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English Language and Literature Studies
Vol. 1, No. 1; June 2011
Can the Essential Lexicon of Geology be Appropriately Represented in
an Intuitively Written EAP Module?
Rahma Al - Mahrooqi
Sultan Qaboos University E-mail: mrahma@squ.edu.om
Saleh Al - Busaidi
Sultan Qaboos University
E-mail: asad@squ.edu.om
Jayakaran Mukundan (corresponding author)
Universiti Putra Malaysia
E-mail: jayakaranmukundan@yahoo.com
Touran Ahour
Universiti Putra Malaysia
E-mail: torahour2@yahoo.com
Ng Yu Jin
Universiti Tenaga Nasional
Received: March 21, 2011
Accepted: April 9, 2011
E-mail: yujin@uniten.edu.my
doi:10.5539/ells.v1n1p50
Abstract
This study aimed to find out to what extent an intuitively developed ESP module for Science majors, taught at
Sultan Qaboos University is appropriately written in terms of lexicon when compared to a core Geology textbook.
The module was developed based on key topics which appeared in the Geology textbook. This study will only be
evaluating vocabulary and will not be looking at other aspects of material evaluation. The digitized pages of the
Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook were loaded into the Software of WordSmith 5.0 for
analysis. The results revealed low percentage word coverage in the module as compared with the limited
pedagogical word list that was developed for Geology. In addition, the high density and low consistency ratios for
the module as compared to the textbook indicated the compactness of the module for teaching purposes. A very low
percentage of the technical words that were related to Geology was discovered in the Module (LANC 2050).
Keywords: EAP, ESP, Module, Textbook, Geology, Science, WordSmith
1. Introduction
Knowledge of vocabulary is an important matter for the learning of a second or foreign language. Its importance
increases when it comes to the areas of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for Academic Purposes
(EAP). For developing this knowledge, much more attention should be paid to the explicit and implicit ways of
teaching the vocabulary. In some situations, direct teaching and learning are required, while, in other situations,
indirect ways of learning, such as incidental learning in extensive reading, would suffice (Sutarsyah, Nation &
Kennedy, 1994).
Encountering a word for enough number of times throughout the textbook would reflect the high frequency of that
word which, in turn, would show its importance in learning and teaching. For example, knowledge of first 2000
words of general service list (GSL) (West, 1953) together with the academic word list (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000)
would provide, according to Nation (1990, 2001), about 95% of the vocabulary required for the reading of academic
texts essential for the ESL/EFL students’ learning. A corpus-based content analysis of a textbook can make this
decision easier for the teacher (Fox, 1998). However, the basic criterion in learning and teaching the vocabulary is
the underlying purpose(s) on which they are based, i.e., whether the aim is to learn the words for general use (GE),
academic use (EAP) or specialized use (ESP).
1.1 Background of vocabulary learning and teaching
Learning vocabulary in the ESL/EFL situations is one of the specific goals of learning in the language classroom. In
the language classrooms and in a well-designed course, four important strands should be present (Nation, 2001).
These strands approach learning new language items from four perspectives including: (a) comprehensible
meaning-focused input through the listening and reading where about 95% of the running words are familiar to the
learners. In other words, for learning to occur very few unknown words should be present in the input. (b)
language-focused learning or form-focused instruction (Ellis, 1990) in which the focus is on the deliberate teaching
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and learning of the language items. If the goal of the course is, for instance, teaching and learning vocabulary, the
direct teaching and learning of vocabulary is needed. (c) meaning-focused output through the speaking and writing
where the learners can strengthen their knowledge of previously met vocabulary; (d) fluency-focused development
through activities in which they use and practice the items they already know. According to Nation (2001), in a
language course approximately the same amount of time (i.e., 25% of the learning time) should be spent on any of
these four strands.
In addition, Nation (2001) states that there are four types of vocabularies: the high frequency words, academic
words, technical words and low-frequency words. High frequency words are words which are commonly used in a
language textbook and they require high amount of attention by the teacher and students (Nation & Waring 1997;
Fox, 1998). In the development of vocabulary list in different disciplines, priority has to be given to the General
Service List (GSL) (West, 1953) comprising words that are of high frequency in all kinds of texts and which make
up the most frequent 2000 words of English (Nation, 2001; Coxhead, 2000; Nation & Waring, 1997). The GSL is a
list that is irreplaceable as it covers up to 87% of any academic texts (Nation, 2001; 1990; Coxhead, 2000) and
teachers and learners alike should focus on comprehending the words in order to cope with academic reading
materials at higher rates.
