Comparing Receptive and Productive Academic Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

Vocabulary acquisition has been a major concern of English teachers and learners. Much research has been done to examine vocabulary knowledge of Chinese EFL learners, but little has done so far on academic vocabulary. The study reported in the paper sets out to investigate the receptive and productive academic vocabulary knowledge of Chinese EFL learners. Results indicate that Chinese EFL learners have a larger receptive academic vocabulary size and productive academic vocabulary size and the two sizes are moderately correlated. Implications of the study results for vocabulary instruction are then discussed.