Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Linguistics

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Larissa Goulart

Committee Member

Libby Barak

Committee Member

Jonathan Howell

Abstract

"Myanmar’s high school education relies on centralized EFL textbooks as the primary source of English input for a significant population of Myanmar youth. Following curriculum reforms aiming for communicative competence, this study provides a corpus-based evaluation of the lexical and phraseological composition of Grades 10 to 12 (high school) textbooks. Using a multi-list approach, this study profiled the textbooks against the New General Service List (NGSL) and the Academic Vocabulary List (AVL) for vocabulary coverage. To determine the frequency and coverage of academic phrases, the textbooks were profiled against three lists of academic bundles identified by Simpson-Vlach and Ellis (2010), Chen and Baker (2010), and Ädel and Erman (2012). Results indicate a stable foundation of general English (NGSL ~90%) and academic vocabulary (AVL ~25%) by Grade 12. Lexical progression is driven by an aggressive increase in volume (tokens) rather than qualitative difficulty (types), suggesting that higher grades challenge students through sheer text quantity. Regarding phraseology, the study confirms a decent representation and linear progression of bundles, with a significant surge in Grade 12. However, this coverage appears to be an "accidental" byproduct of text volume rather than intentional pedagogical scaffolding. Furthermore, stance and discourse-organizing expressions fall below the established acquisition thresholds, indicating insufficient repetition for productive mastery in academic contexts. Future research is recommended to explore the achieved curriculum through classroom observations and longitudinal studies of student transitions to higher education."

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