Besides academic words, technical words are important to learners who need the vocabulary to help in planning and
achieving their specific goals in language use. Technical words are specialised vocabulary developed from
specialised corpus, words which qualify in terms of frequency and relevance (Nation, 2001). “Strictly technical
words are characterized by the absence of exact synonyms, resistance to semantic change, and a very narrow range;
e.g., words such as urethane or vulcanise” (Mudraya, 2006, p.239). These words have low frequency but comprise a
large number of words (Nation, 1990; 2001).
In academic texts, especially in specific fields, the frequency and coverage of academic and technical words are
higher than in general English texts (Sutarsyah et al., 1994). Being ignorant about these words can pose challenging
experiences to students who wish to learn more about field-specific vocabulary which can initiate the socialization
of students into their discourse communities. Failing to be associated to their discourse community can hinder
productive progress among students academically. Academic vocabulary occurs frequently in most kinds of
academic texts; however, their frequency is lower than general service vocabulary (Worthington & Nation, 1996;
Xue & Nation, 1984).
Having good knowledge of academic vocabulary has been emphasized for success at higher levels of education
(Coxhead, 2000; Corson, 1997). Different corpus-based studies have been conducted with regard to the vocabulary
of the texts in different areas and disciplines. Worthington and Nation (1996), for example, have investigated the
feasibility of the texts that are used to sequence the target vocabulary of a course. Some studies have explored the
technical vocabulary in specialized texts such as in anatomy and applied linguistics texts (Chung & Nation, 2003) or
in the language of mathematics, science and English textbooks (Mukundan & Menon, 2005; 2007a; 2007b).
1.2 The need for ESP materials in the university
At Sultan Qaboos University, all science based colleges and specializations are taught in English, so proficiency in
English has been deemed important for students' success in their majors since the inception of this university. From
its start, the university has realized that almost all its students majoring in science based colleges might be in need
for content area English tuition to prepare them for their majors and so it adopted ESP and EAP as the basis for its
English modules. To teach these it established the Language Centre, which has been operating since 1986. In these
modules, English is taught using context of the content related to students’ majors. The learning outcomes of ESP
are language-based (grammar, sentence structure, word forms, coherence, cohesion, the four skills, subject-area
terminology, spelling and punctuation). The rationale is that EFL students are expected to perform at the same level
in their university courses as native speakers of English, who commence their university education with a full
command of general English, and who would have spent 12 years studying all subjects in English within a larger
community in which English is the only medium of communication. The English for Science courses taught to
College of Science students are credit courses designed with some input from the College of Science. Needs
analyses were carried out informally and the colleges provided some input on how the English courses need to be
structured and what skills or projects they should include. However, in terms of vocabulary, it was
impressionistically included in the module by the college representatives based on their experience. One major
drawback with the English for Science courses is that their content targeted general science because they were
taught to all science majors. Therefore, the vocabulary and the topics might not match anyone specialization in
particular. No thorough analysis of the science books was conducted.
1.3 Purpose of the study
The aim of this study is to compare the first of the two Modules (LANC 2050) which was intuitively written for
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EAP with the Essentials of Geology Textbook as the Reference Corpus of the study for ESP course. The specific
objectives of the study are: (a) to find out the similarities and differences of the words in the Module (LANC 2050)
and the Essentials of Geology Textbook, their frequency range, density ratio, consistency ratio, and types of words;
(b) to determine whether the Module (LANC 2050) can prepare the students for the ESP course in Geology.
1.4 Research questions
The two corpora were examined to seek the possible answers to the following questions:
(1).To what extent are the 1,000 most frequently used specialised content words in the Module (LANC 2050) and
the Essentials of Geology Textbook different?
(2).With the creation of a limited pedagogical word list, to what extent do the words in the word list represent those
in the EAP Module (LANC 2050)?
