The Importance of Strategies

in EFL Vocabulary Acquisition

By Lajtai Ádám

English Studies – Applied Linguistics

Consultant: Dr. Horváth József

Department of English Applied Linguistics

University of Pécs

2013

Abstract

Effective vocabulary learning has long been a major difficulty for many language

learners. According to many studies, it is virtually impossible to achieve palpable progress in

English without expanding vocabulary in parallel. This experimental study aims to investigate

the influence factors like learning styles and strategies have on vocabulary acquisition in the

context of the Institute of English Studies in Pécs. The study enlisted the help of Test Your

Vocab, a website designed to estimate the vocabulary size of the respondents. To produce

quantitative data, a questionnaire was designed to determine whether there is any difference in

these factors (learning styles and strategies) between the more effective and less effective

learners. Despite it being a pilot study, it found very meaningful data that in most cases

correspond to the data produced by other studies in the field. The Test Your Vocab scores

revealed that the students’ average vocabulary size is not exceptionally good, but it is indeed

above the national average. The data yielded by the questionnaire implied that there are some

very beneficial styles and strategies, whereas methods might slow down vocabulary

acquisition. The results of this study may prove useful (more so if vindicated in other

contexts) to learners and teachers alike who wish to enhance the rate of vocabulary

acquisition.

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge the support and

contribution of few people. If it hadn’t been for these people, the last some months could have

meant a much bigger struggle for my thesis project. Firstly, I would like to say millions of

thanks to my consultant and supervisor József Horváth, without whose invaluable help, I

could not have progressed the way I did. It was also his highly motivational and inspiring

personality that got me interested in applied linguistics and made me strive for perfection

when writing this thesis.

I also owe a lot to my mother for her patience and understanding, and her unbelievable

support not only in these months but in the last fifteen years.

I have to say special thanks to my friend Barbara for her help with the framing of the

questionnaire and her also precious advice on the evaluation. Many thanks to Patrícia and

Daniela as well for their help with the parts which had to be evaluated manually, I know it

was an excruciatingly boring task to do.

And to all the teachers at the university who assisted me in administering the

questionnaire and also to Éva, the secretary of the institute, who helped me in reaching out to

the respondents and provided me with some very valuable data.

And last, but not least, to the 76 students of English at the faculty who devoted some time

to complete the questionnaire and give me meaningful data to evaluate. I really appreciate

your help.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 2

Chapter One: Vocabulary Acquisition and Vocabulary Size

1.1 Vocabulary Size and Depth in English 3

1.2 Learning Vocabulary: Cognitive Styles and Strategies 6

1.3 Teaching Vocabulary 10

1.4 Vocabulary Assessment 12

Chapter Two: Learning Strategies In Vocabulary Acquisition

2.1 Research Question 14

2.2 Data Collection Instruments 16

2.3 Participants and Procedure 19

2.4 Results and Discussion 20

2.4.1 Overall average vocabulary size 20

2.4.2 Year of study 21

2.4.3 Self-rating of English and vocabulary 22

2.4.4 Enjoyment of learning 22

2.4.5 Outside-of-class English learning 23

2.4.6 Language learning styles 24

2.4.7 Language learning strategies 26

Conclusion and Limitations 32

References 34

Appendices 37

2

Introduction

When I was preparing for my intermediate level language exam in 2006, I asked my

English teacher what she reckoned to be the single most important thing in language learning.

Her answer was a simple: ‘vocabulary’. I believe that her answer would be the same six years

later as well, and also, I usually answer with the same word when my friends with less

experience in English learning ask me what (in my opinion) the most significant difference

between two levels (mostly intermediate and advanced) of English proficiency is.

I have noticed that when these friends talk about their proficiency in English, elements

like grammatical knowledge, fluency, reading and writing skills are always mentioned, but

many ignore vocabulary as a separate element. Personally, I have always imagined grammar

as the core or the frame of a language, and vocabulary as a magical particle that gives mass to

our knowledge. Several studies (Nation & Waring, 1997; Hu & Nation, 2000; Nation, 2001;

Nation & Meara, 2002) also suggest that one might not make a long progress in English

learning without an adequate size of vocabulary, as higher levels of the language require a

higher amount of known words.

Vocabulary acquisition is of key importance when learning a language, and thus the

question arises: ‘how should I learn all these words?’ In the present study I will measure the

English vocabulary size of BA English majors and minors in Hungary and find connections

between their vocabulary knowledge and the strategies they use to learn new words.

3

Vocabulary Acquisition and Vocabulary Size

1.1 Vocabulary Size and Depth in EFL

Measuring the exact vocabulary size of a language and the vocabulary size of a language

learner, of course, is only a distant dream of a linguist. There are several linguistic issues to be

discussed before even attempting to assess the size of one’s vocabulary. Such an issue, for

example, is the definition of a “word” itself. There are several definitions of what a word is

according to which one could attempt to count the size of a person’s vocabulary: such are

word types, lemmas and word families. All of them are connected to sight vocabulary, which

represents the amount of words known well enough to be recognized by the learner quickly

and accurately. Using word types in such a study can be discarded easily because it would

mean that the researcher must count every form of a word (e.g. friend, friends, friendly,

unfriendly, friendship) as different word types, thus even a rough estimate of the vocabulary

size is virtually impossible. A better way to measure vocabulary size is using lemmas or word

families. A lemma consists of a headword and its inflected forms: teach, teaches, taught etc.

A (form-based) word family, on the other hand, includes a headword (e.g. teach) and all the

words that are derived or inflected from it: teach, teacher, taught, teachable etc, as such it is

closer to the definition of the word (Macaro, 2006). As most of the studies on vocabulary size

(Hirsch and Nation, 1992; Hu & Nation, 2000; Nation, 2001; Macaro, 2006), headwords and

word families will be used to represent vocabulary knowledge in this study to avoid (or at

least mitigate) the discrepancies between the source texts and data collection methods used in

the present paper.

Individual vocabulary size can be assumed as the amount of headwords (excluding its

inflected and derived forms as separate types) known. There have been several attempts so far

to measure the vocabulary size of English language, which is considered to have the largest

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vocabulary of all the languages: Goulden, Nation and Read (1990) examined Webster’s Third

New International Dictionary (1963) and found that it contained about 54,000 word families,

but of course, this number has changed in the last 50 years. Mastery of the complete lexicon

of any language is beyond the capacity of not only second language but also native speakers.

