1. The EVP: Taking the guesswork out of vocabulary
Before we start…
Please go to
Click on
Complete free subscription form
Check your for login details
Go to and enter the login details

2. The EVP: Taking the guesswork out of vocabulary
Rebecca Hill
ETAS PD Day
23rd September 2017

3. Lead-in Questions
How do you like to introduce new vocabulary to your students?
Do you use topic wordlists? How?
Where do you find them?
What strategies do you use to help your learners with unfamiliar vocab in reading texts?

4. What is the EVP? Online database of words and phrases in English
NOT a syllabus of what learners should know but instead a reflection of what they do know
Mapped to CEFR levels

5. What is the EVP?
Based on Cambridge Learner Corpus (CLC) and Cambridge English Corpus (CEC)
CLC Over 250,000 coded ELT exam papers
from learners around the world
CEC Multi-billion word collection of spoken
and written English
Collaboration between:

6. How does the EVP work? Basic search features:
Level information – based on meaning
British or American English
Examples are from REAL student writing
Demonstrate a search
Information per level (per meaning)
BrE / AmE searches possible
Extracts from exam papers = pre-made bank of examples at level

7. How does the EVP work? Advanced search features:
Generating topic wordlists at the right
level
Finding examples of particular forms
e.g. uncountable nouns
Demonstrate a search
Topic
Grammar point

8. Group Activity 1 Create your own wordlist: Use the Advanced Search
Go to
Click on
Complete free subscription form
Check your for login details
Go to and enter the login details
Create your own wordlist:
Use the Advanced Search
Choose level & topic/grammar/prefix etc.
Generate word list
Consider how/when you could use this list in your lesson planning or with your students
Discuss with a partner / in small groups

9. Text inspector Analyses all words in a text
Others are out there… but they don't provide the CEFR levels!

10. Group Activity 2 Analyse an article with Text Inspector
Text A:
Text B:
Copy and paste into the text inspector window:
Use the results to decide:
- what level class you would use this text with
- which words you would highlight or pre-teach
Discuss your decisions with a partner / in groups
Follow up: what are the applications of text inspector for, say, vocational/business English?

11. How do we use the EVP at CUP?
Checking reading/listening texts
Producing lists of keywords
Checking hunches

12. A recent example…
Should we only teach vocab at level to our students? What about extension/revision?

14. Thanks for listening! Any questions?
Rebecca Hill
Senior Editor