2. Methodology
This study compares two corpora, the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook. The Module
(LANC 2050) is taught in the English for Science Course, the completion of which is one of the requirements for the
students of Science in the College of Science in Sultan Qaboos University (SQU). It consists of six units with
different sections covering topics related to The Earth, Space, Matter and Materials, Technology, Biotechnology,
with the last unit as Review and Practice. The Module (LANC 2050) units are compared with eleven selected
chapters of the Essentials of Geology Textbook that includes different topics such as Introduction to Geology,
Minerals: Building blocks of rocks, Igneous rocks, Volcanoes and other Igneous activity, Weathering and soils,
Sedimentary rocks, Metamorphic rocks, Earthquakes and Earth’s interior, Plate Tectonics, Geologic Time, and Earth
history: A brief summary. Most of the topics in the textbooks were used as the basis for the development of the
module. The 1,000 most frequently used content words from both the Essentials of Geology Textbook and the
Module (LANC 2050) will be compared to find out to the differences.
The keyword lists created in this study are based on the study carried out by Menon (2009), who created ‘keyword
lists’ using the Word Smith software. Harvesting or building a word list can be done by comparing with a larger
corpus which functions as a reference corpus (Nation, 2001). Thus, the limited pedagogical corpora for both the
textbook and the module are compared with the British National Corpus (BNC), as a well-established corpus for
word list building (Menon, 2009). WordSmith 5.0 was used for analyzing the data. In order to use this software all
the related pages of the module and the textbook were digitized. These pages were scanned and converted into the
text files. Then, the text files were fed into the software for further analysis.
3. Results and Discussion
The comparison of the output of WordSmith analysis for Module (LANC 2050) units and the Essentials of Geology
chapters (see Table 1) revealed the number of running words, or tokens, in the textbook chapters (128 031)
compared to the module (51 993). The types of the words were also higher in the textbook (8098) than those in the
module (6006). The density ratio, that is the proportion of types to tokens, indicates the high intensity or
compactness of the materials (Mukundan, 2007; Nation, 1990). The module has a density ratio reading of 11.5
compared to 6.4 of the text. It signifies that the density of the words in the Module (LANC 2050) is higher than the
density of words in the Essentials of Geology Textbook chapters. In contrast, the consistency ratio, that is the
proportion of tokens to types, is higher for the Essentials of Geology chapters (15.53) as compared to that of the
Module (LANC 2050) units (8.71). It reflects the consistency on the introduction of new words in the Essentials of
Geology Textbook and Module (LANC 2050). In other words, each new word is introduced after about 16 words
interval in the textbook while its introduction is in every 9-word interval for the module. In this regard, the module
is considered to be of high density with lower level of consistency interval. The compactness of the Module (LANC
2050) compared to the Essentials of Geology, may make the learning and acquiring of the new words rather difficult
to the students. It requires the teacher to focus the attention of the students to these words, although the repetition of
the words can help in this regard. Table 1 presents a summary of these findings:
Table 1:
The same pattern was found across the units and chapters of the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of
Geology Textbook (see Table 2). It was revealed that the mean density ratio of the module units (23) is much higher
than that of the textbook chapters (17.91). It implies that, on average, the occurrence of the different words is more
in the module compared to the textbook. This pattern would make the acquisition and learning of the new language
more difficult to the students. Similarly, the mean consistency ratio or the interval unit of words for the introduction
of each new word is lower (4.41) in the module compared to the textbook (5.67). This low interval in the module
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indicates that every new word is introduced after four words, while in the textbook the introduction of each new
word is after every six words. Therefore, learning new words would be easier in the pattern revealed in the textbook
rather than the module.
Table 2:
In this regard, comparison of the density and consistency ratios across the units of the Module (LANC 2050)
shows that Units 2 and 1 would be easier to learn followed by Units 3, 5, 4, and 6, respectively. Likewise, the
Essentials of Geology Textbook chapters from the easiest to the most difficult would be chapters 3, 4, 16, 2, 6, 18,
15, 5, 7, 19, and 1, respectively. The best sequence for introducing the units of the module and the chapters of the
textbook can be based on the difficulty level of the units or chapters. The more difficult ones would be better
presented at the end of the books while bringing the easiest ones to the front. This would facilitate the acquisition of
the new language more effectively.
3.1 Frequency range in the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook
Table 3 and Table 4 demonstrate the frequency range of the words in the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of
Geology Textbook. The tables show high numbers of the words belong to the low frequency words in both the
module and the textbook. Low frequency words are words that appear only in the frequency range of 1 to 40. On the
other hand, the high frequency words (words that appear more than 40 times) are very few in both of them. The
number of the words for all the frequency range is more in the textbook than in the module. This is due to the high
number of total types in the textbook.