According to Schmitt (2000), native speakers of English know roughly 20,000 word families

on average at the age of 20. As far as the size of vocabulary in EFL is concerned, several

books or lists have been designed so far to help English learners acquire the most frequent

words of each levels of the language, such was the “General Service List” devised by Michael

West in 1953 containing a list of about 2,300 frequently used headwords (West, 1953), and

Averil Coxhead’s “New Academic Word List”, containing 570 additional headwords

(Coxhead, 2000).

A vocabulary size of 2,000-3,000 words, as studies conducted by Hirsch and Nation

show, could cover the 94-97% of unsimplified novels (e.g. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis

Caroll or The Pearl by John Steinbeck) written mostly for young native speakers of English.

A coverage level of this rate might seem good enough at first sight, but statistically it means

that the reader will encounter 3-7 unfamiliar word tokens in every 100 tokens (Hirsch &

Nation, 1992, pp. 689-692). It is necessary, of course, to make a distinction between the texts

analyzed for vocabulary knowledge. In an everyday conversation the first 2,000 headwords

mean 90% coverage, but the same 2,000 headwords would not be enough even for

understanding the 80% of newspapers or the 78% of academic texts (Hu & Nation, 2000, p.

406). In a study conducted in the Netherlands to investigate the amount of words necessary

for reading academic texts, it was found that knowledge of at least 10,000 words is

indispensable for learning at the tertiary level (Hazenberg & Hulstijn, 1996). In a more recent

study, however, Paul Nation sets the minimum at 15,000 to 20,000 headwords for academic

learning without disturbances due to unknown words (2001, p. 20).

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This vast difference between the several text-types is due to the distribution of words in

the vocabulary. According to Nation, there are four groups of words: high-frequency words,

academic words, technical words and low-frequency words. High-frequency words make up

about the 78-80% of running words (tokens) in academic texts; they usually include the first

2,000 words of most academic corpora. Academic words (included e.g. in Coxhead’s AWL)

usually make up 9-11% of the tokens in academic texts. The two remaining groups are

regularly analyzed together in several studies as ‘other vocabulary’; averagely they represent

the 9-14% of running words in academic texts (Nation, 2001, pp. 9-15).

Another key concept when discussing vocabulary is depth. Whereas vocabulary size (or

breadth) is generally regarded to be the number of words known by a learner, vocabulary

depth is taken to mean how well the learner knows these words (Meara & Wolter, 2004, p.

85). Several studies (Laufer, 1998; Laufer & Paribakht, 1998) suggest that there are two main

components of word knowledge: we can address our knowledge as passive (or receptive)

and/or as active (or productive). Also, we may distinguish between two different kinds of

productive knowledge: controlled productive and free productive. Passive knowledge of a

word means that the learner understands at least one meaning of the word and can define it to

some extent. Controlled productive entails producing and using words when entailed by a

task, whereas free productive has to do with the use of words at one’s free will. By rule of

thumb, passive knowledge always makes up for the greatest amount among them and while

the learner improves in his or her language proficiency, the learner “transfers” words from the

passive knowledge to the productive knowledge (Laufer, 1998, pp. 257-261).

As this study focuses on the vocabulary acquisition strategies of BA students of English

at the University of Pécs, we can turn our attention to the cognitive styles and strategies that

influence vocabulary acquisition.

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1.2 Learning Vocabulary: Cognitive Styles and Strategies

The vocabulary we learn is the part of our declarative memory, more precisely our

semantic memory, which stores factual knowledge like the name of the painter who painted

The Starry Night or what the word ‘blunderbuss’ means; but the process through which these

facts get stuck in our memory is not this simple (Goldstein, 2008, pp. 186-188). When a child

begins to acquire the native language it happens due to exposure to the language in the

environment. This repeated exposure or ‘meaning-focused input’ is, of course not exclusive to

first language acquisition, it also happens during EFL reading and listening. To enhance this

so-called incidental learning through reading and listening, three major factors must be met.

First, the unknown vocabulary should make up only about two percent of the tokens read or

heard. Second, a very large quantity of input (1 million tokens per year) is necessary. Third,

the learner must be made to notice the unknown words by simple consciousness-raising or by

repeating unknown words in the text (Nation & Meara, 2002, pp. 39-40).

Acquisition of new words is not exclusive to only two of the four skills (reading and

listening) however, it is not easy to provide examples when a learner comes up with new

words during speaking or writing. The two productive skills can be used to increase the

vocabulary depth by putting words from our passive/receptive knowledge into use and thus

transferring them into the active/productive (controlled in deliberate learning situations vs.

free in everyday speaking/writing) vocabulary (Nation & Meara, 2002, pp. 41).

Nation and Meara state that the most common way in vocabulary learning and teaching is

deliberate vocabulary learning (2002, pp. 41). Also, this method is proved to be more efficient

than incidental learning, as Schmidt (1995) suggests that noticing and giving attention to

learning always improves the rate of acquisition (pp. 45-49). Deliberate vocabulary learning

programs, however, can be reinforced or consolidated in the mind through the aforementioned

meaning-focused input and output (Nation & Meara, 2002, pp. 42).

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The rate of learning depends on other factors apart from these three basic methods.

Second language (L2) learners vary on a number of dimensions, i.e. personality, age,

motivation, aptitude and learning styles (Ellis, 1985, p. 99). Although personality, age,

motivation and aptitude are of equal importance and relevance, the present study focuses on

the learning/cognitive styles and learning strategies.

A cognitive style is the ‘profile of the individual’s approach to learning, a blueprint of the

habitual or preferred way the individual perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning

environment’. Cognitive styles differ from learning styles in a way that its definition is free

of educational interference, and thus it can have several meanings based on the field it is

applied in (Dörnyei, 2005, pp. 120-123). When discussing L2 learning, two kinds of learners

are distinguished based on cognitive styles: the ‘field dependent” and the ‘field-independent’

learner. Field-dependent learners are more responsive to their environment and social

interactions, and tend to care about the social cues more than field-independents. This style is

said to be beneficial when prompted to tasks that emphasized communication rather than

formal aspects of a language. Field-independents, however, are in advantage because they

have a greater capacity to channel attention selectively and to separate the essential from the

inessential (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 137). Despite these obvious differences between the two styles,

it has not been proven that either of the two has an overall advantage in language proficiency.

