Investigating the receptive vocabulary size of university-level Chinese learners of English: How suitable is the vocabulary levels test?

Investigating the receptive vocabulary size of university-level Chinese learners of English: How suitable is the vocabulary levels test?

• Li, Lan Dept of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• MacGregor, Lucy J. Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Language and Education, 24(3), 239-249, 2010

Routledge

2010

• L Educational Measurement & Evaluation
• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language
    • GBD Teaching Methods of Reading Comprehension & Their Outcomes, Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary Tests Second Language Acquisition English Language -- Ability Testing College Students Chinese Students Sight Vocabulary Grading & Marking (Students) Corpus English As A Second Language Lexical Development Vocabulary

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

The Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) is widely used to assess the vocabulary size of second-language learners of English. The test assesses learners' knowledge of words of different frequencies within general English and of high-frequency words within academic texts. We used the VLT to measure the English vocabulary size of Chinese university students of English in Hong Kong where a large vocabulary is required for academic and professional success. Students achieved high scores for high-frequency words but scored poorly for low-frequency words. We consider the possibility that the low scores reflect a deficit of the test: words were selected on the basis of frequency counts from dated word lists of American words and at the lower frequency levels may not be representative of current Hong Kong English. We compiled a corpus of 14.7 million words of Hong Kong English. Cross-checking revealed a number of VLT words that do not occur in the corpus. We argue that these words are not required by English speakers in Hong Kong and that the lowest word frequency levels of the VLT should be revised to reflect modern Hong Kong English.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500781003642478]

• English

Journal Articles

• 09500782

• 10.1080/09500781003642478

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/d169e3b9

2010-12-24