Table 3:
Table 4:
The frequency range shows that very few words are repeated with high frequency, especially in the module. For
instance, when 46 words are repeated between the range of 101-1000 times in the module, almost three times more
words (149) are repeated in this range in the textbook. When the words are repeated frequently, their acquisition
would be easier for the students (Mukundan, 2007; 2007a; 2007b, Nation, 1990; 2001). The same pattern is
observed in the frequency range of both the module and the textbook. In order to differentiate what kinds of words
comprise the module and the textbook, the researchers selected fifty words from the high frequency a word in their
word lists (see Table 5). The selected words are the fifty most frequently used words in both the module and
textbook. More function words are found in the module rather than in the textbook.
Table 5:
3.2 Comparability of the words in the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook
Among the wordlists for the two corpora, 3345 words are found to be comparable or overlap in both the module and
the textbook (see Table 6). This comprises about 56% and 40% of the total types of the module and the textbook
respectively. The rest includes the words that are different in both corpora. In other words, about 44% of the total
types of the module are not found in the textbook. In the same vein, about 60% of the total types of the textbook are
not found in the module.
Table 6:
Many of the high frequency content words in the textbook also occur in the module corpus, but with a much lower
frequency. To further investigate the types of similar or different words introduced in the module as opposed to the
textbook, the 1000 most frequently used specialised content words from both the textbook and module were
identified. The specialised content words are words that are outside the GSL and the function words like ‘AND’,
‘THE’ and ‘A’ were removed from the lists as well. The definition used in this study is adapted from Coxhead’s
(2000) development of Academic Word List (AWL). The proper nouns and abbreviations identified are also
removed from the lists. The specialised content words can also be regarded as words which appear very frequently
in field-specific texts (Chung & Nation, 2003; Nation, 2001).
The Module (LANC 2050) is supposed to be tailored to the needs of students in the field of geology. Hence, the
vocabulary introduced in the module should be almost similar to that of the textbook, especially the most frequently
used content words. Appendix A indicates the similar content words which can be found in both the textbook and the
module. From the result of the analysis, only 30% of the content words from the module are similar to the content
words in the textbooks (considering the top 1,000 most frequently used content words of both materials). Hence, it
proves that the module is done intuitively, not considering the important aspect of introduction of specialised
geology vocabulary. The results should yield at least a higher percentage if the module is developed from data from
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a corpus. After the analysis, the results revealed that the majority of the words that are in the textbook but are not
found in the module are related to the technical geology words such as earthquake, weathering, metamorphic, ions,
eruption, volcano, shale, ore, intrusive, slate, richter, cinder, mica, magmatic, pumice, muscovite, chamber.
3.3 Comparison of Key Words Derived from ‘Keyword’ Lists (Keyness)
Using Word Smith 5.0, the ‘Keyword’ function was utilized to generate the keywords list, after comparing with a
larger corpus. Nation (2001) states one of the ways to create a word list is through the comparison of the study
corpus with a much bigger corpus. The ‘Keyword’ function in the WordSmith 5.0 programme enables the
researchers to create a word list by comparing the target corpora with a reference corpus. Menon (2009) in her study
had created keyword lists for the field of English for Science and Technology. Menon (2009) also justified that using
the British National Corpus (BNC) as a reference corpus is valid as the size of BNC is at least 5 times or more than
the study corpus. In this study, the BNC is definitely much larger (more than five times) than the pedagogical
module and the Geology corpora. The size of the BNC is almost 100 million running words as compared with the
limited pedagogical corpora of the Module (LANC 2050) (51 993 tokens) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook
(128 031 tokens). Hence, using the BNC as the reference corpus in the study is ideal. Only the words with the
positive ‘keyness’ are included in the lists. The analysis results from the Word Smith 5.0 software yield the
significant keywords of the Module (LANC 2050) (531 words) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook (1425
words). The words were not categorized into word families as learning words in the lexico-grammar context can
yield better results in students’ acquisition of the vocabulary (Ward, 1999; 2009; Mudraya, 2006). Out of the 531
keywords found in the Module (LANC 2050), only 155 words (29%) were found to be common with the 1425
keywords of the Geology corpus. The 155 common key words from both the module and the textbook are stipulated
in Appendix B. The result shows that the intuitively produced module does not cover most of the essential
vocabulary needed when students need to enrol in a Geology course. Knowing more field-specific words enables
learners to associate into their discourse community much more effectively (Menon, 2009), hence it would be best
for module developers to be informed by data regarding lexicon from analysis of field-specific corpora.