With SLA in question, it is useful to consult Willing’s (1994) four language learning styles:

1. Communicative learners, who tend to like watching/listening native speakers, talking

to friends, using the language out of classroom context.

2. Analytical learners, who are better at studying grammar, they learn from English

books, newspapers and usually like learning alone, analyzing their mistakes.

3. Authority-oriented learners, who prefer the teacher to explain everything and they

mostly rely on their notebooks and textbooks.

4. Concrete learners, who tend to like games, pictures, film, video, using cassettes, and

practicing English outside class” (Wong & Nunan, 2011, p. 145).

8

Figure 1 – The four language learning styles (Willing, 1994)

In a recent study, Wong and Nunan proved that the more efficient learners of English

were the “communicative” ones and the least efficient were the ‘authority-oriented’ learners

(Wong & Nunan, 2011, p. 150).

While a learning style is a broad term for the several individual, mostly psychological

qualities of a language learner, and it does not necessarily make a difference in linguistic

competence, language learning strategies have been shown by studies (Macaro, 2001;

Macaro, 2006; Wong & Nunan, 2011) to correlate with the rate of acquisition and learning

success. Learning strategies are, as defined by Oxford (1999, p. 518), a set of specific actions,

behaviors, or techniques that students use to improve their progress. Although even the mere

existence of learning strategies have been debated, I build this paper upon Dörnyei’s (2005)

and Macaro’s (2006) views that accept and prove the existence of learning strategies.

When it comes to vocabulary learning strategies, there is a wide-range of different

strategies that could be employed to facilitate the acquisition of new words. Cook (1993)

distinguishes between two major groups of learning strategies, cognitive and metacognitive

strategies. (pp. 114) Cognitive strategies are used to manipulate and process information to

enhance learning, such strategies are: repetition, resourcing (using dictionaries), translation

9

(using L1 as a basis for understanding L2), grouping, deduction (e.g. morphological deduction

to find the meaning of a word), recombination, contextualization (placing the word into a

language sequence), keywords, guessing the meaning, elaboration or transfer. Metacognitive

strategies entail planning and monitoring the learning process itself, they include self-

management, self-monitoring, self-evaluation and directed/selective attention. (Cook, 1993,

pp. 114-115). In 1997, Schmitt devised a new taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies,

which included five groups of these strategies: social, memory, discovery, determination and

consolidation (cognitive or metacognitive) strategies (1997). Most of these strategies can be

used with one of the three main vocabulary learning methods, e.g. guessing the meaning of a

word might be a good idea in incidental, meaning-focused reading, and it bears some results

in enhancing vocabulary learning (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001). Pichette, De Serres, and

Lafontaine examined the effectiveness of sentence reading and writing in vocabulary learning

and the results were convincing of the efficiency of these activities (2011, pp. 75-79). A study

carried out by Dóczi, which used Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies,

showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the use of strategies between

learners of different years of study (2011, p. 153). Ellis analyzed the vocabulary learning

process of a whole group of language learners: his results showed that the first part is creating

vocabulary lists, the second element is learning words in a familiar context and the third (and

final) part is practicing it and transferring it into the productive vocabulary. He also noticed

that vocabulary was the area that learners seem most conscious of (Ellis, 1985, pp. 103-104).

A more recent study of vocabulary learning strategies shows that a vast number of learners

(75% of the participants), who have been known to create vocabulary lists give up doing so

after some weeks of studying be (Leeke and Shaw, 2000, p. 275). Nation and Meara (2001)

give guidelines to vocabulary learning strategies, e.g. for creating word cards, which is

considered to be one of the easiest methods of deliberate vocabulary learning (pp. 41-42).

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1.3 Teaching Vocabulary

As a relatively large amount of language learning happens in the classroom, it is also

important to discuss the role of a teacher in vocabulary learning. Nation suggests that the

traditional face-to-face deliberate vocabulary teaching is one of the least efficient ways of

developing vocabulary knowledge (2005, p. 1). Despite this claim, Laufer proved that - with

appropriate teaching and learning strategies - very convincing developments can be reached:

in her research she found out that roughly 8-9 word families (passive vocabulary) can be

learnt in every high school lesson, which means an annual improvement of 1,600 word

families (Laufer, 1998, pp. 264-266).

Learning a word involves knowing several aspects of it (this is called the ‘learning

burden’): its meaning, its spoken and written form, its grammatical functions, collocations of

the word, restrictions of using the word, the parts from which the word is constructed. Apart

from explaining these aspects, it is the teacher’s task to clarify the L2 words similarities or the

lack of those to its counterpart in L1 (Nation, 2005, pp. 2-3). Nation offers several vocabulary

development activities that require little and also some that require more advance planning by

the language teachers. The former include activities like learning to use the dictionary, cutting

up words to examine its parts, suggesting collocates, guessing the meaning of the word from

context; while the latter involve semantic analyses, crossword puzzles, building word family

tables, completing unfinished sentences (Nation, 2005, pp. 3-5).

As the students might go against the teacher’s suggestions and learn words using their

individual strategies, Laufer and Hulstijn provide a solution that can be applied for every

learner in every classroom. The teachers should give the students reading material with an

appropriate amount of unknown words (2-3%) and repetition of these words to “force”

incidental vocabulary acquisition (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001).

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Nation summarizes a good vocabulary exercise with five criteria (2005, p. 5):

1) It focuses on useful, high frequency words that have already been met before.

2) It focuses on a useful aspect of learning burden and it has a useful learning goal.

3) It gets learners to meet or use the word in ways that establish new mental connections for

the word; it sets up useful learning conditions involving generative use.

4) It involves the learners in active search for and evaluating the target words in the exercise.

5) It does not bring related unknown or partly known words together, so it avoids interference.

