprising in current pedagogy that focuses on comprehensible input and communicative activities because people can generally communicate their meaning with less than perfect grammar whereas incorrect use of vocabulary can substantially impede communication.