How to Trace the Growth in Learners’ Active Vocabulary? -- a corpus based study

Agnieszka Leńko-SzymańskaTEFL UnitUniversity of Łódź

Dimensions of learners’ vocabulary knowledge

passive knowledgeactive knowledge in an elicitation

taskactive knowledge in a free

production task

Test measuringreceptive vocabulary size

Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation 1983, 1990)

Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test(Meara & Jones 1990)

Test measuringproductive vocabulary size

Vocabulary Levels Test (active version) (Laufer and Nation 1995)

Some measures oflexical richness

Lexical DensityLexical OriginalityLexical VariationLexical SophisticationOthers less frequently employed tests:

semantic variation, lexical quality, T-unit length, error free T-unit length(Laufer and Nation 1995, Meunier 1998)

Reasearch aims

to compare the validity of two measures of lexical richness: lexical variation lexical sophistication

to trace and analyse the growth of receptive and productive vocabulary in advanced learners of English at two different proficiency levels

Tools

Vocabulary Levels Test (receptive version)

WordsmithVocabProfile

Vocabulary Levels Test

originalprivate __________ completeroyal __________ firstslow __________ not publicsorrytotal

Lexical variation measure

Type/Token Ratios Type/Token Ratio Standardised Type/Token Ratio (300

words) Standardised Type/Token Ratio (150

words) Standardised Type/Token Ratio (450

words) -- YEAR IV only

Lexical sophistication measure

Lexical sophistication: Lexical Frequency Profile

1000 2000 UWL (Xue & Nation 1984) not in the lists (> 2000)

Receptive vocabulary sizeYEAR I & YEAR IV

YEAR I 100 students range 5455 -- 9646 word families mean = 8236,1 SD = 936,136

YEAR II 67 studentsrange 7601 -- 10000 word

families mean = 9218,21 SD = 665,933

Comparison of receptive vocab.YEAR I & YEAR IV

8236

9218

7600

7800

8000

8200

8400

8600

8800

9000

9200

9400

YEAR I YEAR IV

Comparison of receptive vocab.YEAR I & YEAR IV

mean Year I < mean Year IVt = -7,41823P-value = 1,15253E-7

Essay statisticsYEAR I & YEAR IV

YEAR I 100 essaysrange 302 -- 659 tokensmean = 486,75 SD = 64,8036

YEAR II 67 essaysrange 466 -- 1030 tokensmean = 714,343 SD = 124,573

Comparison of Type/Token RatiosYEAR I & YEAR IV

Mean t P-value

T/T Ratio I > IV 13,8747 0,0

ST/T 150 I NE IV 1,87254 0,062901

ST/T 300 I > IV 3,8786 7,5826E-5

Lexical Frequency ProfileYEAR I

100072%

200011%

UWL4%

> 200013%

1000

2000

UWL

> 2000

Lexical Frequency ProfileYEAR IV

100071%

20008%

> 200013%

UWL8%

1000

2000

UWL

> 2000

Comparison of LFP levelsYEAR I & YEAR IV

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1000 2000 UWL > 2000

YEAR I

YEAR IV

Comparison of LFP levelsYEAR I & YEAR IV

Means t P-value

1000 I NE IV 1,71543 0,088143

2000 I > IV 8,0447 2,0773E-7

UWL I < IV -12,195 4,2743E-7

> 2000 I NE IV 0,500841 0,617115

Comparison of Type/Token Ratios and receptive vocabulary size

P-valueYEAR I

P-valueYEAR IV

Type/Token 0,2331 0,1329

ST/T (150) 0,5963 0,5983

ST/T (300) 0,2546 0,4174

ST/T (450) --------- 0,1665

Comparison of LFP levels and receptive vocabulary size

P-valueYEAR I

P-valueYEAR IV

2000 0,8743 0,3110

UWL 0,8429 0,7463

> 2000 0,0238 0,0353