Incorporating CEFR aligned vocabulary into freshman textbooks in China.

Vocabulary plays a significant role in the learning of listening. However, words in textbooks are often not properly designed, making them difficult for students. Thus, this study aimed to align the difficulty level of the vocabulary presented in textbooks with students' proficiency level by incorporating the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Using textual analysis as the approach, this study employed a quantitative method to analyse the vocabulary in the audio and listening task sections ofiEnglish: Viewing, Listening and SpeakingTextbooks 1 and 2 designed for freshmen. The total number of words analysed was 30904. The instruments used included Text Inspector, the Cambridge Online Dictionary, the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, VScode and Microsoft Excel. The findings reflected several key issues. First, there were difficult words at Level CI and C2, and the density of unknown words was overwhelmingly high. Second, the majority of words in audio and listening task sections were repeated less than seven times. Third, some words appeared only in the audio or only in the listening task sections, but not in both. Fourth, suggested vocabulary sets were provided based on the results of first four research objectives.