Breadth Of Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge: A Study Of First-year Efl Students’ Word Levels At The University Of Algiers 2
Auteurs : Hamadouche Fahima . Bensemmane Faiza .
Résumé
It has long been acknowledged that students’ vocabulary knowledge is strongly linked to breadth and depth of vocabulary, and consequently to academic success because students who master high levels of receptive vocabulary are likely to understand new ideas and concepts and build connections between ideas. Furthermore, academic vocabulary knowledge is crucial to university study, and has been shown to be a critical element in academic achievement. This article reports on a study which examines first-year students’ breadth of receptive vocabulary knowledge in English across different word levels at the University of Algiers 2. The Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) designed by Norbert Schmitt (2001) and his colleagues was used to determine the students’ word level of general and academic English vocabulary (receptive vocabulary knowledge) at five different word levels, and to discuss the extent to which their vocabulary breadth corresponds to the lexical threshold. The results indicate that a majority of these students are weak in terms of receptive vocabulary knowledge overall as a considerable number of the students did not attain mastery across the five vocabulary levels. For instance, 59% of the students failed to achieve mastery at the 2,000-word level, 95% did not achieve mastery at the 10,000-word level, and 81% fell short of mastering the academic word level. This study has revealed that a majority of these first-year students have difficulty coping with English language use at university and subsequently achieving overall academic success. This situation highlights the need to integrate effective and well-structured vocabulary teaching methods and strategies into current university English curricula in order to enhance students’ mastery of high-frequency vocabulary, particularly the 2, 000 to 3, 000 most frequent word families and most importantly, to improve their lexical level of academic English.
Mots clés
Academic English vocabulary ; Breadth of vocabulary knowledge ; Lexical competence ; Receptive vocabulary ; Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT)
