What is the AWL?

Learn what the Academic Word List (AWL) is, how many word families it contains, and how to use it to improve academic vocabulary use. The video is part of the EAP Shorts series of videos from , which provides brief overviews of different aspects of English for Academic Purposes. This video looks at the AWL, devised by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The AWL contains the most common words in written academic English which are not contained in the GSL (General Service List). The GSL covers around 80% of words in written texts, while the AWL covers 10%, so knowledge of both gives approximately 90% coverage. The AWL comprises 10 sublists, each with 60 word families (except the last, which has 30), meaning 570 word families in total, arranged according to frequency (sublist 1 is the most common). Some ideas for how to improve academic vocabulary using the AWL are given in the video, along with some useful links. For more information on this topic, se