4. Implication and Conclusion
As a result of this research, we now have a limited pedagogic corpus of 1425 words. This would be useful when the
Module (LANC 2050) is revised to make it resemble Geology texts commonly encountered by students. This study
was conducted to find out the appropriateness of the Module (LANC 2050) as a preparatory ESP course for Geology
majors. For this, the corpus-based content analysis of the words for each was explicated and the results were
compared and discussed considering different criteria including the frequency of the words, density and consistency
ratio, keyness, and coverage of the words.
The evaluation of the in-house produced Module (LANC 2050) revealed that the introduction of essential technical
or field-specific words was not effectively executed throughout the module. Hence, it is not able to prepare students
for assimilating into their majors. Most of the essential words found in the Essentials of Geology Textbook were
non-existent in the Module (LANC 2050). Despite the meticulous process of developing a module, material writers
should always take into consideration the essential vocabulary needed by learners which could be done by creating a
field-specific corpus. Learners truly need the field-specific vocabulary to function well in their course and prepare
them for their discourse community.
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Table 1. Tokens, Types, Density Ratio, and Consistency Ratio in Geology Module (LANC 2050) and Essentials of
Geology Textbook
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Table 4. The Distribution of High Frequency Words in the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of Geology
Textbook
Frequency Range
Number of Words in the Module
(LANC 2050)
Number of Words in the
Essentials of Geology Textbook
41-50
36
96
51-60
19
83
61-70
17
44
71-80
13
33
81-90
17
34
91-100
8
25
101 – 1000
46
149
1001 – 3600
6
8
3700 - 8200
0
2
Table 5. The first fifty high frequency words in the Module (LANC 2050) and the Essentials of Geology Textbook
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Appendices/Supplementary Materials:
Appendix A: Similar Specialised Content Words in Both Corpora
Words
Frequency in the
Frequency in the Essentials of Geology Textbook
Module (LANC 2050)
58
ACCUMULATE
5
17
ACCUMULATED
4
7
ACCURATE
4
9
ACID
6
32
AFFECT
2
8
AFFECTED
4
6
AFFECTS
2
6
AFRICA
3
42
AID
2
20
ALGAE
2
12
ALPHA
8
15
ALTERED
2
17
ALUMINUM
2
41
AMERICA
5
80
APPARENT
3
12
APPROPRIATE
18
8
APPROXIMATELY
13
14
AREA
15
78
AREAS
11
52
ATMOSPHERE
56
80
ATOM
16
31
ATOMIC
18
46
ATOMS
23
72
ATTRIBUTED
2
6
AVAILABLE
7
23
AXIS
2
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BACTERIA
9
11
BASALT
5
41
BEDROCK
3
14
BETA
3
13
BIOLOGICAL
10