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1.4 Vocabulary Assessment

As there was an increase of interest in vocabulary research beginning in the 1980s,

several new types of methods were designed for the analysis of vocabulary knowledge

(vocabulary size particularly). The emergence of computer programs also brought a great

change in vocabulary assessment and evaluation, as through a corpus linguistic method, data

about the ‘lexical sophistication’ of a language user could be analyzed moments after writing.

Such lexical analysis was carried out by Lehmann when she examined the lexical frequency

profile of student writings via corpus linguistic methods (2003, 172-181). Several aspects

(lexical frequency, sophistication, breadth and depth) of a learner’s vocabulary knowledge can

be analyzed through web-based programs (e.g. www.lextutor.ca) based on the largest corpora

of English.

Several paper-based test types have been designed to measure the vocabulary size of a

learner or to measure what has been learned during a vocabulary development course. One

type is the Vocabulary Levels Test, which has several sections for words from a different

frequency level. The words in the task are usually sampled from frequency lists (GSL, UWL,

AWL etc.) or a corpus (Read, 2007, pp. 109-110). This is a sample unit of a Vocabulary

Levels Test (Nation & Meara, 2002, p. 47):

1 business

2 clock

3 horse _________________ part of a house

4 pencil _________________ animal with four legs

5 shoe _________________ something used for writing

6 wall

These kinds of tests measure both the breadth and the depth of a learner’s vocabulary, as

because of the additional (non-used) answers, there is a little chance for guessing the meaning

of a word.

13

Another type of vocabulary tests is a Yes/No test where the learners see a word (mostly

on a computer) and then have to decide whether they could provide the meaning for the word

or not. Such web-based tests (e.g. www.testyourvocab.com) are useful for measuring a

learner’s vocabulary in a relatively short amount of time. A very unique feature of some of

these Yes/No tests is that they usually include a non-existent word (or an ‘imitation’ of a

word) to rule out that some of the respondents dishonestly choose ‘yes’ (opting for ‘yes’ for

such a word would mean a punishment in the results) to improve their scores (Nation &

Meara, 2002, pp. 46-48).

The present study, as stated earlier, focuses on the vocabulary size of BA English

students of English and the effective relationship between their cognitive styles/learning

strategies. An empirical study was carried out based on the aforementioned Test Your Vocab

site, a web-based Yes/No quantitative test to establish the average vocabulary size and the

vocabulary range of the respondents.

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Learning Strategies In Vocabulary Acquisition

2.1 Research Questions

The main goal of the study reported here was to explore whether there are significant and

identifiable differences and concurrences in learning styles and learning strategies between

learners of English with larger and smaller vocabulary size at the tertiary level in the context

of the English Department at the University of Pécs. In other words, the aim of the research

was to examine whether there were attitudes, learning styles and strategy preferences that

differentiated learners with a stronger vocabulary, from those who have a weaker one. As

such, the present study relied and drew deeply on Wong and Nunan’s state-of-the-art study on

the learning styles and strategies of effective language learners, which found that there is a

significant correspondence between learning styles and learning effectiveness (2011, p. 150.).

Along the lines of Wong and Nunan’s research, the study attempted to reproduce the results in

another context: namely, that this study focuses on vocabulary size instead of language

learning effectiveness. To decide whether a respondent falls into the group with a larger or

smaller vocabulary size, the present study enlisted the help of the already discussed Yes/No

vocabulary assessment site: Test Your Vocab. Although this online corpus-based program has

been developed for several years and has already had hundreds of thousand respondents, it is

still far from being a completely reliable vocabulary test (See the Limitations section).

Despite some easily identifiable flaws and discrepancies in the program, it is widely believed

that the results it yields are indeed useful for a comparative analysis and also for pedagogical

reasons. The present study also attempts to call Wong and Nunan’s findings (2011) into

question, with the distribution of learning styles being mainly debated. Ultimately, this study

may also have pedagogical functions, as the research was also intended to provide guidelines

about vocabulary strategy preferences for teachers and learners, who wish to add a

metacognitive side to their teaching or learning.

15

Drawing on the discussed literature, seven aspects of English and vocabulary learning

were investigated to determine the effect of several factors on vocabulary acquisition:

1. What is the overall average vocabulary size of the respondents?

2. Are there any differences in the year of study of learners with a larger and learners

with smaller vocabulary size?

3. Do learners with stronger vocabulary and learners with weaker vocabulary differ in

their self-rating of English and vocabulary knowledge?

4. Do learners with stronger vocabulary and learners with weaker vocabulary differ in

their enjoyment of learning English and new words?

5. Is there any difference in the amount of time learners with stronger vocabulary and

learners with weaker vocabulary devote to practicing English off campus?

6. Is there any difference between the overall learning styles of learners with a larger

vocabulary size and learners with a smaller vocabulary size?

7. Is there any difference between the vocabulary learning strategy preferences of

learners with a larger vocabulary size and learners with a smaller vocabulary size?

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2.2 Data Collection Instruments

The data collection instrument for the quantitative study consisted of a two-part online

survey. In the first part, the respondents were asked to complete the questionnaire at the Test

Your Vocab site, mentioned earlier in “Vocabulary Assessment”. Test Your Vocab is

essentially a Yes/No vocabulary test, originally designed for an American-Brazilian linguistic

research project. It uses a set of words carefully selected from the British National Corpus,

with words ranging from universally known words like go or know to some exceptionally

hard ones like uxoricide or funambulist. The test consists of two main parts: the first one

measures broad vocabulary level, while the second measures narrow vocabulary level based

on the answers given in the first part. According to the creators of the site, the Test Your

Vocab engine works out only close estimates, with a ± 10.33% margin of error.

