How the Words We Teach English Language Learners Changed
A comparison of two essential vocabulary lists for English learners, from 1953 and 2023, reveals a dramatic shift: words like 'telegraph' and 'tobacco' dropped out, while 'computer' and 'mortgage' were added. The new list is more abstract, with fewer concrete words and more adverbs. This reflects a move from a hands-on, local world to a more systemic, institutional one.
Bread survived both lists. Flour, wheat, harvest and bake didn’t. The word for what sustains us remained essential, while the words for how we’d make it weren’t.