Hung T Ha

The article offers an in-depth lexical analysis of the listening sub-test of the famous International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The vocabulary profile of 239 listening transcripts from 60 IELTS official practice tests were analyzed. The results showed that, 3,000 most frequent word families in the British National Corpus/Corpus of Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA) word list were necessary to safely gain 95% coverage of all four sections in the test. Meanwhile, a vocabulary knowledge at the 5,000 level would secure the 98% coverage. The study also reveals that, with the support of 570 word families from the Academic Word List (AWL), learners only need to be familiar with 2,000 word families to achieve 95% coverage of the first, second, and third listening sections, equaling 75% of the IELTS listening test. The differences in lexical demands between listening sections were also highlighted.

The present study analyzed the vocabulary profile of the News on the Web (NOW) corpus, which contained 12 billion words from online newspapers and magazines in 20 countries to determine the vocabulary knowledge needed to reasonably understand online newspaper and magazine articles. The results showed that, in general, knowledge of the most frequent 4,000 word families in the British National Corpus/Corpus of Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA) wordlist plus proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds and acronyms was necessary to gain 95% coverage for the NOW corpus. However, when it came to the 98% coverage, online newspaper and magazine articles from different countries had relatively distinct lexical demands. In-depth analyses were carried out and the findings offered comprehensive insights into the issue. Implications for teaching and learning were also provided.

Local item dependence (LID) is one of the most critical assumption in the Rasch model when it comes to the validity of a test. As the field of vocabulary assessment is calling for more clarity and validity for vocabulary tests, such assumption becomes more important than ever. The article offers a Rasch-based investigation into the issue of LID with the focus on the two popular formats of Vocabulary Levels Tests (VLT): multiple-choice and matching. A Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT) and an Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT) were given to a single cohort of 311 university students in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. The analyses of raw score and standardized residuals correlations were conducted. The findings found no relationship between the 4-option, multiple-choice format of the LVLT and item local dependence. However, results from score and standardized residuals correlations analyses showed a strong link between the 3-item-per-cluster, matching format an...

The Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT) created by McLean et al. Language Teaching Research 19:741-760, 2015 filled an important gap in the field of second language assessment by introducing an instrument for the measurement of phonological vocabulary knowledge. However, few attempts have been made to provide further validity evidence for the LVLT and no Vietnamese version of the test has been created to date. The present study describes the development and validation of the Vietnamese version of the LVLT. Data was collected from 311 Vietnamese university students and then analyzed based on the Rasch model using several aspects of Messick’s, Educational Measurement, 1989; American Psychologist 50:741–749, 1995 validation framework. Supportive evidence for the test’s validity was provided. First, the test items showed very good fit to the Rasch model and presented a sufficient spread of difficulty. Second, the items displayed sound unidimensionality and were locally independent. ...

The article presents an empirical study that investigates the single- and cross-modality relationships between different dimensions of receptive vocabulary knowledge and language skills, as well as the importance of academic vocabulary knowledge in academic listening and reading comprehension. An Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT), a Vietnamese version of the Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT), an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) listening test and an academic IELTS reading test were administered to 234 tertiary level Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Research findings showed that (1) orthographic and aural vocabulary knowledge were strongly correlated (r = .88) and of equal significance to L2 listening and reading comprehension, (2) receptive vocabulary knowledge was a very powerful and reliable predictor of learners’ receptive language proficiency, (3) knowledge of academic vocabulary strongly correlated with academic listenin...

The article presents a methodological update on the lexical profile of informal spoken English with the emphasis on movies, television programs, and soap operas. The study analyzed Mark Davies's mega-corpora with data containing approximately 625 million words and employed Paul Nation's comprehensive and up-to-date British National Corpus/ Corpus of Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA) wordlists. Data from the analyses showed that viewers would need a vocabulary knowledge at 3,000 and 5,000 words frequency levels to understand 95 and 98% of the words in scripted dialogs, respectively. Soap operas were found to be less lexically demanding compared to TV programs and movies. Findings are expected to fill in the methodological gaps between vocabulary assessment and vocabulary profiling research.

The present study analyzed the vocabulary profile of the News on the Web (NOW) corpus, which contained 12 billion words from online newspapers and magazines in 20 countries to determine the vocabulary knowledge needed to reasonably understand online newspaper and magazine articles. The results showed that, in general, knowledge of the most frequent 4,000 word families in the British National Corpus/ Corpus of Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA) wordlist plus proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds and acronyms was necessary to gain 95% coverage for the NOW corpus. However, when it came to the 98% coverage, online newspaper and magazine articles from different countries had relatively distinct lexical demands. In-depth analyses were carried out and the findings offered comprehensive insights into the issue. Implications for teaching and learning were also provided.

Local item dependence (LID) is one of the most critical assumption in the Rasch model when it comes to the validity of a test. As the field of vocabulary assessment is calling for more clarity and validity for vocabulary tests, such assumption becomes more important than ever. The article offers a Rasch-based investigation into the issue of LID with the focus on the two popular formats of Vocabulary Levels Tests (VLT): multiple-choice and matching. A Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT) and an Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT) were given to a single cohort of 311 university students in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. The analyses of raw score and standardized residuals correlations were conducted. The findings found no relationship between the 4-option, multiple-choice format of the LVLT and item local dependence. However, results from score and standardized residuals correlations analyses showed a strong link between the 3-item-per-cluster, matching format and item local dependence. The study calls for greater attention to the format of future vocabulary tests and support the use of meaning-recall formats in vocabulary testing.

The article presents an empirical study that investigates the single-and crossmodality relationships between different dimensions of receptive vocabulary knowledge and language skills, as well as the importance of academic vocabulary knowledge in academic listening and reading comprehension. An Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT), a Vietnamese version of the Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT), an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) listening test and an academic IELTS reading test were administered to 234 tertiary level Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Research findings showed that (1) orthographic and aural vocabulary knowledge were strongly correlated (r = .88) and of equal significance to L2 listening and reading comprehension, (2) receptive vocabulary knowledge was a very powerful and reliable predictor of learners' receptive language proficiency, (3) knowledge of academic vocabulary strongly correlated with academic listening (r = .65) and reading (r = .60) comprehension and the mastery of the Academic Word List (AWL) could suggest a band score 6.0 in both the IELTS listening and academic reading tests.

The Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT) created by McLean et al. Language Teaching Research 19:741-760, 2015 filled an important gap in the field of second language assessment by introducing an instrument for the measurement of phonological vocabulary knowledge. However, few attempts have been made to provide further validity evidence for the LVLT and no Vietnamese version of the test has been created to date. The present study describes the development and validation of the Vietnamese version of the LVLT. Data was collected from 311 Vietnamese university students and then analyzed based on the Rasch model using several aspects of Messick's, Educational Measurement, 1989; American Psychologist 50:741-749, 1995 validation framework. Supportive evidence for the test's validity was provided. First, the test items showed very good fit to the Rasch model and presented a sufficient spread of difficulty. Second, the items displayed sound unidimensionality and were locally independent. Finally, the Vietnamese version of the LVLT showed a high degree of generalizability and was found to positively correlate with the IELTS listening test at 0.65.