The second part of the quantitative survey was a questionnaire administered online via

Google Forms, and it is reproduced at Appendix A. The reason for using an online survey was

that the Google Forms software automatically analyzed, categorized and evaluated the data,

which would have been a hugely time-consuming task, if done manually. The survey had two

main goals: to calculate the average vocabulary size based on the results achieved on the

“Test Your Vocab” site, and also to examine the cognitive styles and the learning strategies of

the participants. This questionnaire can be divided into three parts: the first nine introductory

items dealt with the common factual, behavioural and attitudinal elements; the second set of

items was designed to examine the learning styles of the participants; and the third part asked

for the participants’ vocabulary-building strategies. The first two parts of the survey consisted

of elements of which many were adapted from Wong & Nunan’s research on learning styles

and strategies (2011), which in turn was based on Willing’s study on learning strategies

(1994). As was explained above, the first question items solicited biographical and attitudinal

information related to vocabulary learning:

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The respondents’ Test Your Vocab score

Program which the respondent attends (English major or minor)

Year of study

Number of hours English is used weekly

Self-rating of English language proficiency

Self-rating of English vocabulary

Extent to which the respondent enjoys learning English

Extent to which the respondent enjoys learning new words

The respondents’ judgment of their Test Your Vocab score

The second part of the online questionnaire consisted of multi-scale items designed to

sort the respondents to one (or more) of the four language learning styles set by Willing

(1994): analytical, authority-oriented, communicative and concrete. This block of questions

included 24 items, six questions concerning each learning style. This part asked the

respondents to indicate their attitude towards the 24 learning strategies by rating them on a

five point Likert-type scale. The data were later analyzed and evaluated using IBM’s SPSS

Statistics software to determine the respondents’ major (the most points) and minor (the

second most points) learning style.

The third main part of the qualitative survey was designed to examine and evaluate the

learning strategies used by the respondents. As mentioned earlier in Chapter One, the present

study and questionnaire partly relies on Dóczi’s 2011 research and survey on university

students’ vocabulary strategies at the Eötvös Lóránd University, which in turn used the

taxonomy of Schmitt (1997) as a basis for the questionnaire. The quantitative survey thus,

was a loose adaptation of Dóczi’s state-of-the-art survey, using 29 items for four main

questions, which (as was discussed earlier) corresponded to Schmitt’s taxonomy of

vocabulary learning strategies (1997):

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How do you meet new vocabulary? (7 items)

How do you discover the meaning of a new word? (5 items)

How do you memorize new words? (9 items)

How do you try to consolidate new vocabulary? (8 items)

In this case as well, all of these questions were to be answered with a five-point Likert-scale

to determine how often a particular respondent uses these strategies.

Besides examining which learning styles and strategies are the most favored by the

students, the study also attempted to evaluate the influence of these cognitive styles and

strategies on vocabulary knowledge. All the answers were sorted into numerous subgroups to

determine whether e.g. people who try to guess the word meaning out of the context have any

advantage in their vocabulary size.

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2.3 Participants and Procedure

The main goal of this study was to analyze the vocabulary size and learning strategies of

BA students of English in the context of the University of Pécs. The information requested

from the registrar’s office of the university revealed that 241 students participate currently in

the full-time BA English program, while there are 47 full-time minor students of English as of

14 March, 2013.

In all, 76 students responded to the survey, however, only 72 are included in the statistics,

as the questionnaire yielded four highly suspicious Test Your Vocab scores, which were

eliminated from the results. Two were above 35,000, even though Test Your Vocab’s blog

reveals that native speakers of English over 60 years of age have an average vocabulary size

of only about 32-33,000 words. Two other scores were below 2,000, which were eliminated to

balance the results and also due to improbability of someone with that low score passing an

advanced final exam, which is a prerequisite of admission to the BA English program. The 72

respondents’ distribution based on their year of study was appropriately even, with 17 first-

year, 22 second-year and 24 third (or above)-year majors responding to the online survey. The

remaining nine students are studying English as a minor. These figures mean that on average

every fourth student of the English Department answered the questionnaire.

The procedure of administering the questionnaire was made easier and faster thanks to

the easy-to-use Google Forms website; stratified random sampling and quota sampling

methods were used to choose and reach the students. The hyperlink of the online survey was

in the first round posted to the wall of English studies students’ Facebook groups, then it was

distributed to them by the tutors of Reading and Writing seminars and Applied Linguistics

lectures. The survey, which was made open to respondents on March 2, 2013 and was closed

on March 11, included no compulsory items, thus it was unbelievably surprising to see that

99% of the respondents filled out every item and 30% of them asked for feedback via e-mail.

20

2.4 Results and Discussion

The main independent variable throughout the empirical study was the vocabulary score

achieved at the Test Your Vocab site; these scores were analyzed to determine the influence

certain attitudes, styles or strategy preferences had on the scores.

2.4.1 What is the overall average vocabulary size of the respondents?

The blog of Test Your Vocab suggested that the average vocabulary size of Hungarian

respondents is 10,238 words, with this result Hungary is in the 36th

position among the

countries where English is not an official language (For more details, see

www.testyourvocab.com/blog and Appendix B). Based on the results received when piloting

the questionnaire with my closest English major friends, I anticipated a result in the 13,000-

14,000 range, or at least a result over the national average. After eliminating the suspicious

two highest and two lowest scores, the overall average vocabulary size for BA students of

English at the University of Pécs turned out to be 11,400 words. The result is 11,34% higher

than the national average, but the figure is only 1% short of falling into the margin of error

reported by the developers. The highest vocabulary score was of 25,200 words, and it was set

by a third-year major, while the negative record of 2,570 was achieved by a second-year

major student. Test Your Vocab’s blog also offers insight into the scores achieved by native

speakers of English at different years of age (See Appendix B). On this graph one can easily

identify that the average of 11,400 corresponds to eight-year-old native speakers’ average

receptive vocabulary (11,382), while native speakers of English are reported to have a

vocabulary size of approximately 23,000-24,000 words at the age of 21. Even though the

students’ results are – as expected – higher than the national average their vocabulary needs

lots of improvement to be called native-like.

21

2.4.2 Are there any differences in the year of study of learners with larger and learners

with smaller vocabulary?

The friends and teachers I contacted for advice presupposed that there would be no

differences between students in different years of study. Despite these pessimistic guesses

(with some saying that the first years will have the advantage), the questionnaire yielded the

most likely and scientifically anticipated results. The first-year students’ mean score turned

out to be 9,550 words, the second-years students’ 11,049, while the respondents in their third

or more years have a vocabulary size of 13,267 words on average. The mean score for the

minor students was 10,238. As it is clearly visible on Figure 2 (with the margins of error

included), there is a rather significant difference between the freshmen’s vocabulary breadth

and that of the students in their last year(s) of study.

Figure 2 – Vocabulary scores by year of study

These results may indicate that the English studies program is definitely a significant factor in

the learners’ progress, although, according to the Test Your Vocab blog, a difference of 1,700

words also occurs between 18-year-old and 22-year-old natives as well.

