The study examines whether a word appearing in authorized textbooks for junior and senior high school students is a high-frequency word. The data are analyzed according to the frequency, appearance in authorized textbooks, and the importance of the word. The study attempts to select 1,000 basic words thought necessary for Japanese EFL learners to acquire. The study also examines the difficulty of words around the 1,000-word level in order to clarify whether or not senior high school students actually acquire these words. Results show that there are more than 30 very high-frequency words which do not appear in any authorized textbooks for junior high school students even among the 1,000 basic words selected. On the other hand, there are more than 10 lower-frequency words which appear in all the authorized textbooks. While first-year students acquire less than half of the words in the 1,000 prescribed words, third-year students acquire more than 80 percent of them. However, even third-year students have words they do not completely acquire. I conclude that educators should recognize this gap and should encourage their students to read and listen to as much additional material as possible to have them acquire these 1,000 words.
Hitoshi Yashima (Thu,) studied this question.