Diane Schmitt

Developing and exploring the behaviour of two new versions of the Vocabulary Levels Test

The Vocabulary Levels Test has been widely used in language assessment and vocabulary research despite never having been properly validated. This article reports on a study which uses a range of analysis techniques to present validity evidence, and to explore the equivalence of two revised and expanded versions of the Vocabulary Levels Test.

A reassessment of frequency and vocabulary size in L2 vocabulary teaching

The high-frequency vocabulary of English has traditionally been thought to consist of the 2,000 most frequent word families, and low-frequency vocabulary as that beyond the 10,000 frequency level. This paper argues that these boundaries should be reassessed on pedagogic grounds. Based on a number of perspectives (including frequency and acquisition studies, the amount of vocabulary necessary for English usage, the range of graded readers, and dictionary defining vocabulary), we argue that high-frequency English vocabulary should include the most frequent 3,000 word families. We also propose that the low-frequency vocabulary boundary should be lowered to the 9,000 level, on the basis that 8–9,000 word families are sufficient to provide the lexical resources necessary to be able to read a wide range of authentic texts (Nation 2006). We label the vocabulary between high-frequency (3,000) and low-frequency (9,000+) as mid-frequency vocabulary. We illustrate the necessity of mid-frequency vocabulary for proficient language use, and make some initial suggestions for research addressing the pedagogical challenge raised by mid-frequency vocabulary.

How much vocabulary is needed to use English? Replication of van Zeeland & Schmitt (2012), Nation (2006) and Cobb (2007)

There is current research consensus that second language (L2) learners are able to adequately comprehend general English written texts if they know 98% of the words that occur in the materials. This important finding prompts an important question: How much English vocabulary do English as a second language (ESL) learners need to know to achieve this crucial level of known-word coverage? A landmark paper by Nation (2006) provides a rather daunting answer. His exploration of the 98% figure through a variety of spoken and written corpora showed that knowledge of around 8,000–9,000 word families is needed for reading and 6,000–7,000 for listening. But is this the definitive picture? A recent study by van Zeeland & Schmitt (2012) suggests that 95% coverage may be sufficient for listening comprehension, and that this can be reached with 2,000–3,000 word families, which is much more manageable. Getting these figures right for a variety of text modalities, genres and conditions of reading and listening is essential. Teachers and learners need to be able to set goals, and as Cobbs study of learning opportunities (2007) has shown, coverage percentages and their associated vocabulary knowledge requirements have important implications for the acquisition of new word knowledge through exposure to comprehensible L2 input. This article proposes approximate replications of Nation (2006), van Zeeland & Schmitt (2012), and Cobb (2007), in order to clarify these key coverage and size figures.