An Investigation of Vocabulary in Written Texts of Iraqi Arab Students Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

In this correlational study, the aim was to investigate the vocabulary of 31 Arab students who learned Turkish as a foreign language through lessons with distance education. Total words, different words, and the ratio of these two variables, word frequencies were all measured. The correlations between the variables, and the differences between the categories and word counts were analyzed. Lastly, the word list was given. According to findings, the students wrote 57,5 words per participant, which consisted of 41.3 different words on average. The ratio between these two variables was 73.8%. Students wrote a total of 506 different words and 1781 total words. The most used 44 words consisted of the 52.9% of all words used by all participants. There was no correlation between age and other variables while total words had significant relationships with different words and the ratio. Similarly, different words had a correlation with the ratio. There were significant differences between male and female students according to different word numbers, while they were similar in total word counts and in ratio. Students had significantly better results in different and total word numbers as their proficiency classes (A1 and A2) got higher.