22

2.4.3 Do learners with stronger vocabulary and learners with weaker vocabulary differ

in their self-rating of English and vocabulary knowledge?

Wong and Nunan stated that most of the respondents in their survey were able to give

accurate ratings of their own language ability (2011). Questions 4 and 5 in the present survey

solicited information about the respondents’ self-rating of both English proficiency and

vocabulary. In both instances, the approximately the 80% of the respondents rated their

general English and vocabulary knowledge as high, choosing the third or fourth answers for

the question (See Appendices A and C for details). Even though this means a statistically

significant difference in distribution, the scores imply that the respondents of this

questionnaire were also able to rate their proficiency accurately. There is a significant

difference of 4,200 words between the scores of those who rated their English and/or

vocabulary knowledge high and those who rated them as low (For the exact figures, see Table

1 below).

Table 1 – Vocabulary scores and distribution for Questions 4 and 5

2.4.4 Do learners with stronger vocabulary and learners with weaker vocabulary differ

in their enjoyment of learning English and new words?

Wong and Nunan’s 2011 (p. 151) study and the Test Your Vocab blog both report a

statistically significant difference in English learning effectiveness between those who enjoy

and those who do not enjoy learning the language. The results produced by this study also

revealed enjoyment of learning as a significant factor in vocabulary learning. The sixth item

23

of the survey asked simply how much the respondent enjoys learning English. It did not come

as any surprise though, that 91% of the respondents claimed to enjoy learning the language,

with only 9% opting for the neutral option. Due to the lack of substantial negative responses,

the score-related analysis of the question was omitted. The next item was concerned with the

enjoyment of vocabulary learning yielded somewhat more proportionate results: 52% of the

respondents reported to enjoy learning new words, 39% only “somewhat” enjoy vocabulary

learning, while 9% of the respondents said they “don’t really enjoy it”. It is interesting to see

the gap of 4,000 words between the “don’t really enjoy it” and the “absolutely enjoy it”

group. (See Table 2 for further details.)

Table 2 – Vocabulary scores and distribution for Question 7

2.4.5 Is there any difference in the amount of time learners with stronger vocabulary and

learners with weaker vocabulary devote to practicing English off campus?

The blog at testyourvocab.com reveals that the outside-of-class language usage makes up for

the most obvious difference, as learners who use English regularly for out-of-class activities

have a mean vocabulary size of 12,939 words compared to the average 5,824 of those who

answered with “not much” to the amount of these activities. Wong and Nunan’s research also

vindicated the hypothesis that this is one of the most important factors on English proficiency

(2011, p. 151). The data extracted from the responses correspond to these results with those

24

who ticked “Less than 5 hours [spent using English off campus]” having a mean vocabulary

size of 9,668, in contrast to the 14,183 of those answering with “More than 10 hours”. As

shown on Table 3 below, the results indicate a gradual transition in the figures and a gap of

more than 4,000 words between the two ‘extremes’.

Table 3 – Vocabulary scores and distribution of responses for Question 8

2.4.6 Is there any difference between the overall learning styles of learners with a larger

vocabulary size and learners with a smaller vocabulary size?

In their study, Wong and Nunan reported a statistically significant difference between the

learning styles of more effective and less effective learners. More than 50% of the more

effective (based on their scores achieved at a proficiency exam) were assigned to the

‘communicative’ style, which was then followed by ‘analytical’ then ‘authority-oriented’. The

less effective students were split between authority-oriented and communicative, with the

authority-oriented students just edging out the communicative learners. An interesting fact in

their study was the relatively insignificant number of learners with the ‘concrete’ style (Wong

& Nunan, 2011, pp. 150-152). In contrast to Wong and Nunan’s study, I also analyzed the

second most characteristic learning styles as well which I call ‘minor learning styles’ in the

results. The present study yielded substantially different results, mainly because of the

surprisingly high number of ‘concrete’ learners, which phenomenon is discussed later in the

chapter. ‘Concrete’ was assigned to 37 of the 72 respondents as a ‘major style’ and to 19 as a

25

‘minor’ one. If we discount the concrete learning style, the pattern of responses is similar to

Wong and Nunan’s study. (For the results, see Figure 3).

Figure 3 – The distribution of major and minor learning styles

The score-by-style analysis revealed no significant difference between the analytical, the

communicative and the concrete styles in terms of average scores; however, learners with

authority-oriented style (as suggested by Wong and Nunan (2011, p. 151.)) are in significant

fallback.: the average score of the aforementioned three styles are in the 11,000-12,000 area,

while the authority-oriented learners have a mean score of 8,400. (See Appendix C) For the

sake of better understanding, I established two groups: the Group A includes 19 respondents

with scores 7,500 words and Group B including 19 respondents with scores over 14,500

words. The analysis of the groups’ results revealed that the less effective vocabulary learners

are inclined towards authority-oriented and concrete learning styles, while the more

successful learners are assigned the concrete and communicative styles. The statistical results

of the question are shown in Figure 4.

26

Figure 4 – Differences in the learning style of more effective and less effective vocab. learners

2.4.7 Is there any difference between the vocabulary learning strategy preferences of

learners with a larger vocabulary size and learners with a smaller vocabulary size?

The basis of the strategy-related part of the survey was based on Dóczi’s study on vocabulary

learning strategies (2011) rather than on Wong and Nunan’s which did not deal with

vocabulary acquisition specifically, although they correspond to the results to some extent.

This section does not discuss and report all the possible answers, especially in cases where the

difference was not significant or where there were not enough responses to analyze the

differences. In the analysis of each item, the neutral “Sometimes” answer is omitted from the

data. The first strategy-related question was “Where do you usually meet new words?”

exploring discovery strategies. As the figures on Table 4 suggest, most of the respondents

meet new words when reading texts (90%) for university classes, when reading for pleasure

(69%) and when talking or listening to native speakers of English (62%), while only 18%

claim to come across new vocabulary when talking or listening to non-natives.

