Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages

Liu Juan; Li Xiang

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

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Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages

Liu Juan, Li Xiang

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 7, Issue 4)

Received: 23 May 2019 Accepted: 29 June 2019 Published: 22 July 2019

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Abstract

An updated Vocabulary Levels Test and an updated Word Associates Test are conducted to measure the breadth and depth of vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL learners from junior middle school to senior middle school to college respectively in this research. The ANOVA analyses of the test results show that Chinese learners’ breadth knowledge at any learning stage is insufficient and does not meet the requirements of corresponding English teaching syllabus although there is significant development from junior middle school to senior middle school to college. With the rise of learning stages, the difference of the acquisition of lower level words gradually disappears and the difference of higher level words appears. Compared to breadth knowledge, Chinese learners perform worse in the test of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Although there is a significant rise from lower stages to higher stages, the development of depth of vocabulary knowledge is very slow and dissatisfied. The main reason for it is that Chinese students value the expansion of vocabulary size and neglect the establishment of semantic and collocational relationship among words. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is little correlation between Chinese learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge.

Published in	International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 7, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
Page(s)	166-171
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge, Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge, Correlation, Chinese Learners

References

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[2]	Nation, P. (1990). Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. New York: Newbury House Publishers.
[3]	Schmitt, N. (2000). Vocabulary in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[4]	Zhang, P. (2006). An Overview of Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition Research in China. Foreign Language and Their Teaching, 207, 21-26.
[5]	Li, X. (2018). Exploring Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition Development of Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge Based on Input Corpus and Output Corpus. Proceedings of the International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies. Atlantis Press, 494-499.
[6]	Lv, CH. (2004). Vocabulary Size and its Influence on English Achievement as well as its Relationship to Depth of Lexical Knowledge. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 2, 116-122.
[7]	Li, X. (2017). Assessing the Roles of Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge in Second Language Proficiency. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 5, 352-359.
[8]	Tan, XC. (2006). A Study of Chinese English Learners’ Productive Vocabulary Development. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 3, 202-207.
[9]	Tan, XC (2007). A Study of English Learners' Development of In-depth Knowledge on Productive Vocabulary. Foreign Language Education, 3, 52-56.
[10]	He, AP. (2015). On Vocabulary development in Streamlined EFL Course Books: A Perspective of Dynamic System Theory. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 6, 898-908.
[11]	Tang, JY. (2015). A Corpus-based Study on Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge in College English Textbooks. Higher Education Exploration, 1, 81-86.
[12]	Webb, S., Sasao, Y., & Ballance, O. (2017). The updated Vocabulary Levels Test: Developing and validating two new forms of the VLT. ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 168 (1), 34-70.
[13]	Richards, J. C. (1976). The role of vocabulary teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 10, 77-89.
[14]	Qian, D. D. (1998). Depth of vocabulary knowledge: assessing its role in adult’s reading comprehension in English as a second language. Unpublished PhD Dissertation.
[15]	Qian, D. D. (1999). Assessing the roles of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 56 (2), 282-307.
[16]	Read, J. (1993). The development of a new measure of L2 vocabulary knowledge. Language Testing, 10 (3), 355-371.
[17]	Ishii, T., & Schmitt, N. (2009). Developing an integrated diagnostic test of vocabulary size and depth. RELC Journal, 40 (1), 5-22.
[18]	Laufer, B., Elder, C., Hill, K., & Congdon, P. (2004). Size and strength: do we need both to measure vocabulary knowledge? Language Testing, 21 (2), 202-226.
[19]	Schmitt, N., Ching Ng, J. W., & Garras, J. (2011). The Word Associates Format: Validation evidence. Language Testing, 28 (1), 105-126.
[20]	Qian, D. D. (2002). Investigating the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic reading performance: an assessment perspective. Language Learning, 52 (3), 513-536.