25
BOMBS
2
10
BRIEF
18
18
CAPABLE
2
11
CARBON
21
91
CASTS
2
8
CATEGORY
2
6
CHEMICAL
44
210
CLIMATE
7
43
CLIMATIC
2
12
CLUES
4
17
COM
12
30
COMPACT
2
6
COMPLEX
9
47
COMPONENTS
7
28
COMPOUNDS
11
23
CONCEPT
8
8
CONCEPTS
2
12
CONCLUDE
3
8
CONSIDERABLE
4
19
CONSIST
3
28
CONSISTING
4
20
CONSISTS
4
38
CONSTANT
6
8
CONSTANTLY
4
7
CONSTRUCTION
6
12
CONTACT
5
28
CONTINENTAL
16
167
CONTINENTS
5
77
CONVECTION
3
23
CORE
14
70
COURTESY
3
20
CRATER
13
30
CREATE
17
22
CREATED
27
50
CREATING
5
17
CRETACEOUS
6
19
CRUST
31
185
CRYSTAL
8
33
CRYSTALLINE
4
40
CRYSTALS
11
98
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CUBIC
4
12
CURRENTS
3
11
DATA
30
39
DEBRIS
3
31
DECADES
5
10
DEFINITE
4
11
DENSE
3
35
DENSITY
6
17
DEPOSITED
10
72
DEPOSITION
3
36
DEPOSITS
6
113
DERIVED
11
27
DESIGNED
9
7
DIAGRAM
3
13
DIAGRAMS
3
6
DIAMETER
11
10
DINOSAURS
48
36
DIOXIDE
10
41
DISSOLVED
3
37
DISTINCT
4
17
DRIFT
7
32
EARTH'S
3
268
ELECTRONS
6
62
ELEMENT
5
33
ELEMENTS
22
81
EMISSION
6
13
EMIT
3
14
EMITTED
5
16
ENERGY
48
94
ENGLAND
7
7
ENVIRONMENT
18
81
ENVIRONMENTAL
5
22
EQUIVALENT
3
14
ERA
5
57
ERAS
4
11
ESTABLISH
6
11
ESTIMATED
3
18
EUROPE
5
18
EVENTUALLY
9
69
EVIDENCE
29
81
EVIDENT
3
6
EVOLUTION
3
17
EVOLVED
5
24
EXPAND
9
13
EXPOSED
7
53
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EXPOSURE
9
14
EXTINCT
7
14
EXTINCTION
12
23
EXTRACT
9
6
EXTRACTED
4
7
FEATURES
5
40
FINAL
8
7
FINALLY
5
11
FLUID
4
50
FLUIDS
5
27
FOCUS
3
50
FOSSIL
23
66
FOSSILS
40
98
FRAGMENTS
6
73
FUEL
4
7
FUNDAMENTAL
4
9
FURTHERMORE
4
14
GASEOUS
3
12
GENERATE
9
45
GENERATED
3
41
GEOLOGIC
3
134
GEOLOGICAL
19
42
GEOLOGIST
10
15
GEOLOGISTS
13
76
GEOLOGY
12
101
GIANT
7
7
GLOBAL
3
20
GLOBE
6
10
GRAVITY
20
30
GROUNDWATER
3
9
HUGE
12
26
HYDROGEN
13
15
IDENTIFIED
12
29
IDENTIFY
10
13
IDENTIFYING
5
7
IGNEOUS
8
236
IMAGE
3
7
IMPACT
18
42
INDEX
3
10
INDIVIDUAL
7
22
INITIAL
10
7
INTERNET
16
22
INVOLVED
3
8
ISOTOPES
4
29
KILOMETERS
5
155
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LABORATORY
13
8
LANDFORMS
4
10
LAVA
7
150
LAVAS
7
38
LAYER
21
85
LAYERS
18
106
LIMESTONE
6
58
LINKED
4
7
LOCATION
3
18
LOCATIONS
4
22
MAGMA
4
303
MAGNETIC
13
53
MAJOR
6
124
MANTLE
6
195
MARGIN
3
17
MATRIX
3
11
MATURE
4
9
METALLIC
3
30
METEORITES
21
11
METER
3
11
METERS
10
81
METHOD
5
22
METHODS
9
18
MICROSCOPIC
10
9
MINERALOGY
3
12
MODIFIED
13
7
MOLTEN
10
34
NEGATIVELY
3
7
NEUTRAL
4
14
NEUTRON
4
9
NEUTRONS
12
25
NITROGEN
19
13
NORMAL
4
15
NUCLEI
10
22
NUCLEUS
21
48
OBTAINED
7
16
OBVIOUS
3
15
OCCUR
4
109
OCCURRED
9
63
OCCURS
4
88
OCEANIC
15
138
ORGANIC
3
49
ORGANISMS
21
67
OXYGEN
22
96
PARALLEL
3
29
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PERCENT
5
87
PERIOD
17
108
PERIODS
8
35
PHENOMENA
7
7
PHYSICAL
10
64
PLANET
49
51
PLANETS
33
20
POSITIVE
7
13
POSITIVELY
4
8
PREHISTORIC
3
8
PRIMARY
7
31