27

(* The percentages are produced by adding the figures in the “Often” and “Most of the time”

column and dividing the sum by the number of responses. (n = 71))

The next question (“How do you discover the meaning of a new word?”) solicited

information about how the respondents try to determine the meaning of a new word, or in

other words: what determination strategies they use. Dóczi’s study found that the most

popular (98% of the respondents) strategy was contextual guessing followed by monolingual

(71%), then bilingual (64%) dictionary use (2011, p. 148). The data produced by the present

survey are similar to Dóczi’s, the three most popular determination strategies being contextual

guessing, monolingual dictionary and bilingual dictionary use. Table 5 shows the results:

The second and fifth items of this question were not analyzed in terms of Test Your Vocab

score due to the lack of tangible negative and positive answers, respectively. The results of the

remaining three items show a significant difference between Group A and Group B

respondents.

28

Figure 5 – Determination strategies of Group A and Group B respondents

As Figure 5 shows, there is a highly significant difference in the use of word form-analysis

and bilingual dictionaries between successful and unsuccessful ‘word-learners’. Respondents

with a vocabulary size over 14,500 words tend to omit the use of bilingual dictionaries,

whereas four of five Group A learners look up more often words in such dictionaries. Also, a

substantially higher number of Group B participants claimed that they tend to analyze the new

words to discover their meaning. The gap between Group A and B is not statistically

significant in the case of monolingual vocabularies (See Conclusion and Limitations).

Question 13 was designed to examine the memorization strategies of the respondents.

Dóczi’s study found that underlining and making notes, studying the word in a dictionary and

learning the word in short phrases were the most favored memory strategies in the context of

her study (2011, p. 149). The data yielded by the present survey found that “saying the word

aloud” was the only strategy that a large number of respondents claimed to use (68%), it was

followed by “associating it with a similar word in other languages” (58%) and “repeating the

words several times” (55%).

29

Although there were nine items in Question 13, only five of them are shown and are

thoroughly analyzed in this section (For all the results, see Appendix C). The statistics reveal

that more successful vocabulary learners tend to learn in short phrases and study the words in

monolingual dictionaries more often than Group A learners, while the less effective learnerss

use strategies like „underlining words and taking notes” and „repeating the word several

times” more often (See Figure 6).

Figure 6 - Memorization strategies of Group A and Group B respondents

30

The last data solicited by the survey was in connection with the cognitive and

metacognitive consolidation strategies of the respondents. Dóczi’s research revealed that the

majority of the respondents use cognitive strategies for vocabulary acquisition (2011, p. 151).

The most popular strategies were “using new words when writing” (90,5%), repeating the

word (84,5%) and “using new words when speaking” (80%). Table 7 shows the occurrence of

cognitive strategies:

The score-by-strategy results show that more effective learners more often make efforts to use

the freshly acquired words in speaking and/or in writing, while the less effective (Group A)

learners tend to use vocabulary textbooks and repetition techniques instead.

Figure 7 – Cognitive consolidation strategies of Group A and Group B respondents

31

The survey designed by Dóczi produced data that showed the relatively rare use of

metacognitive strategies. The only regular metacognitive technique was “using English

language media”, with 69% of the respondents claiming to practice it (2011, pp. 151-152). In

my study, I found that there was a significant difference between the usage of cognitive and

metacognitive strategies. As in Dóczi’s case, 82% of the respondents reported to use “English

language media” to learn new words. The remaining three metacognitive items were

surprisingly unpopular, the highest percentage being 17% for “I regularly revise new and old

vocabulary.” Table 8 shows the distribution of metacognitive strategies:

Due to the relative lack of negative (14.5) and positive (14.6-14.8) answers, I saw no point in

analyzing the difference in metacognitive strategy usage between Group A and Group B

respondents.

32

Conclusion and Limitations

Despite it being an experimental study, some preliminary conclusions can be made and

taken into consideration for a more precise and improved study.

The answer for the first research question (Overall average vocabulary size) was already

discussed in earlier sections to be not 100% reliable. Even though Test Your Vocab is highly

praised site, many flaws can be found in the system: the random selection of the tested words

and the possibility of dishonest scores deteriorate the precision of the software. Despite these

obvious limitations, the answer was around the anticipated average and may be used for

comparative purposes. These tests could also prove to be useful in tracking vocabulary

progress and keeping up students’ motivation.

The second research question (Year of study) could be answered with a simple “Yes” due

to the large gap between 1st year and 3

rd year students. We could praise the English

Department for this success however, as was mentioned in section 2.4.2, the increase in

vocabulary might also be incidental or due to “natural” growth.

It was very surprising to see that most of the respondents did not overrate nor underrate

their English and vocabulary knowledge (Self-rating of English and vocabulary). I believe

that it is a particularly beneficial thing to know our progress as without an “origo”, one might

get lost in the maze of vocabulary.

The fourth question about the enjoyment of English and vocabulary learning produced

the anticipated results: students who enjoy learning have an overall advantage in their scores.

The direction of influence is dubious, because I feel that having confidence in my abilities

gives me a much desired boost in studying.

33

The results for the fifth research question (Outside-of-class use) were also anticipated, but

the question arises in this case as well: do the more effective learners use English outside the

school because they have a better knowledge, or is it the other way round?

The sixth question about Learning styles produced surprising results being aware of

Wong and Nunan’s and Willing’s original study. I reckon that this is the part where both their

and my survey was flawed the most mainly due to the wording of the questionnaire and the

2011/2013 interpretation of Willing’s 1994 taxonomy of language learning styles.

The seventh research question yielded (Learning strategies) many interesting results that

may be useful for teachers and learners alike. The results have shown that using more active

and communicative strategies and relying less on our native language is a way to achieve

better results. Learners with issues in vocabulary acquisition might use the results of this

survey to change their learning strategy for better acquisition rate. Despite the statistical

significance of the results, however, it cannot be determined using only the questionnaire

whether it is the strategy that boosts the rate of vocabulary acquisition, or whether it is the

larger vocabulary size that has an influence on the strategy preference.

There are many further research possibilities in this field: e.g. the survey could be

reproduced in other contexts (high schools, other tertiary institutions) as well to gather more

data to further vindicate the underlying theory. This may take up a huge amount of time, but

as vocabulary is a main (and I believe the most interesting) element in language learning, that

gives mass to our proficiency, every little progress would be worth the effort.