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APA Style

Liu Juan, Li Xiang. (2019). Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 7(4), 166-171. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

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Liu Juan; Li Xiang. Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2019, 7(4), 166-171. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

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AMA Style

Liu Juan, Li Xiang. Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages. Int J Lang Linguist. 2019;7(4):166-171. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

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@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14,
  author = {Liu Juan and Li Xiang},
  title = {Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {7},
  number = {4},
  pages = {166-171},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20190704.14},
  abstract = {An updated Vocabulary Levels Test and an updated Word Associates Test are conducted to measure the breadth and depth of vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL learners from junior middle school to senior middle school to college respectively in this research. The ANOVA analyses of the test results show that Chinese learners’ breadth knowledge at any learning stage is insufficient and does not meet the requirements of corresponding English teaching syllabus although there is significant development from junior middle school to senior middle school to college. With the rise of learning stages, the difference of the acquisition of lower level words gradually disappears and the difference of higher level words appears. Compared to breadth knowledge, Chinese learners perform worse in the test of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Although there is a significant rise from lower stages to higher stages, the development of depth of vocabulary knowledge is very slow and dissatisfied. The main reason for it is that Chinese students value the expansion of vocabulary size and neglect the establishment of semantic and collocational relationship among words. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is little correlation between Chinese learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge.},
 year = {2019}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages
AU  - Liu Juan
AU  - Li Xiang
Y1  - 2019/07/22
PY  - 2019
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 166
EP  - 171
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
AB  - An updated Vocabulary Levels Test and an updated Word Associates Test are conducted to measure the breadth and depth of vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL learners from junior middle school to senior middle school to college respectively in this research. The ANOVA analyses of the test results show that Chinese learners’ breadth knowledge at any learning stage is insufficient and does not meet the requirements of corresponding English teaching syllabus although there is significant development from junior middle school to senior middle school to college. With the rise of learning stages, the difference of the acquisition of lower level words gradually disappears and the difference of higher level words appears. Compared to breadth knowledge, Chinese learners perform worse in the test of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Although there is a significant rise from lower stages to higher stages, the development of depth of vocabulary knowledge is very slow and dissatisfied. The main reason for it is that Chinese students value the expansion of vocabulary size and neglect the establishment of semantic and collocational relationship among words. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is little correlation between Chinese learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge.
VL  - 7
IS  - 4
ER  -

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Author Information

Liu Juan

Department of English, Guangdong Police College, Guangzhou, China
Li Xiang

Department of English, Guangdong Police College, Guangzhou, China

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Liu Juan, Li Xiang. (2019). Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 7(4), 166-171. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

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ACS Style

Liu Juan; Li Xiang. Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2019, 7(4), 166-171. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

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AMA Style

Liu Juan, Li Xiang. Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages. Int J Lang Linguist. 2019;7(4):166-171. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14,
  author = {Liu Juan and Li Xiang},
  title = {Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {7},
  number = {4},
  pages = {166-171},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20190704.14},
  abstract = {An updated Vocabulary Levels Test and an updated Word Associates Test are conducted to measure the breadth and depth of vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL learners from junior middle school to senior middle school to college respectively in this research. The ANOVA analyses of the test results show that Chinese learners’ breadth knowledge at any learning stage is insufficient and does not meet the requirements of corresponding English teaching syllabus although there is significant development from junior middle school to senior middle school to college. With the rise of learning stages, the difference of the acquisition of lower level words gradually disappears and the difference of higher level words appears. Compared to breadth knowledge, Chinese learners perform worse in the test of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Although there is a significant rise from lower stages to higher stages, the development of depth of vocabulary knowledge is very slow and dissatisfied. The main reason for it is that Chinese students value the expansion of vocabulary size and neglect the establishment of semantic and collocational relationship among words. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is little correlation between Chinese learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge.},
 year = {2019}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Measuring Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL Learners at Different Learning Stages
AU  - Liu Juan
AU  - Li Xiang
Y1  - 2019/07/22
PY  - 2019
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 166
EP  - 171
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20190704.14
AB  - An updated Vocabulary Levels Test and an updated Word Associates Test are conducted to measure the breadth and depth of vocabulary Knowledge of Chinese EFL learners from junior middle school to senior middle school to college respectively in this research. The ANOVA analyses of the test results show that Chinese learners’ breadth knowledge at any learning stage is insufficient and does not meet the requirements of corresponding English teaching syllabus although there is significant development from junior middle school to senior middle school to college. With the rise of learning stages, the difference of the acquisition of lower level words gradually disappears and the difference of higher level words appears. Compared to breadth knowledge, Chinese learners perform worse in the test of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Although there is a significant rise from lower stages to higher stages, the development of depth of vocabulary knowledge is very slow and dissatisfied. The main reason for it is that Chinese students value the expansion of vocabulary size and neglect the establishment of semantic and collocational relationship among words. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is little correlation between Chinese learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge.
VL  - 7
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download