The Relationship between Receptive and Productive Vocabulary Size in an English as a Foreign Language Context

Abstract

This study aims to explore the relationship between receptive and productive vocabulary size and individual variance factors that might relate to this established relationship. Individual variance factors included reading ability, whether participants are studying in an arts or science stream, and the ratio of the score at the most frequent 2,000 word level to the overall vocabulary score. Two hundred and forty-six English as a Foreign Language (EFL) high school students in China were recruited to complete four tests to explore these research components. Participants completed the English-Chinese Vocabulary Translation (ECVT) and the Chinese-English Vocabulary Translation (CEVT) tests to measure their receptive vocabulary size and controlled productive vocabulary size. The Lex30 was used to investigate participants’ free productive vocabulary size and participants’ reading ability was identified according to their scores from one IELTS General Training Reading practice test. The current study, measuring receptive and controlled productive vocabulary size through the ECVT and the CEVT, found that participants’ receptive and controlled productive vocabulary knowledge developed at an inconsistent speed and participants with a higher receptive score tended to have a larger gap between receptive and controlled productive knowledge. This study also found that when estimating learners’ breadth of vocabulary knowledge, the predictive frequency levels differed for receptive and productive vocabulary size. These findings suggested that learners’ receptive vocabulary size developed faster than their controlled productive vocabulary size. The current study found that reading English is a complicated process for learners, and while gaining a sufficient vocabulary is compulsory, other factors should also be considered in terms of improving reading ability. Controlled productive vocabulary size showed a higher statistical correlation with reading ability than receptive vocabulary size. Exploring this research component and the corresponding findings provides a greater understanding of the form-meaning interaction between receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge and the relationship between receptive skills and productive vocabulary knowledge. In addition, the findings highlighted the importance of enriching the measurements for vocabulary size and the necessity to measure vocabulary size both receptively and productively. When measuring the relationship between receptive skills and vocabulary knowledge, adding productive vocabulary size enables the establishment of a more comprehensive link between reading ability and vocabulary size. The final research component seeks to make a theoretical contribution to this field of learning by investigating the impact of three groups of variables on the relationship between receptive and productive vocabulary size. This study found that reading ability, the stream and the ratio of the score at the most frequent 2,000 word level to the overall vocabulary score did not significantly influence this relationship and factors influencing this relationship are still not clear and require further enquiry.