Abstract
This study investigates the size and depth of vocabulary knowledge and its relationship to the general language proficiency of EFL learners. The study sample included 120 students from the University of Bahrain. The sample was randomly selected from the student population and split into two groups in terms of their level of English: intermediate and advanced. The study aims to answer four questions: (1) What is the effect of general language proficiency on the sizes of the receptive and productive vocabularies of learners of English at the University of Bahrain? (2) How does general language proficiency affect the depth of vocabulary knowledge of learners of English at the University of Bahrain? (3) What is the relationship between receptive and productive vocabularies and the depth of vocabulary knowledge? and (4) What is the relationship between vocabulary size and the nature of lexical networking? All the students in the sample completed three vocabulary tasks. The first two tasks were Meara and Jones’s Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test (1990) and Meara and Fitzpatrick’s Lex30 word association task (2000), which were used to measure the sizes of receptive and productive vocabularies. The third task was Gyllstad’s COLLEX test (2007), which was used to investigate the depth of vocabulary knowledge. A quasi-experimental approach was adopted using a quantitative approach to analyze the data. The data of the study were analyzed by comparing the results of the two groups in relation to the three tasks using SPSS 16.0. The findings of the study have revealed that general language proficiency has a positive effect on learners’ receptive vocabulary size, a moderate effect on learners’ productive vocabulary size, and a very low effect on the depth of vocabulary knowledge. In addition, no relationship was shown between the size of vocabulary and the nature of lexical networking. With reference to these results, pedagogical and future research recommendations are made.
Highlights
It is widely accepted that vocabulary plays a significant role in the acquisition of English as a second language (Knight, 1994; Laufer, 1997; Yoshii & Flaitz, 2013)
The study aims to answer four questions: (1) What is the effect of general language proficiency on the sizes of the receptive and productive vocabularies of learners of English at the University of Bahrain? (2) How does general language proficiency affect the depth of vocabulary knowledge of learners of English at the University of Bahrain? (3) What is the relationship between receptive and productive vocabularies and the depth of vocabulary knowledge? and (4) What is the relationship between vocabulary size and the nature of lexical networking? All the students in the sample completed three vocabulary tasks
To illustrate, starting with the first method used in the study, the correlation between the Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test (EVST) and the Lex30 word association task and the COLLEX test was 0.984 and 0.947, respectively
Summary
It is widely accepted that vocabulary plays a significant role in the acquisition of English as a second language (Knight, 1994; Laufer, 1997; Yoshii & Flaitz, 2013). Vocabulary knowledge is known to be one of the fundamental components in language acquisition (Schmitt, 2008), and it has been considered a major factor in language proficiency (Alavi & Akbarian, 2012; Read, 2004). 2) mention that vocabulary is “regarded as mandatory to acquiring knowledge through receptive skills, reading and listening, and essential to the development of the productive skills of communicating and writing.”. In order to master an L2 (second language), learners and language instructors must pay more attention to vocabulary knowledge
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