PRIMITIVE
3
17
PROCESS
23
95
PROCESSES
6
140
PROTON
3
14
PROTONS
6
38
QUARTZ
5
100
RADIATION
24
8
RADIOACTIVE
12
46
RADIOACTIVITY
6
19
RANGE
5
59
REACTION
10
33
REACTIONS
5
11
REGION
7
45
REGIONS
6
54
RELEASE
3
7
RELEASED
12
22
REMOVAL
3
7
REMOVED
6
31
REQUIRE
4
7
RESEARCH
45
7
RESEARCHERS
4
29
RESERVOIR
11
9
RESISTANT
7
18
RIGID
3
19
ROLE
5
23
SECTION
36
47
SEDIMENTARY
17
266
SEDIMENTS
3
50
SEISMIC
4
54
SEQUENCE
7
26
SERIES
4
43
SIGNIFICANT
5
39
SILICA
5
99
SILICON
6
57
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SIMILAR
15
75
SITE
7
32
SITES
6
15
SODIUM
3
52
SOLAR
26
18
SOURCE
48
59
SOURCES
20
19
SPECIES
32
12
SPECIFIC
13
33
SPHERICAL
3
10
STABLE
6
50
STRATA
6
46
STRUCTURE
21
107
STRUCTURES
4
112
SUCCESSION
5
8
SUCCESSIVE
3
12
SUMMARY
58
24
SURVIVE
9
7
SUSPENDED
3
8
TASK
154
7
TECHNIQUES
9
13
TECTONIC
10
11
TECTONICS
4
65
TERTIARY
5
20
THEORIES
11
8
THEORY
64
43
THERMAL
4
11
TINY
7
23
TOPIC
10
7
TRACE
4
16
TRACES
3
8
TRANSFER
4
7
TRANSPORT
4
23
TRANSPORTED
3
22
UNDERGROUND
3
14
UNSTABLE
6
19
URANIUM
14
28
VARIES
3
8
VAST
6
33
VEGETATION
4
24
VELOCITY
3
8
VISCOSITY
4
15
VITAL
5
8
VOLCANIC
5
235
VOLCANOES
13
105
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Vol. 1, No. 1; June 2011
VOLUME
3
33
WEAKER
3
7
WEB
5
39
WEBSITE
6
11
WEGENER
3
25
WIDESPREAD
3
13
WORLDWIDE
3
15
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Appendix B: Similar Common Keywords Found in Both the Module LANC (2050) and the Essentials of
Geology Textbook
66
ALPHA
ANIMALS
APATOSAURUS
ARE
ATMOSPHERE
ATOM
ATOMIC
ATOMS
BASALT
BELOW
BILLION
BIOLOGICAL
CALLED
CARBON
CHARACTERISTICS
CHEMICAL
CLAY
COM
GAS
GASES
GEOLOGIC
GEOLOGICAL
GEOLOGIST
GEOLOGISTS
GEOLOGY
GRAVITY
HEAT
HEATED
HELIUM
HTTP
HUMANS
HYDROGEN
ICE
IGNEOUS
IMPACT
INTERNET
IRON
ISOTOPES
KILOMETERS
KNOWN
LANDFORMS
LAVA
LAVAS
LAYER
LAYERS
LIFE
LIQUID
MAGNETIC
MANTLE
MASS
MATERIAL
COMPOSED
COMPOSITION
COMPOUNDS
CONTAIN
CONTAINS
CONTINENTAL
COOLED
CORE
CRATER
CREATED
CRETACEOUS
CRUST
CRYSTALS
DECAY
DEPOSITED
DIFFERENT
DINOSAURS
DIOXIDE
MELTS
METALS
METEORITES
METERS
MICROSCOPIC
MILLION
MINERAL
MINERALS
MOLTEN
MOTION
NATURAL
NEUTRONS
NITROGEN
NUCLEI
NUCLEUS
OCEANIC
OF
ORBITING
ORGANISMS
ORIGIN
OXYGEN
PALEONTOLOGISTS
PARTICLES
PLANET
PLANETS
PLANT
PLANTS
PLATE
PLATES
PRODUCE
PROPERTIES
PROTONS
QUARTZ
MATERIALS
RADIOACTIVE
DISTANCES
EACH
EARTH
ELECTRICAL
ELEMENTS
EMITTED
ENERGY
ERAS
EXAMPLES
EXTINCT
EXTINCTION
FORM
FORMED
FORMS
FOSSIL
FOSSILS
FOUND
FROM
RADIOACTIVITY
RESISTANT
ROCK
ROCKS
SAMPLES
SCIENTIFIC
SCIENTISTS
SEA
SEDIMENTARY
SEVERAL
SHAPE
SILICA
SOIL
SOLAR
SOLID
SOURCE
STRATA
SUMMARY
SURFACE
TECTONIC
TEMPERATURE
TEMPERATURES
THEORY
THESE
THORIUM
TYPES
URANIUM
VAPOR
VOLCANOES
WATER
WEBSITE
WEGENER
YEARS
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Touran Ahour