Vocabulary Profile of Graded Readers Used inThe Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University

Abstract

Vocabulary has become an important key to learn English as a foreign language. There are many learners who find it as the biggest problem they should overcome. Therefore, this study tried to describe the vocabulary profile of the graded readers used in the Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University. The sample used for this study was the selected texts from graded readers, level 1-6. The texts were selected using stratified and systematic sampling technique as much as 50% from every level of graded readers. Then, the texts were copied into the vocabulary profiler provided in a website, lextutor.ca. The result shows that the word coverage of overall sampled graded readers were 88.50% for K-1, 6.52% for K-2, 1.73% for AWL and 3.25% for Off-List word. The second major finding based on New General Service List (NGSL) shows that there were some words which were not found in the sample texts; 13.49% for K-1, 49.59% for K-2, and 66.96% for AWL. In addition, this study also compares the two levels of graded readers, level 2 and 6. The result shows that there were some shared words as much as 67.75% and unshared words (unique) as much as 32.43%.