34

References

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37

APPENDIX A

Survey: The Vocabulary of BA Students of English at the University of Pécs

Dear participant,

My name is Ádám Lajtai, a third-year BA student of English and History at the University of Pécs. I

would like you to help me with my vocabulary acquisition-themed thesis by completing this survey,

which takes about 20 minutes.

As the first task, I would like you to click on the following link: www.testyourvocab.com. This site

can estimate your English vocabulary size by using a quick three-part test. As is explained on the site

itself, it is highly recommended (for more reliable results) that you mark only those words that you

know for sure. Both the test and this questionnaire are completely anonymous. Thank you for your

help!

For any questions or comments, please contact me via adamlajtai12@gmail.com.

1. What score did you achieve at Test Your Vocab?

2. Which year of study are you currently in?

A) 1st year B) 2nd year C) 3rd year or above

3. Are you an English major or minor?

A) Major B) Minor

4. How do you rate your level of English proficiency?

A) I know the vocabulary, expressions, and grammar to talk about basic subjects in

English. I can talk about the past and the future.

B) I have the communication strategies to discuss most subjects in English. I know the

vocabulary and expressions to use in most situations.

C) I can understand long conversations in English on unfamiliar topics. I have a solid

understanding of English vocabulary and expressions.

D) I can participate fluently in English in most conversations and discussions on a

variety of topics.

38 5. How do you rate your vocabulary size?

A) I usually struggle to understand both general and academic texts mostly due of my

weak vocabulary. I believe I must learn lots of new words to improve my English.

B) I have the basic vocabulary knowledge to understand the core of what I read or

hear, be it general or academic, but sometimes I struggle to understand everything mostly

because of unknown words.

C) I understand the majority of the words I encounter while reading texts or listening

to speakers of English. I also have an adequate vocabulary to make sense of academic

texts.

D) I am very confident in my vocabulary; I hardly ever come across any unfamiliar

words even in the academic field.

6. How much do you enjoy learning English?

A) I don’t enjoy it at all.

B) I don’t really enjoy it.

C) I somewhat enjoy it.

D) I really enjoy it.

E) I absolutely enjoy it.

7. How much do you enjoy learning new words?

A) I don’t enjoy it at all.

B) I don’t really enjoy it.

C) I somewhat enjoy it.

D) I really enjoy it.

E) I absolutely enjoy it.

8. How many hours a week do you use English off campus?

A) Less than 5

B) 5 to 9

C) More than 10

9. Did your Test Your Vocab score meet your expectations?

A) Absolutely, it is better than what I expected.

B) Yes, I expected a similar result.

39 C) No, I expected a better result.

D) Other: __________

10. The next items deal with your learning styles. Please select the most appropriate answer.

Strongly

disagree Disagree

Neither

disagree,

nor agree Agree

Strongly

agree

In English class, I like to learn by reading.

I like the teacher to give us problems to work on.

In class, I like to learn by conversation.

In class, I like to learn by games.

I want to write everything in a notebook.

I like the teacher to let me find my mistakes.

I like to learn English in a small group.

In class, I like to learn by pictures, films, videos or

records.

I like the teacher to explain everything to us.

I like to study English by myself.

I like to learn English with the whole class.

I like to learn English by surfing the Internet.

I like the teacher to tell me all my mistakes.

I like to study grammar.

I like to learn English words by hearing them.

I like to learn English by doing something (while using

English).

I like the teacher to help me talk about my interests.

I like to learn many new words.

I like to learn by talking to friends in English.

I like to learn by watching films, series in English.

I can learn English words by seeing them.

I like to practice sounds and pronunciation.

I like to learn by watching, listening to native speakers of

English.

I like to learn English by using it outside class (in stores

etc).

11. How do you meet new vocabulary?

Never Rarely Sometimes Often

Most of

the time

In seminars or lectures

When reading texts for my university courses

When reading texts outside the university

When talking/listening to native speakers of E.

When talking/list. to non-native speakers of E.

When browsing the Internet

When browsing through a dictionary

40 12. How do you discover the meaning of a word?

Never Rarely Sometimes Often

Most of

the time

I analyse the form of the word.

I try to guess the meaning from context.

I use a bilingual dictionary to find out its meaning.

I use a monolingual dictionary to find out its meaning.

I ask a native speaker for the meaning of the word.

13. How do you memorize new words?

Never Rarely Sometimes Often

Most of

the time

I underline the new words in the text and make notes of them.

I put their meanings/synonyms/pronunciation in my vocabulary notebook.

I tend to learn new words in short phrases/sentences.

I study the spelling and/or the pronunciation of the new word.

I say the word aloud when studying it.

I repeat the word for several times.

I study the word in a bilingual dictionary.

I study the word in a monolingual dictionary.

I try to associate it with a similar word in my first language or in other languages.

14. How do you try to consolidate new vocabulary?

Never Rarely Sometimes Often

Most of

the time

I repeat the words aloud for several times.

I revise the words from words lists/vocabulary notebooks.

I make an effort to use the new words when speaking.

I make an effort to use the new words in writing.

I use English-language media (e.g. news, songs, movies, series, radio broadcast etc.)

I test my knowledge with word tests.

I organize practice times for vocabulary in my schedule.

I regularly revise both the new and old vocabulary.

15. Would you be willing to participate in a short interview about context-based vocabulary learning?

If yes, please enter your e-mail address. If no, please ignore this question.

16. Would you like to receive feedback on your learning style and the general results?

If yes, please enter your e-mail address. If no, please ignore this question.

41

APPENDIX B

Samples and data from the website of Test Your Vocab

www.testyourvocab.com

The first set of words measuring broad vocabulary level

An example from the final results page

42

Results by country on the Test Your Vocab blog as of March 13, 2013

Average vocabulary size of 8-year-old participants of the Test Your Vocab survey

43

Average vocabulary size of 21-year-old participants of the Test Your Vocab survey

Average non-native vocabulary size by the amount of out-of-class langauge usage

44

APPENDIX C

Additional Tables and Figures

Respondents’ self-rating of English proficiency and vocabulary – addition to 2.4.3

Mean scores by language learning styles – addition to 2.4.6

45

Memorization strategies of Group A and Group B respondents – addition to 2.4.7